PCREAPI(3)PCREAPI(3)NAME
PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
PCRE NATIVE API
#include <pcre.h>
pcre *pcre_compile(const char *pattern, int options,
const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
const unsigned char *tableptr);
pcre *pcre_compile2(const char *pattern, int options,
int *errorcodeptr,
const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
const unsigned char *tableptr);
pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *code, int options,
const char **errptr);
int pcre_exec(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
const char *subject, int length, int startoffset,
int options, int *ovector, int ovecsize);
int pcre_dfa_exec(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
const char *subject, int length, int startoffset,
int options, int *ovector, int ovecsize,
int *workspace, int wscount);
int pcre_copy_named_substring(const pcre *code,
const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, const char *stringname,
char *buffer, int buffersize);
int pcre_copy_substring(const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, int stringnumber, char *buffer,
int buffersize);
int pcre_get_named_substring(const pcre *code,
const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, const char *stringname,
const char **stringptr);
int pcre_get_stringnumber(const pcre *code,
const char *name);
int pcre_get_stringtable_entries(const pcre *code,
const char *name, char **first, char **last);
int pcre_get_substring(const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, int stringnumber,
const char **stringptr);
int pcre_get_substring_list(const char *subject,
int *ovector, int stringcount, const char ***listptr);
void pcre_free_substring(const char *stringptr);
void pcre_free_substring_list(const char **stringptr);
const unsigned char *pcre_maketables(void);
int pcre_fullinfo(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
int what, void *where);
int pcre_info(const pcre *code, int *optptr, int *firstcharptr);
int pcre_refcount(pcre *code, int adjust);
int pcre_config(int what, void *where);
char *pcre_version(void);
void *(*pcre_malloc)(size_t);
void (*pcre_free)(void *);
void *(*pcre_stack_malloc)(size_t);
void (*pcre_stack_free)(void *);
int (*pcre_callout)(pcre_callout_block *);
PCRE API OVERVIEW
PCRE has its own native API, which is described in this document. There
are also some wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular
expression API. These are described in the pcreposix documentation.
Both of these APIs define a set of C function calls. A C++ wrapper is
distributed with PCRE. It is documented in the pcrecpp page.
The native API C function prototypes are defined in the header file
pcre.h, and on Unix systems the library itself is called libpcre. It
can normally be accessed by adding -lpcre to the command for linking an
application that uses PCRE. The header file defines the macros
PCRE_MAJOR and PCRE_MINOR to contain the major and minor release num‐
bers for the library. Applications can use these to include support
for different releases of PCRE.
In a Windows environment, if you want to statically link an application
program against a non-dll pcre.a file, you must define PCRE_STATIC
before including pcre.h or pcrecpp.h, because otherwise the pcre_mal‐
loc() and pcre_free() exported functions will be declared
__declspec(dllimport), with unwanted results.
The functions pcre_compile(), pcre_compile2(), pcre_study(), and
pcre_exec() are used for compiling and matching regular expressions in
a Perl-compatible manner. A sample program that demonstrates the sim‐
plest way of using them is provided in the file called pcredemo.c in
the PCRE source distribution. A listing of this program is given in the
pcredemo documentation, and the pcresample documentation describes how
to compile and run it.
A second matching function, pcre_dfa_exec(), which is not Perl-compati‐
ble, is also provided. This uses a different algorithm for the match‐
ing. The alternative algorithm finds all possible matches (at a given
point in the subject), and scans the subject just once (unless there
are lookbehind assertions). However, this algorithm does not return
captured substrings. A description of the two matching algorithms and
their advantages and disadvantages is given in the pcrematching docu‐
mentation.
In addition to the main compiling and matching functions, there are
convenience functions for extracting captured substrings from a subject
string that is matched by pcre_exec(). They are:
pcre_copy_substring()pcre_copy_named_substring()pcre_get_substring()pcre_get_named_substring()pcre_get_substring_list()pcre_get_stringnumber()pcre_get_stringtable_entries()pcre_free_substring() and pcre_free_substring_list() are also provided,
to free the memory used for extracted strings.
The function pcre_maketables() is used to build a set of character
tables in the current locale for passing to pcre_compile(),
pcre_exec(), or pcre_dfa_exec(). This is an optional facility that is
provided for specialist use. Most commonly, no special tables are
passed, in which case internal tables that are generated when PCRE is
built are used.
The function pcre_fullinfo() is used to find out information about a
compiled pattern; pcre_info() is an obsolete version that returns only
some of the available information, but is retained for backwards com‐
patibility. The function pcre_version() returns a pointer to a string
containing the version of PCRE and its date of release.
The function pcre_refcount() maintains a reference count in a data
block containing a compiled pattern. This is provided for the benefit
of object-oriented applications.
The global variables pcre_malloc and pcre_free initially contain the
entry points of the standard malloc() and free() functions, respec‐
tively. PCRE calls the memory management functions via these variables,
so a calling program can replace them if it wishes to intercept the
calls. This should be done before calling any PCRE functions.
The global variables pcre_stack_malloc and pcre_stack_free are also
indirections to memory management functions. These special functions
are used only when PCRE is compiled to use the heap for remembering
data, instead of recursive function calls, when running the pcre_exec()
function. See the pcrebuild documentation for details of how to do
this. It is a non-standard way of building PCRE, for use in environ‐
ments that have limited stacks. Because of the greater use of memory
management, it runs more slowly. Separate functions are provided so
that special-purpose external code can be used for this case. When
used, these functions are always called in a stack-like manner (last
obtained, first freed), and always for memory blocks of the same size.
There is a discussion about PCRE's stack usage in the pcrestack docu‐
mentation.
The global variable pcre_callout initially contains NULL. It can be set
by the caller to a "callout" function, which PCRE will then call at
specified points during a matching operation. Details are given in the
pcrecallout documentation.
NEWLINES
PCRE supports five different conventions for indicating line breaks in
strings: a single CR (carriage return) character, a single LF (line‐
feed) character, the two-character sequence CRLF, any of the three pre‐
ceding, or any Unicode newline sequence. The Unicode newline sequences
are the three just mentioned, plus the single characters VT (vertical
tab, U+000B), FF (formfeed, U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line
separator, U+2028), and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029).
Each of the first three conventions is used by at least one operating
system as its standard newline sequence. When PCRE is built, a default
can be specified. The default default is LF, which is the Unix stan‐
dard. When PCRE is run, the default can be overridden, either when a
pattern is compiled, or when it is matched.
At compile time, the newline convention can be specified by the options
argument of pcre_compile(), or it can be specified by special text at
the start of the pattern itself; this overrides any other settings. See
the pcrepattern page for details of the special character sequences.
In the PCRE documentation the word "newline" is used to mean "the char‐
acter or pair of characters that indicate a line break". The choice of
newline convention affects the handling of the dot, circumflex, and
dollar metacharacters, the handling of #-comments in /x mode, and, when
CRLF is a recognized line ending sequence, the match position advance‐
ment for a non-anchored pattern. There is more detail about this in the
section on pcre_exec() options below.
The choice of newline convention does not affect the interpretation of
the \n or \r escape sequences, nor does it affect what \R matches,
which is controlled in a similar way, but by separate options.
MULTITHREADING
The PCRE functions can be used in multi-threading applications, with
the proviso that the memory management functions pointed to by
pcre_malloc, pcre_free, pcre_stack_malloc, and pcre_stack_free, and the
callout function pointed to by pcre_callout, are shared by all threads.
The compiled form of a regular expression is not altered during match‐
ing, so the same compiled pattern can safely be used by several threads
at once.
SAVING PRECOMPILED PATTERNS FOR LATER USE
The compiled form of a regular expression can be saved and re-used at a
later time, possibly by a different program, and even on a host other
than the one on which it was compiled. Details are given in the
pcreprecompile documentation. However, compiling a regular expression
with one version of PCRE for use with a different version is not guar‐
anteed to work and may cause crashes.
CHECKING BUILD-TIME OPTIONS
int pcre_config(int what, void *where);
The function pcre_config() makes it possible for a PCRE client to dis‐
cover which optional features have been compiled into the PCRE library.
The pcrebuild documentation has more details about these optional fea‐
tures.
The first argument for pcre_config() is an integer, specifying which
information is required; the second argument is a pointer to a variable
into which the information is placed. The following information is
available:
PCRE_CONFIG_UTF8
The output is an integer that is set to one if UTF-8 support is avail‐
able; otherwise it is set to zero.
PCRE_CONFIG_UNICODE_PROPERTIES
The output is an integer that is set to one if support for Unicode
character properties is available; otherwise it is set to zero.
PCRE_CONFIG_NEWLINE
The output is an integer whose value specifies the default character
sequence that is recognized as meaning "newline". The four values that
are supported are: 10 for LF, 13 for CR, 3338 for CRLF, -2 for ANYCRLF,
and -1 for ANY. Though they are derived from ASCII, the same values
are returned in EBCDIC environments. The default should normally corre‐
spond to the standard sequence for your operating system.
PCRE_CONFIG_BSR
The output is an integer whose value indicates what character sequences
the \R escape sequence matches by default. A value of 0 means that \R
matches any Unicode line ending sequence; a value of 1 means that \R
matches only CR, LF, or CRLF. The default can be overridden when a pat‐
tern is compiled or matched.
PCRE_CONFIG_LINK_SIZE
The output is an integer that contains the number of bytes used for
internal linkage in compiled regular expressions. The value is 2, 3, or
4. Larger values allow larger regular expressions to be compiled, at
the expense of slower matching. The default value of 2 is sufficient
for all but the most massive patterns, since it allows the compiled
pattern to be up to 64K in size.
PCRE_CONFIG_POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD
The output is an integer that contains the threshold above which the
POSIX interface uses malloc() for output vectors. Further details are
given in the pcreposix documentation.
PCRE_CONFIG_MATCH_LIMIT
The output is a long integer that gives the default limit for the num‐
ber of internal matching function calls in a pcre_exec() execution.
Further details are given with pcre_exec() below.
PCRE_CONFIG_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION
The output is a long integer that gives the default limit for the depth
of recursion when calling the internal matching function in a
pcre_exec() execution. Further details are given with pcre_exec()
below.
PCRE_CONFIG_STACKRECURSE
The output is an integer that is set to one if internal recursion when
running pcre_exec() is implemented by recursive function calls that use
the stack to remember their state. This is the usual way that PCRE is
compiled. The output is zero if PCRE was compiled to use blocks of data
on the heap instead of recursive function calls. In this case,
pcre_stack_malloc and pcre_stack_free are called to manage memory
blocks on the heap, thus avoiding the use of the stack.
COMPILING A PATTERN
pcre *pcre_compile(const char *pattern, int options,
const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
const unsigned char *tableptr);
pcre *pcre_compile2(const char *pattern, int options,
int *errorcodeptr,
const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
const unsigned char *tableptr);
Either of the functions pcre_compile() or pcre_compile2() can be called
to compile a pattern into an internal form. The only difference between
the two interfaces is that pcre_compile2() has an additional argument,
errorcodeptr, via which a numerical error code can be returned. To
avoid too much repetition, we refer just to pcre_compile() below, but
the information applies equally to pcre_compile2().
The pattern is a C string terminated by a binary zero, and is passed in
the pattern argument. A pointer to a single block of memory that is
obtained via pcre_malloc is returned. This contains the compiled code
and related data. The pcre type is defined for the returned block; this
is a typedef for a structure whose contents are not externally defined.
It is up to the caller to free the memory (via pcre_free) when it is no
longer required.
Although the compiled code of a PCRE regex is relocatable, that is, it
does not depend on memory location, the complete pcre data block is not
fully relocatable, because it may contain a copy of the tableptr argu‐
ment, which is an address (see below).
The options argument contains various bit settings that affect the com‐
pilation. It should be zero if no options are required. The available
options are described below. Some of them (in particular, those that
are compatible with Perl, but some others as well) can also be set and
unset from within the pattern (see the detailed description in the
pcrepattern documentation). For those options that can be different in
different parts of the pattern, the contents of the options argument
specifies their settings at the start of compilation and execution. The
PCRE_ANCHORED, PCRE_BSR_xxx, PCRE_NEWLINE_xxx, PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, and
PCRE_NO_START_OPT options can be set at the time of matching as well as
at compile time.
If errptr is NULL, pcre_compile() returns NULL immediately. Otherwise,
if compilation of a pattern fails, pcre_compile() returns NULL, and
sets the variable pointed to by errptr to point to a textual error mes‐
sage. This is a static string that is part of the library. You must not
try to free it. Normally, the offset from the start of the pattern to
the byte that was being processed when the error was discovered is
placed in the variable pointed to by erroffset, which must not be NULL
(if it is, an immediate error is given). However, for an invalid UTF-8
string, the offset is that of the first byte of the failing character.
Also, some errors are not detected until checks are carried out when
the whole pattern has been scanned; in these cases the offset passed
back is the length of the pattern.
Note that the offset is in bytes, not characters, even in UTF-8 mode.
It may sometimes point into the middle of a UTF-8 character.
If pcre_compile2() is used instead of pcre_compile(), and the error‐
codeptr argument is not NULL, a non-zero error code number is returned
via this argument in the event of an error. This is in addition to the
textual error message. Error codes and messages are listed below.
If the final argument, tableptr, is NULL, PCRE uses a default set of
character tables that are built when PCRE is compiled, using the
default C locale. Otherwise, tableptr must be an address that is the
result of a call to pcre_maketables(). This value is stored with the
compiled pattern, and used again by pcre_exec(), unless another table
pointer is passed to it. For more discussion, see the section on locale
support below.
This code fragment shows a typical straightforward call to pcre_com‐
pile():
pcre *re;
const char *error;
int erroffset;
re = pcre_compile(
"^A.*Z", /* the pattern */
0, /* default options */
&error, /* for error message */
&erroffset, /* for error offset */
NULL); /* use default character tables */
The following names for option bits are defined in the pcre.h header
file:
PCRE_ANCHORED
If this bit is set, the pattern is forced to be "anchored", that is, it
is constrained to match only at the first matching point in the string
that is being searched (the "subject string"). This effect can also be
achieved by appropriate constructs in the pattern itself, which is the
only way to do it in Perl.
PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT
If this bit is set, pcre_compile() automatically inserts callout items,
all with number 255, before each pattern item. For discussion of the
callout facility, see the pcrecallout documentation.
PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
PCRE_BSR_UNICODE
These options (which are mutually exclusive) control what the \R escape
sequence matches. The choice is either to match only CR, LF, or CRLF,
or to match any Unicode newline sequence. The default is specified when
PCRE is built. It can be overridden from within the pattern, or by set‐
ting an option when a compiled pattern is matched.
PCRE_CASELESS
If this bit is set, letters in the pattern match both upper and lower
case letters. It is equivalent to Perl's /i option, and it can be
changed within a pattern by a (?i) option setting. In UTF-8 mode, PCRE
always understands the concept of case for characters whose values are
less than 128, so caseless matching is always possible. For characters
with higher values, the concept of case is supported if PCRE is com‐
piled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise. If you want to
use caseless matching for characters 128 and above, you must ensure
that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as well as with
UTF-8 support.
PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY
If this bit is set, a dollar metacharacter in the pattern matches only
at the end of the subject string. Without this option, a dollar also
matches immediately before a newline at the end of the string (but not
before any other newlines). The PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option is ignored
if PCRE_MULTILINE is set. There is no equivalent to this option in
Perl, and no way to set it within a pattern.
PCRE_DOTALL
If this bit is set, a dot metacharacter in the pattern matches a char‐
acter of any value, including one that indicates a newline. However, it
only ever matches one character, even if newlines are coded as CRLF.
Without this option, a dot does not match when the current position is
at a newline. This option is equivalent to Perl's /s option, and it can
be changed within a pattern by a (?s) option setting. A negative class
such as [^a] always matches newline characters, independent of the set‐
ting of this option.
PCRE_DUPNAMES
If this bit is set, names used to identify capturing subpatterns need
not be unique. This can be helpful for certain types of pattern when it
is known that only one instance of the named subpattern can ever be
matched. There are more details of named subpatterns below; see also
the pcrepattern documentation.
PCRE_EXTENDED
If this bit is set, whitespace data characters in the pattern are
totally ignored except when escaped or inside a character class. White‐
space does not include the VT character (code 11). In addition, charac‐
ters between an unescaped # outside a character class and the next new‐
line, inclusive, are also ignored. This is equivalent to Perl's /x
option, and it can be changed within a pattern by a (?x) option set‐
ting.
Which characters are interpreted as newlines is controlled by the
options passed to pcre_compile() or by a special sequence at the start
of the pattern, as described in the section entitled "Newline conven‐
tions" in the pcrepattern documentation. Note that the end of this type
of comment is a literal newline sequence in the pattern; escape
sequences that happen to represent a newline do not count.
This option makes it possible to include comments inside complicated
patterns. Note, however, that this applies only to data characters.
Whitespace characters may never appear within special character
sequences in a pattern, for example within the sequence (?( that intro‐
duces a conditional subpattern.
PCRE_EXTRA
This option was invented in order to turn on additional functionality
of PCRE that is incompatible with Perl, but it is currently of very
little use. When set, any backslash in a pattern that is followed by a
letter that has no special meaning causes an error, thus reserving
these combinations for future expansion. By default, as in Perl, a
backslash followed by a letter with no special meaning is treated as a
literal. (Perl can, however, be persuaded to give an error for this, by
running it with the -w option.) There are at present no other features
controlled by this option. It can also be set by a (?X) option setting
within a pattern.
PCRE_FIRSTLINE
If this option is set, an unanchored pattern is required to match
before or at the first newline in the subject string, though the
matched text may continue over the newline.
PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT
If this option is set, PCRE's behaviour is changed in some ways so that
it is compatible with JavaScript rather than Perl. The changes are as
follows:
(1) A lone closing square bracket in a pattern causes a compile-time
error, because this is illegal in JavaScript (by default it is treated
as a data character). Thus, the pattern AB]CD becomes illegal when this
option is set.
(2) At run time, a back reference to an unset subpattern group matches
an empty string (by default this causes the current matching alterna‐
tive to fail). A pattern such as (\1)(a) succeeds when this option is
set (assuming it can find an "a" in the subject), whereas it fails by
default, for Perl compatibility.
PCRE_MULTILINE
By default, PCRE treats the subject string as consisting of a single
line of characters (even if it actually contains newlines). The "start
of line" metacharacter (^) matches only at the start of the string,
while the "end of line" metacharacter ($) matches only at the end of
the string, or before a terminating newline (unless PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY
is set). This is the same as Perl.
When PCRE_MULTILINE it is set, the "start of line" and "end of line"
constructs match immediately following or immediately before internal
newlines in the subject string, respectively, as well as at the very
start and end. This is equivalent to Perl's /m option, and it can be
changed within a pattern by a (?m) option setting. If there are no new‐
lines in a subject string, or no occurrences of ^ or $ in a pattern,
setting PCRE_MULTILINE has no effect.
PCRE_NEWLINE_CR
PCRE_NEWLINE_LF
PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY
These options override the default newline definition that was chosen
when PCRE was built. Setting the first or the second specifies that a
newline is indicated by a single character (CR or LF, respectively).
Setting PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF specifies that a newline is indicated by the
two-character CRLF sequence. Setting PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF specifies
that any of the three preceding sequences should be recognized. Setting
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY specifies that any Unicode newline sequence should be
recognized. The Unicode newline sequences are the three just mentioned,
plus the single characters VT (vertical tab, U+000B), FF (formfeed,
U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), and PS
(paragraph separator, U+2029). The last two are recognized only in
UTF-8 mode.
The newline setting in the options word uses three bits that are
treated as a number, giving eight possibilities. Currently only six are
used (default plus the five values above). This means that if you set
more than one newline option, the combination may or may not be sensi‐
ble. For example, PCRE_NEWLINE_CR with PCRE_NEWLINE_LF is equivalent to
PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF, but other combinations may yield unused numbers and
cause an error.
The only time that a line break in a pattern is specially recognized
when compiling is when PCRE_EXTENDED is set. CR and LF are whitespace
characters, and so are ignored in this mode. Also, an unescaped # out‐
side a character class indicates a comment that lasts until after the
next line break sequence. In other circumstances, line break sequences
in patterns are treated as literal data.
The newline option that is set at compile time becomes the default that
is used for pcre_exec() and pcre_dfa_exec(), but it can be overridden.
PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE
If this option is set, it disables the use of numbered capturing paren‐
theses in the pattern. Any opening parenthesis that is not followed by
? behaves as if it were followed by ?: but named parentheses can still
be used for capturing (and they acquire numbers in the usual way).
There is no equivalent of this option in Perl.
NO_START_OPTIMIZE
This is an option that acts at matching time; that is, it is really an
option for pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec(). If it is set at compile
time, it is remembered with the compiled pattern and assumed at match‐
ing time. For details see the discussion of PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE
below.
PCRE_UCP
This option changes the way PCRE processes \B, \b, \D, \d, \S, \s, \W,
\w, and some of the POSIX character classes. By default, only ASCII
characters are recognized, but if PCRE_UCP is set, Unicode properties
are used instead to classify characters. More details are given in the
section on generic character types in the pcrepattern page. If you set
PCRE_UCP, matching one of the items it affects takes much longer. The
option is available only if PCRE has been compiled with Unicode prop‐
erty support.
PCRE_UNGREEDY
This option inverts the "greediness" of the quantifiers so that they
are not greedy by default, but become greedy if followed by "?". It is
not compatible with Perl. It can also be set by a (?U) option setting
within the pattern.
PCRE_UTF8
This option causes PCRE to regard both the pattern and the subject as
strings of UTF-8 characters instead of single-byte character strings.
However, it is available only when PCRE is built to include UTF-8 sup‐
port. If not, the use of this option provokes an error. Details of how
this option changes the behaviour of PCRE are given in the section on
UTF-8 support in the main pcre page.
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK
When PCRE_UTF8 is set, the validity of the pattern as a UTF-8 string is
automatically checked. There is a discussion about the validity of
UTF-8 strings in the main pcre page. If an invalid UTF-8 sequence of
bytes is found, pcre_compile() returns an error. If you already know
that your pattern is valid, and you want to skip this check for perfor‐
mance reasons, you can set the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option. When it is
set, the effect of passing an invalid UTF-8 string as a pattern is
undefined. It may cause your program to crash. Note that this option
can also be passed to pcre_exec() and pcre_dfa_exec(), to suppress the
UTF-8 validity checking of subject strings.
COMPILATION ERROR CODES
The following table lists the error codes than may be returned by
pcre_compile2(), along with the error messages that may be returned by
both compiling functions. As PCRE has developed, some error codes have
fallen out of use. To avoid confusion, they have not been re-used.
0 no error
1 \ at end of pattern
2 \c at end of pattern
3 unrecognized character follows \
4 numbers out of order in {} quantifier
5 number too big in {} quantifier
6 missing terminating ] for character class
7 invalid escape sequence in character class
8 range out of order in character class
9 nothing to repeat
10 [this code is not in use]
11 internal error: unexpected repeat
12 unrecognized character after (? or (?-
13 POSIX named classes are supported only within a class
14 missing )
15 reference to non-existent subpattern
16 erroffset passed as NULL
17 unknown option bit(s) set
18 missing ) after comment
19 [this code is not in use]
20 regular expression is too large
21 failed to get memory
22 unmatched parentheses
23 internal error: code overflow
24 unrecognized character after (?<
25 lookbehind assertion is not fixed length
26 malformed number or name after (?(
27 conditional group contains more than two branches
28 assertion expected after (?(
29 (?R or (?[+-]digits must be followed by )
30 unknown POSIX class name
31 POSIX collating elements are not supported
32 this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support
33 [this code is not in use]
34 character value in \x{...} sequence is too large
35 invalid condition (?(0)
36 \C not allowed in lookbehind assertion
37 PCRE does not support \L, \l, \N{name}, \U, or \u
38 number after (?C is > 255
39 closing ) for (?C expected
40 recursive call could loop indefinitely
41 unrecognized character after (?P
42 syntax error in subpattern name (missing terminator)
43 two named subpatterns have the same name
44 invalid UTF-8 string
45 support for \P, \p, and \X has not been compiled
46 malformed \P or \p sequence
47 unknown property name after \P or \p
48 subpattern name is too long (maximum 32 characters)
49 too many named subpatterns (maximum 10000)
50 [this code is not in use]
51 octal value is greater than \377 (not in UTF-8 mode)
52 internal error: overran compiling workspace
53 internal error: previously-checked referenced subpattern
not found
54 DEFINE group contains more than one branch
55 repeating a DEFINE group is not allowed
56 inconsistent NEWLINE options
57 \g is not followed by a braced, angle-bracketed, or quoted
name/number or by a plain number
58 a numbered reference must not be zero
59 an argument is not allowed for (*ACCEPT), (*FAIL), or (*COMMIT)
60 (*VERB) not recognized
61 number is too big
62 subpattern name expected
63 digit expected after (?+
64 ] is an invalid data character in JavaScript compatibility mode
65 different names for subpatterns of the same number are
not allowed
66 (*MARK) must have an argument
67 this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UCP support
68 \c must be followed by an ASCII character
69 \k is not followed by a braced, angle-bracketed, or quoted name
The numbers 32 and 10000 in errors 48 and 49 are defaults; different
values may be used if the limits were changed when PCRE was built.
STUDYING A PATTERN
pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *code, int options
const char **errptr);
If a compiled pattern is going to be used several times, it is worth
spending more time analyzing it in order to speed up the time taken for
matching. The function pcre_study() takes a pointer to a compiled pat‐
tern as its first argument. If studying the pattern produces additional
information that will help speed up matching, pcre_study() returns a
pointer to a pcre_extra block, in which the study_data field points to
the results of the study.
The returned value from pcre_study() can be passed directly to
pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec(). However, a pcre_extra block also con‐
tains other fields that can be set by the caller before the block is
passed; these are described below in the section on matching a pattern.
If studying the pattern does not produce any useful information,
pcre_study() returns NULL. In that circumstance, if the calling program
wants to pass any of the other fields to pcre_exec() or
pcre_dfa_exec(), it must set up its own pcre_extra block.
The second argument of pcre_study() contains option bits. At present,
no options are defined, and this argument should always be zero.
The third argument for pcre_study() is a pointer for an error message.
If studying succeeds (even if no data is returned), the variable it
points to is set to NULL. Otherwise it is set to point to a textual
error message. This is a static string that is part of the library. You
must not try to free it. You should test the error pointer for NULL
after calling pcre_study(), to be sure that it has run successfully.
This is a typical call to pcre_study():
pcre_extra *pe;
pe = pcre_study(
re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
0, /* no options exist */
&error); /* set to NULL or points to a message */
Studying a pattern does two things: first, a lower bound for the length
of subject string that is needed to match the pattern is computed. This
does not mean that there are any strings of that length that match, but
it does guarantee that no shorter strings match. The value is used by
pcre_exec() and pcre_dfa_exec() to avoid wasting time by trying to
match strings that are shorter than the lower bound. You can find out
the value in a calling program via the pcre_fullinfo() function.
Studying a pattern is also useful for non-anchored patterns that do not
have a single fixed starting character. A bitmap of possible starting
bytes is created. This speeds up finding a position in the subject at
which to start matching.
The two optimizations just described can be disabled by setting the
PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option when calling pcre_exec() or
pcre_dfa_exec(). You might want to do this if your pattern contains
callouts or (*MARK), and you want to make use of these facilities in
cases where matching fails. See the discussion of PCRE_NO_START_OPTI‐
MIZE below.
LOCALE SUPPORT
PCRE handles caseless matching, and determines whether characters are
letters, digits, or whatever, by reference to a set of tables, indexed
by character value. When running in UTF-8 mode, this applies only to
characters with codes less than 128. By default, higher-valued codes
never match escapes such as \w or \d, but they can be tested with \p if
PCRE is built with Unicode character property support. Alternatively,
the PCRE_UCP option can be set at compile time; this causes \w and
friends to use Unicode property support instead of built-in tables. The
use of locales with Unicode is discouraged. If you are handling charac‐
ters with codes greater than 128, you should either use UTF-8 and Uni‐
code, or use locales, but not try to mix the two.
PCRE contains an internal set of tables that are used when the final
argument of pcre_compile() is NULL. These are sufficient for many
applications. Normally, the internal tables recognize only ASCII char‐
acters. However, when PCRE is built, it is possible to cause the inter‐
nal tables to be rebuilt in the default "C" locale of the local system,
which may cause them to be different.
The internal tables can always be overridden by tables supplied by the
application that calls PCRE. These may be created in a different locale
from the default. As more and more applications change to using Uni‐
code, the need for this locale support is expected to die away.
External tables are built by calling the pcre_maketables() function,
which has no arguments, in the relevant locale. The result can then be
passed to pcre_compile() or pcre_exec() as often as necessary. For
example, to build and use tables that are appropriate for the French
locale (where accented characters with values greater than 128 are
treated as letters), the following code could be used:
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "fr_FR");
tables = pcre_maketables();
re = pcre_compile(..., tables);
The locale name "fr_FR" is used on Linux and other Unix-like systems;
if you are using Windows, the name for the French locale is "french".
When pcre_maketables() runs, the tables are built in memory that is
obtained via pcre_malloc. It is the caller's responsibility to ensure
that the memory containing the tables remains available for as long as
it is needed.
The pointer that is passed to pcre_compile() is saved with the compiled
pattern, and the same tables are used via this pointer by pcre_study()
and normally also by pcre_exec(). Thus, by default, for any single pat‐
tern, compilation, studying and matching all happen in the same locale,
but different patterns can be compiled in different locales.
It is possible to pass a table pointer or NULL (indicating the use of
the internal tables) to pcre_exec(). Although not intended for this
purpose, this facility could be used to match a pattern in a different
locale from the one in which it was compiled. Passing table pointers at
run time is discussed below in the section on matching a pattern.
INFORMATION ABOUT A PATTERN
int pcre_fullinfo(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
int what, void *where);
The pcre_fullinfo() function returns information about a compiled pat‐
tern. It replaces the obsolete pcre_info() function, which is neverthe‐
less retained for backwards compability (and is documented below).
The first argument for pcre_fullinfo() is a pointer to the compiled
pattern. The second argument is the result of pcre_study(), or NULL if
the pattern was not studied. The third argument specifies which piece
of information is required, and the fourth argument is a pointer to a
variable to receive the data. The yield of the function is zero for
success, or one of the following negative numbers:
PCRE_ERROR_NULL the argument code was NULL
the argument where was NULL
PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC the "magic number" was not found
PCRE_ERROR_BADOPTION the value of what was invalid
The "magic number" is placed at the start of each compiled pattern as
an simple check against passing an arbitrary memory pointer. Here is a
typical call of pcre_fullinfo(), to obtain the length of the compiled
pattern:
int rc;
size_t length;
rc = pcre_fullinfo(
re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
pe, /* result of pcre_study(), or NULL */
PCRE_INFO_SIZE, /* what is required */
&length); /* where to put the data */
The possible values for the third argument are defined in pcre.h, and
are as follows:
PCRE_INFO_BACKREFMAX
Return the number of the highest back reference in the pattern. The
fourth argument should point to an int variable. Zero is returned if
there are no back references.
PCRE_INFO_CAPTURECOUNT
Return the number of capturing subpatterns in the pattern. The fourth
argument should point to an int variable.
PCRE_INFO_DEFAULT_TABLES
Return a pointer to the internal default character tables within PCRE.
The fourth argument should point to an unsigned char * variable. This
information call is provided for internal use by the pcre_study() func‐
tion. External callers can cause PCRE to use its internal tables by
passing a NULL table pointer.
PCRE_INFO_FIRSTBYTE
Return information about the first byte of any matched string, for a
non-anchored pattern. The fourth argument should point to an int vari‐
able. (This option used to be called PCRE_INFO_FIRSTCHAR; the old name
is still recognized for backwards compatibility.)
If there is a fixed first byte, for example, from a pattern such as
(cat|cow|coyote), its value is returned. Otherwise, if either
(a) the pattern was compiled with the PCRE_MULTILINE option, and every
branch starts with "^", or
(b) every branch of the pattern starts with ".*" and PCRE_DOTALL is not
set (if it were set, the pattern would be anchored),
-1 is returned, indicating that the pattern matches only at the start
of a subject string or after any newline within the string. Otherwise
-2 is returned. For anchored patterns, -2 is returned.
PCRE_INFO_FIRSTTABLE
If the pattern was studied, and this resulted in the construction of a
256-bit table indicating a fixed set of bytes for the first byte in any
matching string, a pointer to the table is returned. Otherwise NULL is
returned. The fourth argument should point to an unsigned char * vari‐
able.
PCRE_INFO_HASCRORLF
Return 1 if the pattern contains any explicit matches for CR or LF
characters, otherwise 0. The fourth argument should point to an int
variable. An explicit match is either a literal CR or LF character, or
\r or \n.
PCRE_INFO_JCHANGED
Return 1 if the (?J) or (?-J) option setting is used in the pattern,
otherwise 0. The fourth argument should point to an int variable. (?J)
and (?-J) set and unset the local PCRE_DUPNAMES option, respectively.
PCRE_INFO_LASTLITERAL
Return the value of the rightmost literal byte that must exist in any
matched string, other than at its start, if such a byte has been
recorded. The fourth argument should point to an int variable. If there
is no such byte, -1 is returned. For anchored patterns, a last literal
byte is recorded only if it follows something of variable length. For
example, for the pattern /^a\d+z\d+/ the returned value is "z", but for
/^a\dz\d/ the returned value is -1.
PCRE_INFO_MINLENGTH
If the pattern was studied and a minimum length for matching subject
strings was computed, its value is returned. Otherwise the returned
value is -1. The value is a number of characters, not bytes (this may
be relevant in UTF-8 mode). The fourth argument should point to an int
variable. A non-negative value is a lower bound to the length of any
matching string. There may not be any strings of that length that do
actually match, but every string that does match is at least that long.
PCRE_INFO_NAMECOUNT
PCRE_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE
PCRE_INFO_NAMETABLE
PCRE supports the use of named as well as numbered capturing parenthe‐
ses. The names are just an additional way of identifying the parenthe‐
ses, which still acquire numbers. Several convenience functions such as
pcre_get_named_substring() are provided for extracting captured sub‐
strings by name. It is also possible to extract the data directly, by
first converting the name to a number in order to access the correct
pointers in the output vector (described with pcre_exec() below). To do
the conversion, you need to use the name-to-number map, which is
described by these three values.
The map consists of a number of fixed-size entries. PCRE_INFO_NAMECOUNT
gives the number of entries, and PCRE_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE gives the size
of each entry; both of these return an int value. The entry size
depends on the length of the longest name. PCRE_INFO_NAMETABLE returns
a pointer to the first entry of the table (a pointer to char). The
first two bytes of each entry are the number of the capturing parenthe‐
sis, most significant byte first. The rest of the entry is the corre‐
sponding name, zero terminated.
The names are in alphabetical order. Duplicate names may appear if (?|
is used to create multiple groups with the same number, as described in
the section on duplicate subpattern numbers in the pcrepattern page.
Duplicate names for subpatterns with different numbers are permitted
only if PCRE_DUPNAMES is set. In all cases of duplicate names, they
appear in the table in the order in which they were found in the pat‐
tern. In the absence of (?| this is the order of increasing number;
when (?| is used this is not necessarily the case because later subpat‐
terns may have lower numbers.
As a simple example of the name/number table, consider the following
pattern (assume PCRE_EXTENDED is set, so white space - including new‐
lines - is ignored):
(?<date> (?<year>(\d\d)?\d\d) -
(?<month>\d\d) - (?<day>\d\d) )
There are four named subpatterns, so the table has four entries, and
each entry in the table is eight bytes long. The table is as follows,
with non-printing bytes shows in hexadecimal, and undefined bytes shown
as ??:
00 01 d a t e 00 ??
00 05 d a y 00 ?? ??
00 04 m o n t h 00
00 02 y e a r 00 ??
When writing code to extract data from named subpatterns using the
name-to-number map, remember that the length of the entries is likely
to be different for each compiled pattern.
PCRE_INFO_OKPARTIAL
Return 1 if the pattern can be used for partial matching with
pcre_exec(), otherwise 0. The fourth argument should point to an int
variable. From release 8.00, this always returns 1, because the
restrictions that previously applied to partial matching have been
lifted. The pcrepartial documentation gives details of partial match‐
ing.
PCRE_INFO_OPTIONS
Return a copy of the options with which the pattern was compiled. The
fourth argument should point to an unsigned long int variable. These
option bits are those specified in the call to pcre_compile(), modified
by any top-level option settings at the start of the pattern itself. In
other words, they are the options that will be in force when matching
starts. For example, if the pattern /(?im)abc(?-i)d/ is compiled with
the PCRE_EXTENDED option, the result is PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE,
and PCRE_EXTENDED.
A pattern is automatically anchored by PCRE if all of its top-level
alternatives begin with one of the following:
^ unless PCRE_MULTILINE is set
\A always
\G always
.* if PCRE_DOTALL is set and there are no back
references to the subpattern in which .* appears
For such patterns, the PCRE_ANCHORED bit is set in the options returned
by pcre_fullinfo().
PCRE_INFO_SIZE
Return the size of the compiled pattern, that is, the value that was
passed as the argument to pcre_malloc() when PCRE was getting memory in
which to place the compiled data. The fourth argument should point to a
size_t variable.
PCRE_INFO_STUDYSIZE
Return the size of the data block pointed to by the study_data field in
a pcre_extra block. If pcre_extra is NULL, or there is no study data,
zero is returned. The fourth argument should point to a size_t vari‐
able. The study_data field is set by pcre_study() to record informa‐
tion that will speed up matching (see the section entitled "Studying a
pattern" above). The format of the study_data block is private, but its
length is made available via this option so that it can be saved and
restored (see the pcreprecompile documentation for details).
OBSOLETE INFO FUNCTION
int pcre_info(const pcre *code, int *optptr, int *firstcharptr);
The pcre_info() function is now obsolete because its interface is too
restrictive to return all the available data about a compiled pattern.
New programs should use pcre_fullinfo() instead. The yield of
pcre_info() is the number of capturing subpatterns, or one of the fol‐
lowing negative numbers:
PCRE_ERROR_NULL the argument code was NULL
PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC the "magic number" was not found
If the optptr argument is not NULL, a copy of the options with which
the pattern was compiled is placed in the integer it points to (see
PCRE_INFO_OPTIONS above).
If the pattern is not anchored and the firstcharptr argument is not
NULL, it is used to pass back information about the first character of
any matched string (see PCRE_INFO_FIRSTBYTE above).
REFERENCE COUNTS
int pcre_refcount(pcre *code, int adjust);
The pcre_refcount() function is used to maintain a reference count in
the data block that contains a compiled pattern. It is provided for the
benefit of applications that operate in an object-oriented manner,
where different parts of the application may be using the same compiled
pattern, but you want to free the block when they are all done.
When a pattern is compiled, the reference count field is initialized to
zero. It is changed only by calling this function, whose action is to
add the adjust value (which may be positive or negative) to it. The
yield of the function is the new value. However, the value of the count
is constrained to lie between 0 and 65535, inclusive. If the new value
is outside these limits, it is forced to the appropriate limit value.
Except when it is zero, the reference count is not correctly preserved
if a pattern is compiled on one host and then transferred to a host
whose byte-order is different. (This seems a highly unlikely scenario.)
MATCHING A PATTERN: THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTION
int pcre_exec(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
const char *subject, int length, int startoffset,
int options, int *ovector, int ovecsize);
The function pcre_exec() is called to match a subject string against a
compiled pattern, which is passed in the code argument. If the pattern
was studied, the result of the study should be passed in the extra
argument. This function is the main matching facility of the library,
and it operates in a Perl-like manner. For specialist use there is also
an alternative matching function, which is described below in the sec‐
tion about the pcre_dfa_exec() function.
In most applications, the pattern will have been compiled (and option‐
ally studied) in the same process that calls pcre_exec(). However, it
is possible to save compiled patterns and study data, and then use them
later in different processes, possibly even on different hosts. For a
discussion about this, see the pcreprecompile documentation.
Here is an example of a simple call to pcre_exec():
int rc;
int ovector[30];
rc = pcre_exec(
re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
NULL, /* we didn't study the pattern */
"some string", /* the subject string */
11, /* the length of the subject string */
0, /* start at offset 0 in the subject */
0, /* default options */
ovector, /* vector of integers for substring information */
30); /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */
Extra data for pcre_exec()
If the extra argument is not NULL, it must point to a pcre_extra data
block. The pcre_study() function returns such a block (when it doesn't
return NULL), but you can also create one for yourself, and pass addi‐
tional information in it. The pcre_extra block contains the following
fields (not necessarily in this order):
unsigned long int flags;
void *study_data;
unsigned long int match_limit;
unsigned long int match_limit_recursion;
void *callout_data;
const unsigned char *tables;
unsigned char **mark;
The flags field is a bitmap that specifies which of the other fields
are set. The flag bits are:
PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION
PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA
PCRE_EXTRA_TABLES
PCRE_EXTRA_MARK
Other flag bits should be set to zero. The study_data field is set in
the pcre_extra block that is returned by pcre_study(), together with
the appropriate flag bit. You should not set this yourself, but you may
add to the block by setting the other fields and their corresponding
flag bits.
The match_limit field provides a means of preventing PCRE from using up
a vast amount of resources when running patterns that are not going to
match, but which have a very large number of possibilities in their
search trees. The classic example is a pattern that uses nested unlim‐
ited repeats.
Internally, PCRE uses a function called match() which it calls repeat‐
edly (sometimes recursively). The limit set by match_limit is imposed
on the number of times this function is called during a match, which
has the effect of limiting the amount of backtracking that can take
place. For patterns that are not anchored, the count restarts from zero
for each position in the subject string.
The default value for the limit can be set when PCRE is built; the
default default is 10 million, which handles all but the most extreme
cases. You can override the default by suppling pcre_exec() with a
pcre_extra block in which match_limit is set, and
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT is set in the flags field. If the limit is
exceeded, pcre_exec() returns PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT.
The match_limit_recursion field is similar to match_limit, but instead
of limiting the total number of times that match() is called, it limits
the depth of recursion. The recursion depth is a smaller number than
the total number of calls, because not all calls to match() are recur‐
sive. This limit is of use only if it is set smaller than match_limit.
Limiting the recursion depth limits the amount of stack that can be
used, or, when PCRE has been compiled to use memory on the heap instead
of the stack, the amount of heap memory that can be used.
The default value for match_limit_recursion can be set when PCRE is
built; the default default is the same value as the default for
match_limit. You can override the default by suppling pcre_exec() with
a pcre_extra block in which match_limit_recursion is set, and
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION is set in the flags field. If the
limit is exceeded, pcre_exec() returns PCRE_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT.
The callout_data field is used in conjunction with the "callout" fea‐
ture, and is described in the pcrecallout documentation.
The tables field is used to pass a character tables pointer to
pcre_exec(); this overrides the value that is stored with the compiled
pattern. A non-NULL value is stored with the compiled pattern only if
custom tables were supplied to pcre_compile() via its tableptr argu‐
ment. If NULL is passed to pcre_exec() using this mechanism, it forces
PCRE's internal tables to be used. This facility is helpful when re-
using patterns that have been saved after compiling with an external
set of tables, because the external tables might be at a different
address when pcre_exec() is called. See the pcreprecompile documenta‐
tion for a discussion of saving compiled patterns for later use.
If PCRE_EXTRA_MARK is set in the flags field, the mark field must be
set to point to a char * variable. If the pattern contains any back‐
tracking control verbs such as (*MARK:NAME), and the execution ends up
with a name to pass back, a pointer to the name string (zero termi‐
nated) is placed in the variable pointed to by the mark field. The
names are within the compiled pattern; if you wish to retain such a
name you must copy it before freeing the memory of a compiled pattern.
If there is no name to pass back, the variable pointed to by the mark
field set to NULL. For details of the backtracking control verbs, see
the section entitled "Backtracking control" in the pcrepattern documen‐
tation.
Option bits for pcre_exec()
The unused bits of the options argument for pcre_exec() must be zero.
The only bits that may be set are PCRE_ANCHORED, PCRE_NEWLINE_xxx,
PCRE_NOTBOL, PCRE_NOTEOL, PCRE_NOTEMPTY, PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART,
PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE, PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT, and
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD.
PCRE_ANCHORED
The PCRE_ANCHORED option limits pcre_exec() to matching at the first
matching position. If a pattern was compiled with PCRE_ANCHORED, or
turned out to be anchored by virtue of its contents, it cannot be made
unachored at matching time.
PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
PCRE_BSR_UNICODE
These options (which are mutually exclusive) control what the \R escape
sequence matches. The choice is either to match only CR, LF, or CRLF,
or to match any Unicode newline sequence. These options override the
choice that was made or defaulted when the pattern was compiled.
PCRE_NEWLINE_CR
PCRE_NEWLINE_LF
PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY
These options override the newline definition that was chosen or
defaulted when the pattern was compiled. For details, see the descrip‐
tion of pcre_compile() above. During matching, the newline choice
affects the behaviour of the dot, circumflex, and dollar metacharac‐
ters. It may also alter the way the match position is advanced after a
match failure for an unanchored pattern.
When PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF, PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF, or PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY is
set, and a match attempt for an unanchored pattern fails when the cur‐
rent position is at a CRLF sequence, and the pattern contains no
explicit matches for CR or LF characters, the match position is
advanced by two characters instead of one, in other words, to after the
CRLF.
The above rule is a compromise that makes the most common cases work as
expected. For example, if the pattern is .+A (and the PCRE_DOTALL
option is not set), it does not match the string "\r\nA" because, after
failing at the start, it skips both the CR and the LF before retrying.
However, the pattern [\r\n]A does match that string, because it con‐
tains an explicit CR or LF reference, and so advances only by one char‐
acter after the first failure.
An explicit match for CR of LF is either a literal appearance of one of
those characters, or one of the \r or \n escape sequences. Implicit
matches such as [^X] do not count, nor does \s (which includes CR and
LF in the characters that it matches).
Notwithstanding the above, anomalous effects may still occur when CRLF
is a valid newline sequence and explicit \r or \n escapes appear in the
pattern.
PCRE_NOTBOL
This option specifies that first character of the subject string is not
the beginning of a line, so the circumflex metacharacter should not
match before it. Setting this without PCRE_MULTILINE (at compile time)
causes circumflex never to match. This option affects only the behav‐
iour of the circumflex metacharacter. It does not affect \A.
PCRE_NOTEOL
This option specifies that the end of the subject string is not the end
of a line, so the dollar metacharacter should not match it nor (except
in multiline mode) a newline immediately before it. Setting this with‐
out PCRE_MULTILINE (at compile time) causes dollar never to match. This
option affects only the behaviour of the dollar metacharacter. It does
not affect \Z or \z.
PCRE_NOTEMPTY
An empty string is not considered to be a valid match if this option is
set. If there are alternatives in the pattern, they are tried. If all
the alternatives match the empty string, the entire match fails. For
example, if the pattern
a?b?
is applied to a string not beginning with "a" or "b", it matches an
empty string at the start of the subject. With PCRE_NOTEMPTY set, this
match is not valid, so PCRE searches further into the string for occur‐
rences of "a" or "b".
PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART
This is like PCRE_NOTEMPTY, except that an empty string match that is
not at the start of the subject is permitted. If the pattern is
anchored, such a match can occur only if the pattern contains \K.
Perl has no direct equivalent of PCRE_NOTEMPTY or
PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART, but it does make a special case of a pattern
match of the empty string within its split() function, and when using
the /g modifier. It is possible to emulate Perl's behaviour after
matching a null string by first trying the match again at the same off‐
set with PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART and PCRE_ANCHORED, and then if that
fails, by advancing the starting offset (see below) and trying an ordi‐
nary match again. There is some code that demonstrates how to do this
in the pcredemo sample program. In the most general case, you have to
check to see if the newline convention recognizes CRLF as a newline,
and if so, and the current character is CR followed by LF, advance the
starting offset by two characters instead of one.
PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE
There are a number of optimizations that pcre_exec() uses at the start
of a match, in order to speed up the process. For example, if it is
known that an unanchored match must start with a specific character, it
searches the subject for that character, and fails immediately if it
cannot find it, without actually running the main matching function.
This means that a special item such as (*COMMIT) at the start of a pat‐
tern is not considered until after a suitable starting point for the
match has been found. When callouts or (*MARK) items are in use, these
"start-up" optimizations can cause them to be skipped if the pattern is
never actually used. The start-up optimizations are in effect a pre-
scan of the subject that takes place before the pattern is run.
The PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option disables the start-up optimizations,
possibly causing performance to suffer, but ensuring that in cases
where the result is "no match", the callouts do occur, and that items
such as (*COMMIT) and (*MARK) are considered at every possible starting
position in the subject string. If PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE is set at
compile time, it cannot be unset at matching time.
Setting PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE can change the outcome of a matching
operation. Consider the pattern
(*COMMIT)ABC
When this is compiled, PCRE records the fact that a match must start
with the character "A". Suppose the subject string is "DEFABC". The
start-up optimization scans along the subject, finds "A" and runs the
first match attempt from there. The (*COMMIT) item means that the pat‐
tern must match the current starting position, which in this case, it
does. However, if the same match is run with PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE
set, the initial scan along the subject string does not happen. The
first match attempt is run starting from "D" and when this fails,
(*COMMIT) prevents any further matches being tried, so the overall
result is "no match". If the pattern is studied, more start-up opti‐
mizations may be used. For example, a minimum length for the subject
may be recorded. Consider the pattern
(*MARK:A)(X|Y)
The minimum length for a match is one character. If the subject is
"ABC", there will be attempts to match "ABC", "BC", "C", and then
finally an empty string. If the pattern is studied, the final attempt
does not take place, because PCRE knows that the subject is too short,
and so the (*MARK) is never encountered. In this case, studying the
pattern does not affect the overall match result, which is still "no
match", but it does affect the auxiliary information that is returned.
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK
When PCRE_UTF8 is set at compile time, the validity of the subject as a
UTF-8 string is automatically checked when pcre_exec() is subsequently
called. The value of startoffset is also checked to ensure that it
points to the start of a UTF-8 character. There is a discussion about
the validity of UTF-8 strings in the section on UTF-8 support in the
main pcre page. If an invalid UTF-8 sequence of bytes is found,
pcre_exec() returns the error PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 or, if PCRE_PAR‐
TIAL_HARD is set and the problem is a truncated UTF-8 character at the
end of the subject, PCRE_ERROR_SHORTUTF8. In both cases, information
about the precise nature of the error may also be returned (see the
descriptions of these errors in the section entitled Error return val‐
ues from pcre_exec() below). If startoffset contains a value that does
not point to the start of a UTF-8 character (or to the end of the sub‐
ject), PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET is returned.
If you already know that your subject is valid, and you want to skip
these checks for performance reasons, you can set the
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option when calling pcre_exec(). You might want to
do this for the second and subsequent calls to pcre_exec() if you are
making repeated calls to find all the matches in a single subject
string. However, you should be sure that the value of startoffset
points to the start of a UTF-8 character (or the end of the subject).
When PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK is set, the effect of passing an invalid UTF-8
string as a subject or an invalid value of startoffset is undefined.
Your program may crash.
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD
PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT
These options turn on the partial matching feature. For backwards com‐
patibility, PCRE_PARTIAL is a synonym for PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT. A partial
match occurs if the end of the subject string is reached successfully,
but there are not enough subject characters to complete the match. If
this happens when PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT (but not PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD) is set,
matching continues by testing any remaining alternatives. Only if no
complete match can be found is PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL returned instead of
PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH. In other words, PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT says that the
caller is prepared to handle a partial match, but only if no complete
match can be found.
If PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD is set, it overrides PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT. In this
case, if a partial match is found, pcre_exec() immediately returns
PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL, without considering any other alternatives. In
other words, when PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD is set, a partial match is consid‐
ered to be more important that an alternative complete match.
In both cases, the portion of the string that was inspected when the
partial match was found is set as the first matching string. There is a
more detailed discussion of partial and multi-segment matching, with
examples, in the pcrepartial documentation.
The string to be matched by pcre_exec()
The subject string is passed to pcre_exec() as a pointer in subject, a
length (in bytes) in length, and a starting byte offset in startoffset.
If this is negative or greater than the length of the subject,
pcre_exec() returns PCRE_ERROR_BADOFFSET. When the starting offset is
zero, the search for a match starts at the beginning of the subject,
and this is by far the most common case. In UTF-8 mode, the byte offset
must point to the start of a UTF-8 character (or the end of the sub‐
ject). Unlike the pattern string, the subject may contain binary zero
bytes.
A non-zero starting offset is useful when searching for another match
in the same subject by calling pcre_exec() again after a previous suc‐
cess. Setting startoffset differs from just passing over a shortened
string and setting PCRE_NOTBOL in the case of a pattern that begins
with any kind of lookbehind. For example, consider the pattern
\Biss\B
which finds occurrences of "iss" in the middle of words. (\B matches
only if the current position in the subject is not a word boundary.)
When applied to the string "Mississipi" the first call to pcre_exec()
finds the first occurrence. If pcre_exec() is called again with just
the remainder of the subject, namely "issipi", it does not match,
because \B is always false at the start of the subject, which is deemed
to be a word boundary. However, if pcre_exec() is passed the entire
string again, but with startoffset set to 4, it finds the second occur‐
rence of "iss" because it is able to look behind the starting point to
discover that it is preceded by a letter.
Finding all the matches in a subject is tricky when the pattern can
match an empty string. It is possible to emulate Perl's /g behaviour by
first trying the match again at the same offset, with the
PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART and PCRE_ANCHORED options, and then if that
fails, advancing the starting offset and trying an ordinary match
again. There is some code that demonstrates how to do this in the pcre‐
demo sample program. In the most general case, you have to check to see
if the newline convention recognizes CRLF as a newline, and if so, and
the current character is CR followed by LF, advance the starting offset
by two characters instead of one.
If a non-zero starting offset is passed when the pattern is anchored,
one attempt to match at the given offset is made. This can only succeed
if the pattern does not require the match to be at the start of the
subject.
How pcre_exec() returns captured substrings
In general, a pattern matches a certain portion of the subject, and in
addition, further substrings from the subject may be picked out by
parts of the pattern. Following the usage in Jeffrey Friedl's book,
this is called "capturing" in what follows, and the phrase "capturing
subpattern" is used for a fragment of a pattern that picks out a sub‐
string. PCRE supports several other kinds of parenthesized subpattern
that do not cause substrings to be captured.
Captured substrings are returned to the caller via a vector of integers
whose address is passed in ovector. The number of elements in the vec‐
tor is passed in ovecsize, which must be a non-negative number. Note:
this argument is NOT the size of ovector in bytes.
The first two-thirds of the vector is used to pass back captured sub‐
strings, each substring using a pair of integers. The remaining third
of the vector is used as workspace by pcre_exec() while matching cap‐
turing subpatterns, and is not available for passing back information.
The number passed in ovecsize should always be a multiple of three. If
it is not, it is rounded down.
When a match is successful, information about captured substrings is
returned in pairs of integers, starting at the beginning of ovector,
and continuing up to two-thirds of its length at the most. The first
element of each pair is set to the byte offset of the first character
in a substring, and the second is set to the byte offset of the first
character after the end of a substring. Note: these values are always
byte offsets, even in UTF-8 mode. They are not character counts.
The first pair of integers, ovector[0] and ovector[1], identify the
portion of the subject string matched by the entire pattern. The next
pair is used for the first capturing subpattern, and so on. The value
returned by pcre_exec() is one more than the highest numbered pair that
has been set. For example, if two substrings have been captured, the
returned value is 3. If there are no capturing subpatterns, the return
value from a successful match is 1, indicating that just the first pair
of offsets has been set.
If a capturing subpattern is matched repeatedly, it is the last portion
of the string that it matched that is returned.
If the vector is too small to hold all the captured substring offsets,
it is used as far as possible (up to two-thirds of its length), and the
function returns a value of zero. If the substring offsets are not of
interest, pcre_exec() may be called with ovector passed as NULL and
ovecsize as zero. However, if the pattern contains back references and
the ovector is not big enough to remember the related substrings, PCRE
has to get additional memory for use during matching. Thus it is usu‐
ally advisable to supply an ovector.
The pcre_fullinfo() function can be used to find out how many capturing
subpatterns there are in a compiled pattern. The smallest size for
ovector that will allow for n captured substrings, in addition to the
offsets of the substring matched by the whole pattern, is (n+1)*3.
It is possible for capturing subpattern number n+1 to match some part
of the subject when subpattern n has not been used at all. For example,
if the string "abc" is matched against the pattern (a|(z))(bc) the
return from the function is 4, and subpatterns 1 and 3 are matched, but
2 is not. When this happens, both values in the offset pairs corre‐
sponding to unused subpatterns are set to -1.
Offset values that correspond to unused subpatterns at the end of the
expression are also set to -1. For example, if the string "abc" is
matched against the pattern (abc)(x(yz)?)? subpatterns 2 and 3 are not
matched. The return from the function is 2, because the highest used
capturing subpattern number is 1, and the offsets for for the second
and third capturing subpatterns (assuming the vector is large enough,
of course) are set to -1.
Note: Elements of ovector that do not correspond to capturing parenthe‐
ses in the pattern are never changed. That is, if a pattern contains n
capturing parentheses, no more than ovector[0] to ovector[2n+1] are set
by pcre_exec(). The other elements retain whatever values they previ‐
ously had.
Some convenience functions are provided for extracting the captured
substrings as separate strings. These are described below.
Error return values from pcre_exec()
If pcre_exec() fails, it returns a negative number. The following are
defined in the header file:
PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH (-1)
The subject string did not match the pattern.
PCRE_ERROR_NULL (-2)
Either code or subject was passed as NULL, or ovector was NULL and
ovecsize was not zero.
PCRE_ERROR_BADOPTION (-3)
An unrecognized bit was set in the options argument.
PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC (-4)
PCRE stores a 4-byte "magic number" at the start of the compiled code,
to catch the case when it is passed a junk pointer and to detect when a
pattern that was compiled in an environment of one endianness is run in
an environment with the other endianness. This is the error that PCRE
gives when the magic number is not present.
PCRE_ERROR_UNKNOWN_OPCODE (-5)
While running the pattern match, an unknown item was encountered in the
compiled pattern. This error could be caused by a bug in PCRE or by
overwriting of the compiled pattern.
PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
If a pattern contains back references, but the ovector that is passed
to pcre_exec() is not big enough to remember the referenced substrings,
PCRE gets a block of memory at the start of matching to use for this
purpose. If the call via pcre_malloc() fails, this error is given. The
memory is automatically freed at the end of matching.
This error is also given if pcre_stack_malloc() fails in pcre_exec().
This can happen only when PCRE has been compiled with --disable-stack-
for-recursion.
PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7)
This error is used by the pcre_copy_substring(), pcre_get_substring(),
and pcre_get_substring_list() functions (see below). It is never
returned by pcre_exec().
PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT (-8)
The backtracking limit, as specified by the match_limit field in a
pcre_extra structure (or defaulted) was reached. See the description
above.
PCRE_ERROR_CALLOUT (-9)
This error is never generated by pcre_exec() itself. It is provided for
use by callout functions that want to yield a distinctive error code.
See the pcrecallout documentation for details.
PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 (-10)
A string that contains an invalid UTF-8 byte sequence was passed as a
subject, and the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option was not set. If the size of
the output vector (ovecsize) is at least 2, the byte offset to the
start of the the invalid UTF-8 character is placed in the first ele‐
ment, and a reason code is placed in the second element. The reason
codes are listed in the following section. For backward compatibility,
if PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD is set and the problem is a truncated UTF-8 char‐
acter at the end of the subject (reason codes 1 to 5),
PCRE_ERROR_SHORTUTF8 is returned instead of PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8.
PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET (-11)
The UTF-8 byte sequence that was passed as a subject was checked and
found to be valid (the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option was not set), but the
value of startoffset did not point to the beginning of a UTF-8 charac‐
ter or the end of the subject.
PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL (-12)
The subject string did not match, but it did match partially. See the
pcrepartial documentation for details of partial matching.
PCRE_ERROR_BADPARTIAL (-13)
This code is no longer in use. It was formerly returned when the
PCRE_PARTIAL option was used with a compiled pattern containing items
that were not supported for partial matching. From release 8.00
onwards, there are no restrictions on partial matching.
PCRE_ERROR_INTERNAL (-14)
An unexpected internal error has occurred. This error could be caused
by a bug in PCRE or by overwriting of the compiled pattern.
PCRE_ERROR_BADCOUNT (-15)
This error is given if the value of the ovecsize argument is negative.
PCRE_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT (-21)
The internal recursion limit, as specified by the match_limit_recursion
field in a pcre_extra structure (or defaulted) was reached. See the
description above.
PCRE_ERROR_BADNEWLINE (-23)
An invalid combination of PCRE_NEWLINE_xxx options was given.
PCRE_ERROR_BADOFFSET (-24)
The value of startoffset was negative or greater than the length of the
subject, that is, the value in length.
PCRE_ERROR_SHORTUTF8 (-25)
This error is returned instead of PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 when the subject
string ends with a truncated UTF-8 character and the PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD
option is set. Information about the failure is returned as for
PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8. It is in fact sufficient to detect this case, but
this special error code for PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD precedes the implementa‐
tion of returned information; it is retained for backwards compatibil‐
ity.
PCRE_ERROR_RECURSELOOP (-26)
This error is returned when pcre_exec() detects a recursion loop within
the pattern. Specifically, it means that either the whole pattern or a
subpattern has been called recursively for the second time at the same
position in the subject string. Some simple patterns that might do this
are detected and faulted at compile time, but more complicated cases,
in particular mutual recursions between two different subpatterns, can‐
not be detected until run time.
Error numbers -16 to -20 and -22 are not used by pcre_exec().
Reason codes for invalid UTF-8 strings
When pcre_exec() returns either PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 or PCRE_ERROR_SHORT‐
UTF8, and the size of the output vector (ovecsize) is at least 2, the
offset of the start of the invalid UTF-8 character is placed in the
first output vector element (ovector[0]) and a reason code is placed in
the second element (ovector[1]). The reason codes are given names in
the pcre.h header file:
PCRE_UTF8_ERR1
PCRE_UTF8_ERR2
PCRE_UTF8_ERR3
PCRE_UTF8_ERR4
PCRE_UTF8_ERR5
The string ends with a truncated UTF-8 character; the code specifies
how many bytes are missing (1 to 5). Although RFC 3629 restricts UTF-8
characters to be no longer than 4 bytes, the encoding scheme (origi‐
nally defined by RFC 2279) allows for up to 6 bytes, and this is
checked first; hence the possibility of 4 or 5 missing bytes.
PCRE_UTF8_ERR6
PCRE_UTF8_ERR7
PCRE_UTF8_ERR8
PCRE_UTF8_ERR9
PCRE_UTF8_ERR10
The two most significant bits of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th byte of
the character do not have the binary value 0b10 (that is, either the
most significant bit is 0, or the next bit is 1).
PCRE_UTF8_ERR11
PCRE_UTF8_ERR12
A character that is valid by the RFC 2279 rules is either 5 or 6 bytes
long; these code points are excluded by RFC 3629.
PCRE_UTF8_ERR13
A 4-byte character has a value greater than 0x10fff; these code points
are excluded by RFC 3629.
PCRE_UTF8_ERR14
A 3-byte character has a value in the range 0xd800 to 0xdfff; this
range of code points are reserved by RFC 3629 for use with UTF-16, and
so are excluded from UTF-8.
PCRE_UTF8_ERR15
PCRE_UTF8_ERR16
PCRE_UTF8_ERR17
PCRE_UTF8_ERR18
PCRE_UTF8_ERR19
A 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-byte character is "overlong", that is, it codes
for a value that can be represented by fewer bytes, which is invalid.
For example, the two bytes 0xc0, 0xae give the value 0x2e, whose cor‐
rect coding uses just one byte.
PCRE_UTF8_ERR20
The two most significant bits of the first byte of a character have the
binary value 0b10 (that is, the most significant bit is 1 and the sec‐
ond is 0). Such a byte can only validly occur as the second or subse‐
quent byte of a multi-byte character.
PCRE_UTF8_ERR21
The first byte of a character has the value 0xfe or 0xff. These values
can never occur in a valid UTF-8 string.
EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NUMBER
int pcre_copy_substring(const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, int stringnumber, char *buffer,
int buffersize);
int pcre_get_substring(const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, int stringnumber,
const char **stringptr);
int pcre_get_substring_list(const char *subject,
int *ovector, int stringcount, const char ***listptr);
Captured substrings can be accessed directly by using the offsets
returned by pcre_exec() in ovector. For convenience, the functions
pcre_copy_substring(), pcre_get_substring(), and pcre_get_sub‐
string_list() are provided for extracting captured substrings as new,
separate, zero-terminated strings. These functions identify substrings
by number. The next section describes functions for extracting named
substrings.
A substring that contains a binary zero is correctly extracted and has
a further zero added on the end, but the result is not, of course, a C
string. However, you can process such a string by referring to the
length that is returned by pcre_copy_substring() and pcre_get_sub‐
string(). Unfortunately, the interface to pcre_get_substring_list() is
not adequate for handling strings containing binary zeros, because the
end of the final string is not independently indicated.
The first three arguments are the same for all three of these func‐
tions: subject is the subject string that has just been successfully
matched, ovector is a pointer to the vector of integer offsets that was
passed to pcre_exec(), and stringcount is the number of substrings that
were captured by the match, including the substring that matched the
entire regular expression. This is the value returned by pcre_exec() if
it is greater than zero. If pcre_exec() returned zero, indicating that
it ran out of space in ovector, the value passed as stringcount should
be the number of elements in the vector divided by three.
The functions pcre_copy_substring() and pcre_get_substring() extract a
single substring, whose number is given as stringnumber. A value of
zero extracts the substring that matched the entire pattern, whereas
higher values extract the captured substrings. For pcre_copy_sub‐
string(), the string is placed in buffer, whose length is given by
buffersize, while for pcre_get_substring() a new block of memory is
obtained via pcre_malloc, and its address is returned via stringptr.
The yield of the function is the length of the string, not including
the terminating zero, or one of these error codes:
PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
The buffer was too small for pcre_copy_substring(), or the attempt to
get memory failed for pcre_get_substring().
PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7)
There is no substring whose number is stringnumber.
The pcre_get_substring_list() function extracts all available sub‐
strings and builds a list of pointers to them. All this is done in a
single block of memory that is obtained via pcre_malloc. The address of
the memory block is returned via listptr, which is also the start of
the list of string pointers. The end of the list is marked by a NULL
pointer. The yield of the function is zero if all went well, or the
error code
PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
if the attempt to get the memory block failed.
When any of these functions encounter a substring that is unset, which
can happen when capturing subpattern number n+1 matches some part of
the subject, but subpattern n has not been used at all, they return an
empty string. This can be distinguished from a genuine zero-length sub‐
string by inspecting the appropriate offset in ovector, which is nega‐
tive for unset substrings.
The two convenience functions pcre_free_substring() and pcre_free_sub‐
string_list() can be used to free the memory returned by a previous
call of pcre_get_substring() or pcre_get_substring_list(), respec‐
tively. They do nothing more than call the function pointed to by
pcre_free, which of course could be called directly from a C program.
However, PCRE is used in some situations where it is linked via a spe‐
cial interface to another programming language that cannot use
pcre_free directly; it is for these cases that the functions are pro‐
vided.
EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NAME
int pcre_get_stringnumber(const pcre *code,
const char *name);
int pcre_copy_named_substring(const pcre *code,
const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, const char *stringname,
char *buffer, int buffersize);
int pcre_get_named_substring(const pcre *code,
const char *subject, int *ovector,
int stringcount, const char *stringname,
const char **stringptr);
To extract a substring by name, you first have to find associated num‐
ber. For example, for this pattern
(a+)b(?<xxx>\d+)...
the number of the subpattern called "xxx" is 2. If the name is known to
be unique (PCRE_DUPNAMES was not set), you can find the number from the
name by calling pcre_get_stringnumber(). The first argument is the com‐
piled pattern, and the second is the name. The yield of the function is
the subpattern number, or PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7) if there is no
subpattern of that name.
Given the number, you can extract the substring directly, or use one of
the functions described in the previous section. For convenience, there
are also two functions that do the whole job.
Most of the arguments of pcre_copy_named_substring() and
pcre_get_named_substring() are the same as those for the similarly
named functions that extract by number. As these are described in the
previous section, they are not re-described here. There are just two
differences:
First, instead of a substring number, a substring name is given. Sec‐
ond, there is an extra argument, given at the start, which is a pointer
to the compiled pattern. This is needed in order to gain access to the
name-to-number translation table.
These functions call pcre_get_stringnumber(), and if it succeeds, they
then call pcre_copy_substring() or pcre_get_substring(), as appropri‐
ate. NOTE: If PCRE_DUPNAMES is set and there are duplicate names, the
behaviour may not be what you want (see the next section).
Warning: If the pattern uses the (?| feature to set up multiple subpat‐
terns with the same number, as described in the section on duplicate
subpattern numbers in the pcrepattern page, you cannot use names to
distinguish the different subpatterns, because names are not included
in the compiled code. The matching process uses only numbers. For this
reason, the use of different names for subpatterns of the same number
causes an error at compile time.
DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NAMES
int pcre_get_stringtable_entries(const pcre *code,
const char *name, char **first, char **last);
When a pattern is compiled with the PCRE_DUPNAMES option, names for
subpatterns are not required to be unique. (Duplicate names are always
allowed for subpatterns with the same number, created by using the (?|
feature. Indeed, if such subpatterns are named, they are required to
use the same names.)
Normally, patterns with duplicate names are such that in any one match,
only one of the named subpatterns participates. An example is shown in
the pcrepattern documentation.
When duplicates are present, pcre_copy_named_substring() and
pcre_get_named_substring() return the first substring corresponding to
the given name that is set. If none are set, PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING
(-7) is returned; no data is returned. The pcre_get_stringnumber()
function returns one of the numbers that are associated with the name,
but it is not defined which it is.
If you want to get full details of all captured substrings for a given
name, you must use the pcre_get_stringtable_entries() function. The
first argument is the compiled pattern, and the second is the name. The
third and fourth are pointers to variables which are updated by the
function. After it has run, they point to the first and last entries in
the name-to-number table for the given name. The function itself
returns the length of each entry, or PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7) if
there are none. The format of the table is described above in the sec‐
tion entitled Information about a pattern above. Given all the rele‐
vant entries for the name, you can extract each of their numbers, and
hence the captured data, if any.
FINDING ALL POSSIBLE MATCHES
The traditional matching function uses a similar algorithm to Perl,
which stops when it finds the first match, starting at a given point in
the subject. If you want to find all possible matches, or the longest
possible match, consider using the alternative matching function (see
below) instead. If you cannot use the alternative function, but still
need to find all possible matches, you can kludge it up by making use
of the callout facility, which is described in the pcrecallout documen‐
tation.
What you have to do is to insert a callout right at the end of the pat‐
tern. When your callout function is called, extract and save the cur‐
rent matched substring. Then return 1, which forces pcre_exec() to
backtrack and try other alternatives. Ultimately, when it runs out of
matches, pcre_exec() will yield PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH.
MATCHING A PATTERN: THE ALTERNATIVE FUNCTION
int pcre_dfa_exec(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
const char *subject, int length, int startoffset,
int options, int *ovector, int ovecsize,
int *workspace, int wscount);
The function pcre_dfa_exec() is called to match a subject string
against a compiled pattern, using a matching algorithm that scans the
subject string just once, and does not backtrack. This has different
characteristics to the normal algorithm, and is not compatible with
Perl. Some of the features of PCRE patterns are not supported. Never‐
theless, there are times when this kind of matching can be useful. For
a discussion of the two matching algorithms, and a list of features
that pcre_dfa_exec() does not support, see the pcrematching documenta‐
tion.
The arguments for the pcre_dfa_exec() function are the same as for
pcre_exec(), plus two extras. The ovector argument is used in a differ‐
ent way, and this is described below. The other common arguments are
used in the same way as for pcre_exec(), so their description is not
repeated here.
The two additional arguments provide workspace for the function. The
workspace vector should contain at least 20 elements. It is used for
keeping track of multiple paths through the pattern tree. More
workspace will be needed for patterns and subjects where there are a
lot of potential matches.
Here is an example of a simple call to pcre_dfa_exec():
int rc;
int ovector[10];
int wspace[20];
rc = pcre_dfa_exec(
re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
NULL, /* we didn't study the pattern */
"some string", /* the subject string */
11, /* the length of the subject string */
0, /* start at offset 0 in the subject */
0, /* default options */
ovector, /* vector of integers for substring information */
10, /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */
wspace, /* working space vector */
20); /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */
Option bits for pcre_dfa_exec()
The unused bits of the options argument for pcre_dfa_exec() must be
zero. The only bits that may be set are PCRE_ANCHORED, PCRE_NEW‐
LINE_xxx, PCRE_NOTBOL, PCRE_NOTEOL, PCRE_NOTEMPTY,
PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART, PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF,
PCRE_BSR_UNICODE, PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE, PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD, PCRE_PAR‐
TIAL_SOFT, PCRE_DFA_SHORTEST, and PCRE_DFA_RESTART. All but the last
four of these are exactly the same as for pcre_exec(), so their
description is not repeated here.
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD
PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT
These have the same general effect as they do for pcre_exec(), but the
details are slightly different. When PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD is set for
pcre_dfa_exec(), it returns PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL if the end of the sub‐
ject is reached and there is still at least one matching possibility
that requires additional characters. This happens even if some complete
matches have also been found. When PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT is set, the return
code PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH is converted into PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL if the end
of the subject is reached, there have been no complete matches, but
there is still at least one matching possibility. The portion of the
string that was inspected when the longest partial match was found is
set as the first matching string in both cases. There is a more
detailed discussion of partial and multi-segment matching, with exam‐
ples, in the pcrepartial documentation.
PCRE_DFA_SHORTEST
Setting the PCRE_DFA_SHORTEST option causes the matching algorithm to
stop as soon as it has found one match. Because of the way the alterna‐
tive algorithm works, this is necessarily the shortest possible match
at the first possible matching point in the subject string.
PCRE_DFA_RESTART
When pcre_dfa_exec() returns a partial match, it is possible to call it
again, with additional subject characters, and have it continue with
the same match. The PCRE_DFA_RESTART option requests this action; when
it is set, the workspace and wscount options must reference the same
vector as before because data about the match so far is left in them
after a partial match. There is more discussion of this facility in the
pcrepartial documentation.
Successful returns from pcre_dfa_exec()
When pcre_dfa_exec() succeeds, it may have matched more than one sub‐
string in the subject. Note, however, that all the matches from one run
of the function start at the same point in the subject. The shorter
matches are all initial substrings of the longer matches. For example,
if the pattern
<.*>
is matched against the string
This is <something> <something else> <something further> no more
the three matched strings are
<something>
<something> <something else>
<something> <something else> <something further>
On success, the yield of the function is a number greater than zero,
which is the number of matched substrings. The substrings themselves
are returned in ovector. Each string uses two elements; the first is
the offset to the start, and the second is the offset to the end. In
fact, all the strings have the same start offset. (Space could have
been saved by giving this only once, but it was decided to retain some
compatibility with the way pcre_exec() returns data, even though the
meaning of the strings is different.)
The strings are returned in reverse order of length; that is, the long‐
est matching string is given first. If there were too many matches to
fit into ovector, the yield of the function is zero, and the vector is
filled with the longest matches.
Error returns from pcre_dfa_exec()
The pcre_dfa_exec() function returns a negative number when it fails.
Many of the errors are the same as for pcre_exec(), and these are
described above. There are in addition the following errors that are
specific to pcre_dfa_exec():
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_UITEM (-16)
This return is given if pcre_dfa_exec() encounters an item in the pat‐
tern that it does not support, for instance, the use of \C or a back
reference.
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_UCOND (-17)
This return is given if pcre_dfa_exec() encounters a condition item
that uses a back reference for the condition, or a test for recursion
in a specific group. These are not supported.
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_UMLIMIT (-18)
This return is given if pcre_dfa_exec() is called with an extra block
that contains a setting of the match_limit field. This is not supported
(it is meaningless).
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_WSSIZE (-19)
This return is given if pcre_dfa_exec() runs out of space in the
workspace vector.
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_RECURSE (-20)
When a recursive subpattern is processed, the matching function calls
itself recursively, using private vectors for ovector and workspace.
This error is given if the output vector is not large enough. This
should be extremely rare, as a vector of size 1000 is used.
SEE ALSOpcrebuild(3), pcrecallout(3), pcrecpp(3)(3), pcrematching(3), pcrepar‐
tial(3), pcreposix(3), pcreprecompile(3), pcresample(3), pcrestack(3).
AUTHOR
Philip Hazel
University Computing Service
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
REVISION
Last updated: 13 August 2011
Copyright (c) 1997-2011 University of Cambridge.
PCREAPI(3)
