NAME

       PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcre2.h>

       pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR pattern, PCRE2_SIZE length,
         uint32_t options, int *errorcode, PCRE2_SIZE *erroroffset,
         pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

DESCRIPTION

       This  function  compiles a regular expression pattern into an internal form. Its arguments
       are:

         pattern       A string containing expression to be compiled
         length        The length of the string or PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED
         options       Option bits
         errorcode     Where to put an error code
         erroffset     Where to put an error offset
         ccontext      Pointer to a compile context or NULL

       The length of the pattern and any error offset that is returned are  in  code  units,  not
       characters.  A  compile  context  is  needed  only  if  you  want to provide custom memory
       allocation functions, or to provide an external function for system stack  size  checking,
       or to change one or more of these parameters:

         What \R matches (Unicode newlines, or CR, LF, CRLF only);
         PCRE2's character tables;
         The newline character sequence;
         The compile time nested parentheses limit;
         The maximum pattern length (in code units) that is allowed.
         The additional options bits (see pcre2_set_compile_extra_options())

       The option bits are:

         PCRE2_ANCHORED           Force pattern anchoring
         PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS  Allow empty classes
         PCRE2_ALT_BSUX           Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x
         PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX     Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode
         PCRE2_ALT_VERBNAMES      Process backslashes in verb names
         PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT       Compile automatic callouts
         PCRE2_CASELESS           Do caseless matching
         PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY     $ not to match newline at end
         PCRE2_DOTALL             . matches anything including NL
         PCRE2_DUPNAMES           Allow duplicate names for subpatterns
         PCRE2_ENDANCHORED        Pattern can match only at end of subject
         PCRE2_EXTENDED           Ignore white space and # comments
         PCRE2_FIRSTLINE          Force matching to be before newline
         PCRE2_LITERAL            Pattern characters are all literal
         PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF  Match unset back references
         PCRE2_MULTILINE          ^ and $ match newlines within data
         PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C  Lock out the use of \C in patterns
         PCRE2_NEVER_UCP          Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP)
         PCRE2_NEVER_UTF          Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF)
         PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE    Disable numbered capturing paren-
                                   theses (named ones available)
         PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS    Disable auto-possessification
         PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR  Disable automatic anchoring for .*
         PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE  Disable match-time start optimizations
         PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK       Do not check the pattern for UTF validity
                                    (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set)
         PCRE2_UCP                Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc.
         PCRE2_UNGREEDY           Invert greediness of quantifiers
         PCRE2_USE_OFFSET_LIMIT   Enable offset limit for unanchored matching
         PCRE2_UTF                Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings

       PCRE2  must  be  built  with  Unicode  support  (the  default)  in order to use PCRE2_UTF,
       PCRE2_UCP and related options.

       The yield of the function is a pointer to a  private  data  structure  that  contains  the
       compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected.

       There  is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API, with more detail on each option,
       in the pcre2api page, and a description of the POSIX API in the pcre2posix page.