NAME

       PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcre2.h>

       int32_t pcre2_serialize_encode(const pcre2_code **codes,
         int32_t number_of_codes, uint8_t **serialized_bytes,
         PCRE2_SIZE *serialized_size, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

DESCRIPTION

       This  function encodes a list of compiled patterns into a byte stream that can be saved on
       disc or elsewhere. Note that this is not an abstract format like Java or .NET.  Conversion
       of  the  byte  stream back into usable compiled patterns can only happen on a host that is
       running the same version of PCRE2, with the same code unit width, and the host  must  also
       have   the  same  endianness,  pointer  width  and  PCRE2_SIZE  type.  The  arguments  for
       pcre2_serialize_encode() are:

         codes             pointer to a vector containing the list
         number_of_codes   number of slots in the vector
         serialized_bytes  set to point to the serialized byte stream
         serialized_size   set to the number of bytes in the byte stream
         gcontext          pointer to a general context or NULL

       The context argument is used to obtain memory for the byte  stream.  When  the  serialized
       data is no longer needed, it must be freed by calling pcre2_serialize_free(). The yield of
       the function is the number of serialized patterns, or one of the following negative  error
       codes:

         PCRE2_ERROR_BADDATA      number_of_codes is zero or less
         PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC     mismatch of id bytes in one of the patterns
         PCRE2_ERROR_MEMORY       memory allocation failed
         PCRE2_ERROR_MIXEDTABLES  the patterns do not all use the same tables
         PCRE2_ERROR_NULL         an argument other than gcontext is NULL

       PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC means either that a pattern's code has been corrupted, or that a slot
       in the vector does not point to a compiled pattern.

       There is a complete description of the PCRE2  native  API  in  the  pcre2api  page  and  a
       description of the serialization functions in the pcre2serialize page.