PCREPRECOMPILE(3)PCREPRECOMPILE(3)NAME
PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
SAVING AND RE-USING PRECOMPILED PCRE PATTERNS
If you are running an application that uses a large number of regular
expression patterns, it may be useful to store them in a precompiled
form instead of having to compile them every time the application is
run. If you are not using any private character tables (see the
pcre_maketables() documentation), this is relatively straightforward.
If you are using private tables, it is a little bit more complicated.
However, if you are using the just-in-time optimization feature of
pcre_study(), it is not possible to save and reload the JIT data.
If you save compiled patterns to a file, you can copy them to a differ‐
ent host and run them there. This works even if the new host has the
opposite endianness to the one on which the patterns were compiled.
There may be a small performance penalty, but it should be insignifi‐
cant. However, compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE
for use with a different version is not guaranteed to work and may
cause crashes, and saving and restoring a compiled pattern loses any
JIT optimization data.
SAVING A COMPILED PATTERN
The value returned by pcre_compile() points to a single block of memory
that holds the compiled pattern and associated data. You can find the
length of this block in bytes by calling pcre_fullinfo() with an argu‐
ment of PCRE_INFO_SIZE. You can then save the data in any appropriate
manner. Here is sample code that compiles a pattern and writes it to a
file. It assumes that the variable fd refers to a file that is open for
output:
int erroroffset, rc, size;
char *error;
pcre *re;
re = pcre_compile("my pattern", 0, &error, &erroroffset, NULL);
if (re == NULL) { ... handle errors ... }
rc = pcre_fullinfo(re, NULL, PCRE_INFO_SIZE, &size);
if (rc < 0) { ... handle errors ... }
rc = fwrite(re, 1, size, fd);
if (rc != size) { ... handle errors ... }
In this example, the bytes that comprise the compiled pattern are
copied exactly. Note that this is binary data that may contain any of
the 256 possible byte values. On systems that make a distinction
between binary and non-binary data, be sure that the file is opened for
binary output.
If you want to write more than one pattern to a file, you will have to
devise a way of separating them. For binary data, preceding each pat‐
tern with its length is probably the most straightforward approach.
Another possibility is to write out the data in hexadecimal instead of
binary, one pattern to a line.
Saving compiled patterns in a file is only one possible way of storing
them for later use. They could equally well be saved in a database, or
in the memory of some daemon process that passes them via sockets to
the processes that want them.
If the pattern has been studied, it is also possible to save the normal
study data in a similar way to the compiled pattern itself. However, if
the PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE was used, the just-in-time data that is cre‐
ated cannot be saved because it is too dependent on the current envi‐
ronment. When studying generates additional information, pcre_study()
returns a pointer to a pcre_extra data block. Its format is defined in
the section on matching a pattern in the pcreapi documentation. The
study_data field points to the binary study data, and this is what you
must save (not the pcre_extra block itself). The length of the study
data can be obtained by calling pcre_fullinfo() with an argument of
PCRE_INFO_STUDYSIZE. Remember to check that pcre_study() did return a
non-NULL value before trying to save the study data.
RE-USING A PRECOMPILED PATTERN
Re-using a precompiled pattern is straightforward. Having reloaded it
into main memory, you pass its pointer to pcre_exec() or
pcre_dfa_exec() in the usual way. This should work even on another
host, and even if that host has the opposite endianness to the one
where the pattern was compiled.
However, if you passed a pointer to custom character tables when the
pattern was compiled (the tableptr argument of pcre_compile()), you
must now pass a similar pointer to pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec(),
because the value saved with the compiled pattern will obviously be
nonsense. A field in a pcre_extra() block is used to pass this data, as
described in the section on matching a pattern in the pcreapi documen‐
tation.
If you did not provide custom character tables when the pattern was
compiled, the pointer in the compiled pattern is NULL, which causes
pcre_exec() to use PCRE's internal tables. Thus, you do not need to
take any special action at run time in this case.
If you saved study data with the compiled pattern, you need to create
your own pcre_extra data block and set the study_data field to point to
the reloaded study data. You must also set the PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA
bit in the flags field to indicate that study data is present. Then
pass the pcre_extra block to pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec() in the
usual way. If the pattern was studied for just-in-time optimization,
that data cannot be saved, and so is lost by a save/restore cycle.
COMPATIBILITY WITH DIFFERENT PCRE RELEASES
In general, it is safest to recompile all saved patterns when you
update to a new PCRE release, though not all updates actually require
this.
AUTHOR
Philip Hazel
University Computing Service
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
REVISION
Last updated: 26 August 2011
Copyright (c) 1997-2011 University of Cambridge.
PCREPRECOMPILE(3)
