NAME

       PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcre.h>

       pcre *pcre_compile(const char *pattern, int options,
            const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
            const unsigned char *tableptr);

       pcre16 *pcre16_compile(PCRE_SPTR16 pattern, int options,
            const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
            const unsigned char *tableptr);

       pcre32 *pcre32_compile(PCRE_SPTR32 pattern, int options,
            const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
            const unsigned char *tableptr);

DESCRIPTION

       This  function  compiles  a  regular  expression  into an internal form. It is the same as
       pcre[16|32]_compile2(), except for the absence of the errorcodeptr argument. Its arguments
       are:

         pattern       A zero-terminated string containing the
                         regular expression to be compiled
         options       Zero or more option bits
         errptr        Where to put an error message
         erroffset     Offset in pattern where error was found
         tableptr      Pointer to character tables, or NULL to
                         use the built-in default

       The option bits are:

         PCRE_ANCHORED           Force pattern anchoring
         PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT       Compile automatic callouts
         PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF        \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF
         PCRE_BSR_UNICODE        \R matches all Unicode line endings
         PCRE_CASELESS           Do caseless matching
         PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY     $ not to match newline at end
         PCRE_DOTALL             . matches anything including NL
         PCRE_DUPNAMES           Allow duplicate names for subpatterns
         PCRE_EXTENDED           Ignore white space and # comments
         PCRE_EXTRA              PCRE extra features
                                   (not much use currently)
         PCRE_FIRSTLINE          Force matching to be before newline
         PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT  JavaScript compatibility
         PCRE_MULTILINE          ^ and $ match newlines within data
         PCRE_NEVER_UTF          Lock out UTF, e.g. via (*UTF)
         PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY        Recognize any Unicode newline sequence
         PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF    Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline
                                   sequences
         PCRE_NEWLINE_CR         Set CR as the newline sequence
         PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF       Set CRLF as the newline sequence
         PCRE_NEWLINE_LF         Set LF as the newline sequence
         PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE    Disable numbered capturing paren-
                                   theses (named ones available)
         PCRE_NO_AUTO_POSSESS    Disable auto-possessification
         PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE  Disable match-time start optimizations
         PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK     Do not check the pattern for UTF-16
                                   validity (only relevant if
                                   PCRE_UTF16 is set)
         PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK     Do not check the pattern for UTF-32
                                   validity (only relevant if
                                   PCRE_UTF32 is set)
         PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK      Do not check the pattern for UTF-8
                                   validity (only relevant if
                                   PCRE_UTF8 is set)
         PCRE_UCP                Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc.
         PCRE_UNGREEDY           Invert greediness of quantifiers
         PCRE_UTF16              Run in pcre16_compile() UTF-16 mode
         PCRE_UTF32              Run in pcre32_compile() UTF-32 mode
         PCRE_UTF8               Run in pcre_compile() UTF-8 mode

       PCRE   must   be   built   with   UTF   support   in  order  to  use  PCRE_UTF8/16/32  and
       PCRE_NO_UTF8/16/32_CHECK, and with UCP support if PCRE_UCP is used.

       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.  Note  that  compiling regular
       expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different version is not guaranteed to
       work and may cause crashes.

       There  is  a  complete  description  of  the  PCRE  native  API  in the pcreapi page and a
       description of the POSIX API in the pcreposix page.