1PCRE2_COMPILE(3) Library Functions Manual PCRE2_COMPILE(3)
2
6 PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)
7
9 #include <pcre2.h>
11 pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR pattern, PCRE2_SIZE length,
13 uint32_t options, int *errorcode, PCRE2_SIZE *erroroffset,
14 pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);
15
17 This function compiles a regular expression pattern into an internal
19 form. Its arguments are:
20 pattern A string containing expression to be compiled
22 length The length of the string or PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED
23 options Option bits
24 errorcode Where to put an error code
25 erroffset Where to put an error offset
26 ccontext Pointer to a compile context or NULL
27 The length of the pattern and any error offset that is returned are in
29 code units, not characters. A compile context is needed only if you
30 want to provide custom memory allocation functions, or to provide an
31 external function for system stack size checking, or to change one or
32 more of these parameters:
33 What \R matches (Unicode newlines, or CR, LF, CRLF only);
35 PCRE2's character tables;
36 The newline character sequence;
37 The compile time nested parentheses limit;
38 The maximum pattern length (in code units) that is allowed.
39 The additional options bits (see pcre2_set_compile_extra_options())
40 The option bits are:
42 PCRE2_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring
44 PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS Allow empty classes
45 PCRE2_ALT_BSUX Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x
46 PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode
47 PCRE2_ALT_VERBNAMES Process backslashes in verb names
48 PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts
49 PCRE2_CASELESS Do caseless matching
50 PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end
51 PCRE2_DOTALL . matches anything including NL
52 PCRE2_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns
53 PCRE2_ENDANCHORED Pattern can match only at end of subject
54 PCRE2_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments
55 PCRE2_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline
56 PCRE2_LITERAL Pattern characters are all literal
57 PCRE2_MATCH_INVALID_UTF Enable support for matching invalid UTF
58 PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF Match unset backreferences
59 PCRE2_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data
60 PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C Lock out the use of \C in patterns
61 PCRE2_NEVER_UCP Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP)
62 PCRE2_NEVER_UTF Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF)
63 PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren-
64 theses (named ones available)
65 PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification
66 PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR Disable automatic anchoring for .*
67 PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations
68 PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF validity
69 (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set)
70 PCRE2_UCP Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc.
71 PCRE2_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers
72 PCRE2_USE_OFFSET_LIMIT Enable offset limit for unanchored matching
73 PCRE2_UTF Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings
74 PCRE2 must be built with Unicode support (the default) in order to use
76 PCRE2_UTF, PCRE2_UCP and related options.
77 Additional options may be set in the compile context via the
79 pcre2_set_compile_extra_options function.
80 If either of errorcode or erroroffset is NULL, the function returns
82 NULL immediately. Otherwise, the yield of this function is a pointer to
83 a private data structure that contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if
84 an error was detected. In the error case, a text error message can be
85 obtained by passing the value returned via the errorcode argument to
86 the the pcre2_get_error_message() function. The offset (in code units)
87 where the error was encountered is returned via the erroroffset argu‐
88 ment.
89 If there is no error, the value passed via errorcode returns the mes‐
91 sage "no error" if passed to pcre2_get_error_message(), and the value
92 passed via erroroffset is zero.
93 There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API, with more de‐
95 tail on each option, in the pcre2api page, and a description of the
96 POSIX API in the pcre2posix page.
97PCRE2 10.41 22 April 2022 PCRE2_COMPILE(3)