.TH PCRE 3 .SH NAME pcreposix - POSIX API for Perl-compatible regular expressions. .SH SYNOPSIS .B #include .PP .SM .br .B int regcomp(regex_t *\fIpreg\fR, const char *\fIpattern\fR, .ti +5n .B int \fIcflags\fR); .PP .br .B int regexec(regex_t *\fIpreg\fR, const char *\fIstring\fR, .ti +5n .B size_t \fInmatch\fR, regmatch_t \fIpmatch\fR[], int \fIeflags\fR); .PP .br .B size_t regerror(int \fIerrcode\fR, const regex_t *\fIpreg\fR, .ti +5n .B char *\fIerrbuf\fR, size_t \fIerrbuf_size\fR); .PP .br .B void regfree(regex_t *\fIpreg\fR); .SH DESCRIPTION This set of functions provides a POSIX-style API to the PCRE regular expression package. See the \fBpcre\fR documentation for a description of the native API, which contains additional functionality. The functions described here are just wrapper functions that ultimately call the native API. Their prototypes are defined in the \fBpcreposix.h\fR header file, and on Unix systems the library itself is called \fBpcreposix.a\fR, so can be accessed by adding \fB-lpcreposix\fR to the command for linking an application which uses them. Because the POSIX functions call the native ones, it is also necessary to add \fR-lpcre\fR. I have implemented only those option bits that can be reasonably mapped to PCRE native options. In addition, the options REG_EXTENDED and REG_NOSUB are defined with the value zero. They have no effect, but since programs that are written to the POSIX interface often use them, this makes it easier to slot in PCRE as a replacement library. Other POSIX options are not even defined. 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. The header for these functions is supplied as \fBpcreposix.h\fR to avoid any potential clash with other POSIX libraries. It can, of course, be renamed or aliased as \fBregex.h\fR, which is the "correct" name. It provides two structure types, \fIregex_t\fR for compiled internal forms, and \fIregmatch_t\fR for returning captured substrings. It also defines some constants whose names start with "REG_"; these are used for setting options and identifying error codes. .SH COMPILING A PATTERN The function \fBregcomp()\fR 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 \fIpattern\fR. The \fIpreg\fR argument is a pointer to a regex_t structure which is used as a base for storing information about the compiled expression. The argument \fIcflags\fR is either zero, or contains one or more of the bits defined by the following macros: REG_ICASE The PCRE_CASELESS option is set when the expression is passed for compilation to the native function. REG_NEWLINE The PCRE_MULTILINE option is set when the expression is passed for compilation to the native function. 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 \fIsome\fR of the effects specified for REG_NEWLINE. It does not affect the way newlines are matched by . (they aren't) or a negative class such as [^a] (they are). The yield of \fBregcomp()\fR is zero on success, and non-zero otherwise. The \fIpreg\fR structure is filled in on success, and one member of the structure is publicized: \fIre_nsub\fR contains the number of capturing subpatterns in the regular expression. Various error codes are defined in the header file. .SH MATCHING A PATTERN The function \fBregexec()\fR is called to match a pre-compiled pattern \fIpreg\fR against a given \fIstring\fR, which is terminated by a zero byte, subject to the options in \fIeflags\fR. These can be: REG_NOTBOL The PCRE_NOTBOL option is set when calling the underlying PCRE matching function. REG_NOTEOL The PCRE_NOTEOL option is set when calling the underlying PCRE matching function. The portion of the string that was matched, and also any captured substrings, are returned via the \fIpmatch\fR argument, which points to an array of \fInmatch\fR structures of type \fIregmatch_t\fR, containing the members \fIrm_so\fR and \fIrm_eo\fR. 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 \fIstring\fR 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. 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. .SH ERROR MESSAGES The \fBregerror()\fR function maps a non-zero errorcode from either \fBregcomp\fR or \fBregexec\fR to a printable message. If \fIpreg\fR is not NULL, the error should have arisen from the use of that structure. A message terminated by a binary zero is placed in \fIerrbuf\fR. The length of the message, including the zero, is limited to \fIerrbuf_size\fR. The yield of the function is the size of buffer needed to hold the whole message. .SH STORAGE Compiling a regular expression causes memory to be allocated and associated with the \fIpreg\fR structure. The function \fBregfree()\fR frees all such memory, after which \fIpreg\fR may no longer be used as a compiled expression. .SH AUTHOR Philip Hazel .br University Computing Service, .br New Museums Site, .br Cambridge CB2 3QG, England. .br Phone: +44 1223 334714 Copyright (c) 1997-2000 University of Cambridge.