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| <title>pcreposix specification</title> |
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| <h1>pcreposix man page</h1> |
| <p> |
| Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically |
| from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the |
| man page, in case the conversion went wrong. |
| <br> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">SYNOPSIS OF POSIX API</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">DESCRIPTION</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">COMPILING A PATTERN</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">MATCHING NEWLINE CHARACTERS</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">MATCHING A PATTERN</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">ERROR MESSAGES</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC7" href="#SEC7">MEMORY USAGE</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC8" href="#SEC8">AUTHOR</a> |
| <li><a name="TOC9" href="#SEC9">REVISION</a> |
| </ul> |
| <br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">SYNOPSIS OF POSIX API</a><br> |
| <P> |
| <b>#include <pcreposix.h></b> |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| <b>int regcomp(regex_t *<i>preg</i>, const char *<i>pattern</i>,</b> |
| <b>int <i>cflags</i>);</b> |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| <b>int regexec(regex_t *<i>preg</i>, const char *<i>string</i>,</b> |
| <b>size_t <i>nmatch</i>, regmatch_t <i>pmatch</i>[], int <i>eflags</i>);</b> |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| <b>size_t regerror(int <i>errcode</i>, const regex_t *<i>preg</i>,</b> |
| <b>char *<i>errbuf</i>, size_t <i>errbuf_size</i>);</b> |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| <b>void regfree(regex_t *<i>preg</i>);</b> |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">DESCRIPTION</a><br> |
| <P> |
| This set of functions provides a POSIX-style API to the PCRE regular expression |
| package. See the |
| <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a> |
| documentation for a description of PCRE's native API, which contains much |
| additional functionality. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| The functions described here are just wrapper functions that ultimately call |
| the PCRE native API. Their prototypes are defined in the <b>pcreposix.h</b> |
| header file, and on Unix systems the library itself is called |
| <b>pcreposix.a</b>, so can be accessed by adding <b>-lpcreposix</b> to the |
| command for linking an application that uses them. Because the POSIX functions |
| call the native ones, it is also necessary to add <b>-lpcre</b>. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| I have implemented only those POSIX option bits that can be reasonably mapped |
| to PCRE native options. In addition, the option REG_EXTENDED is defined with |
| the value zero. This has no effect, but since programs that are written to the |
| POSIX interface often use it, this makes it easier to slot in PCRE as a |
| replacement library. Other POSIX options are not even defined. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| There are also some other options that are not defined by POSIX. These have |
| been added at the request of users who want to make use of certain |
| PCRE-specific features via the POSIX calling interface. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| When PCRE is called via these functions, it is only the API that is POSIX-like |
| in style. The syntax and semantics of the regular expressions themselves are |
| still those of Perl, subject to the setting of various PCRE options, as |
| described below. "POSIX-like in style" means that the API approximates to the |
| POSIX definition; it is not fully POSIX-compatible, and in multi-byte encoding |
| domains it is probably even less compatible. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| The header for these functions is supplied as <b>pcreposix.h</b> to avoid any |
| potential clash with other POSIX libraries. It can, of course, be renamed or |
| aliased as <b>regex.h</b>, which is the "correct" name. It provides two |
| structure types, <i>regex_t</i> for compiled internal forms, and |
| <i>regmatch_t</i> for returning captured substrings. It also defines some |
| constants whose names start with "REG_"; these are used for setting options and |
| identifying error codes. |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">COMPILING A PATTERN</a><br> |
| <P> |
| The function <b>regcomp()</b> is called to compile a pattern into an |
| internal form. The pattern is a C string terminated by a binary zero, and |
| is passed in the argument <i>pattern</i>. The <i>preg</i> argument is a pointer |
| to a <b>regex_t</b> structure that is used as a base for storing information |
| about the compiled regular expression. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| The argument <i>cflags</i> is either zero, or contains one or more of the bits |
| defined by the following macros: |
| <pre> |
| REG_DOTALL |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_DOTALL option is set when the regular expression is passed for |
| compilation to the native function. Note that REG_DOTALL is not part of the |
| POSIX standard. |
| <pre> |
| REG_ICASE |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_CASELESS option is set when the regular expression is passed for |
| compilation to the native function. |
| <pre> |
| REG_NEWLINE |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_MULTILINE option is set when the regular expression is passed for |
| compilation to the native function. Note that this does <i>not</i> mimic the |
| defined POSIX behaviour for REG_NEWLINE (see the following section). |
| <pre> |
| REG_NOSUB |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE option is set when the regular expression is passed |
| for compilation to the native function. In addition, when a pattern that is |
| compiled with this flag is passed to <b>regexec()</b> for matching, the |
| <i>nmatch</i> and <i>pmatch</i> arguments are ignored, and no captured strings |
| are returned. |
| <pre> |
| REG_UCP |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_UCP option is set when the regular expression is passed for |
| compilation to the native function. This causes PCRE to use Unicode properties |
| when matchine \d, \w, etc., instead of just recognizing ASCII values. Note |
| that REG_UTF8 is not part of the POSIX standard. |
| <pre> |
| REG_UNGREEDY |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_UNGREEDY option is set when the regular expression is passed for |
| compilation to the native function. Note that REG_UNGREEDY is not part of the |
| POSIX standard. |
| <pre> |
| REG_UTF8 |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_UTF8 option is set when the regular expression is passed for |
| compilation to the native function. This causes the pattern itself and all data |
| strings used for matching it to be treated as UTF-8 strings. Note that REG_UTF8 |
| is not part of the POSIX standard. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| In the absence of these flags, no options are passed to the native function. |
| This means the the regex is compiled with PCRE default semantics. In |
| particular, the way it handles newline characters in the subject string is the |
| Perl way, not the POSIX way. Note that setting PCRE_MULTILINE has only |
| <i>some</i> of the effects specified for REG_NEWLINE. It does not affect the way |
| newlines are matched by . (they are not) or by a negative class such as [^a] |
| (they are). |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| The yield of <b>regcomp()</b> is zero on success, and non-zero otherwise. The |
| <i>preg</i> structure is filled in on success, and one member of the structure |
| is public: <i>re_nsub</i> contains the number of capturing subpatterns in |
| the regular expression. Various error codes are defined in the header file. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| NOTE: If the yield of <b>regcomp()</b> is non-zero, you must not attempt to |
| use the contents of the <i>preg</i> structure. If, for example, you pass it to |
| <b>regexec()</b>, the result is undefined and your program is likely to crash. |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">MATCHING NEWLINE CHARACTERS</a><br> |
| <P> |
| This area is not simple, because POSIX and Perl take different views of things. |
| It is not possible to get PCRE to obey POSIX semantics, but then PCRE was never |
| intended to be a POSIX engine. The following table lists the different |
| possibilities for matching newline characters in PCRE: |
| <pre> |
| Default Change with |
| |
| . matches newline no PCRE_DOTALL |
| newline matches [^a] yes not changeable |
| $ matches \n at end yes PCRE_DOLLARENDONLY |
| $ matches \n in middle no PCRE_MULTILINE |
| ^ matches \n in middle no PCRE_MULTILINE |
| </pre> |
| This is the equivalent table for POSIX: |
| <pre> |
| Default Change with |
| |
| . matches newline yes REG_NEWLINE |
| newline matches [^a] yes REG_NEWLINE |
| $ matches \n at end no REG_NEWLINE |
| $ matches \n in middle no REG_NEWLINE |
| ^ matches \n in middle no REG_NEWLINE |
| </pre> |
| PCRE's behaviour is the same as Perl's, except that there is no equivalent for |
| PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY in Perl. In both PCRE and Perl, there is no way to stop |
| newline from matching [^a]. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| The default POSIX newline handling can be obtained by setting PCRE_DOTALL and |
| PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY, but there is no way to make PCRE behave exactly as for the |
| REG_NEWLINE action. |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">MATCHING A PATTERN</a><br> |
| <P> |
| The function <b>regexec()</b> is called to match a compiled pattern <i>preg</i> |
| against a given <i>string</i>, which is by default terminated by a zero byte |
| (but see REG_STARTEND below), subject to the options in <i>eflags</i>. These can |
| be: |
| <pre> |
| REG_NOTBOL |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_NOTBOL option is set when calling the underlying PCRE matching |
| function. |
| <pre> |
| REG_NOTEMPTY |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_NOTEMPTY option is set when calling the underlying PCRE matching |
| function. Note that REG_NOTEMPTY is not part of the POSIX standard. However, |
| setting this option can give more POSIX-like behaviour in some situations. |
| <pre> |
| REG_NOTEOL |
| </pre> |
| The PCRE_NOTEOL option is set when calling the underlying PCRE matching |
| function. |
| <pre> |
| REG_STARTEND |
| </pre> |
| The string is considered to start at <i>string</i> + <i>pmatch[0].rm_so</i> and |
| to have a terminating NUL located at <i>string</i> + <i>pmatch[0].rm_eo</i> |
| (there need not actually be a NUL at that location), regardless of the value of |
| <i>nmatch</i>. This is a BSD extension, compatible with but not specified by |
| IEEE Standard 1003.2 (POSIX.2), and should be used with caution in software |
| intended to be portable to other systems. Note that a non-zero <i>rm_so</i> does |
| not imply REG_NOTBOL; REG_STARTEND affects only the location of the string, not |
| how it is matched. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| If the pattern was compiled with the REG_NOSUB flag, no data about any matched |
| strings is returned. The <i>nmatch</i> and <i>pmatch</i> arguments of |
| <b>regexec()</b> are ignored. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| If the value of <i>nmatch</i> is zero, or if the value <i>pmatch</i> is NULL, |
| no data about any matched strings is returned. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| Otherwise,the portion of the string that was matched, and also any captured |
| substrings, are returned via the <i>pmatch</i> argument, which points to an |
| array of <i>nmatch</i> structures of type <i>regmatch_t</i>, containing the |
| members <i>rm_so</i> and <i>rm_eo</i>. These contain the offset to the first |
| character of each substring and the offset to the first character after the end |
| of each substring, respectively. The 0th element of the vector relates to the |
| entire portion of <i>string</i> that was matched; subsequent elements relate to |
| the capturing subpatterns of the regular expression. Unused entries in the |
| array have both structure members set to -1. |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| A successful match yields a zero return; various error codes are defined in the |
| header file, of which REG_NOMATCH is the "expected" failure code. |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">ERROR MESSAGES</a><br> |
| <P> |
| The <b>regerror()</b> function maps a non-zero errorcode from either |
| <b>regcomp()</b> or <b>regexec()</b> to a printable message. If <i>preg</i> is not |
| NULL, the error should have arisen from the use of that structure. A message |
| terminated by a binary zero is placed in <i>errbuf</i>. The length of the |
| message, including the zero, is limited to <i>errbuf_size</i>. The yield of the |
| function is the size of buffer needed to hold the whole message. |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC7" href="#TOC1">MEMORY USAGE</a><br> |
| <P> |
| Compiling a regular expression causes memory to be allocated and associated |
| with the <i>preg</i> structure. The function <b>regfree()</b> frees all such |
| memory, after which <i>preg</i> may no longer be used as a compiled expression. |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC8" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a><br> |
| <P> |
| Philip Hazel |
| <br> |
| University Computing Service |
| <br> |
| Cambridge CB2 3QH, England. |
| <br> |
| </P> |
| <br><a name="SEC9" href="#TOC1">REVISION</a><br> |
| <P> |
| Last updated: 16 May 2010 |
| <br> |
| Copyright © 1997-2010 University of Cambridge. |
| <br> |
| <p> |
| Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>. |
| </p> |