Provided by: libpcre2-dev_10.42-4ubuntu3_amd64 
NAME
PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)
BUILDING PCRE2
PCRE2 is distributed with a configure script that can be used to build the library in Unix-like
environments using the applications known as Autotools. Also in the distribution are files to support
building using CMake instead of configure. The text file README contains general information about
building with Autotools (some of which is repeated below), and also has some comments about building on
various operating systems. There is a lot more information about building PCRE2 without using Autotools
(including information about using CMake and building "by hand") in the text file called NON-AUTOTOOLS-
BUILD. You should consult this file as well as the README file if you are building in a non-Unix-like
environment.
PCRE2 BUILD-TIME OPTIONS
The rest of this document describes the optional features of PCRE2 that can be selected when the library
is compiled. It assumes use of the configure script, where the optional features are selected or
deselected by providing options to configure before running the make command. However, the same options
can be selected in both Unix-like and non-Unix-like environments if you are using CMake instead of
configure to build PCRE2.
If you are not using Autotools or CMake, option selection can be done by editing the config.h file, or by
passing parameter settings to the compiler, as described in NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.
The complete list of options for configure (which includes the standard ones such as the selection of the
installation directory) can be obtained by running
./configure --help
The following sections include descriptions of "on/off" options whose names begin with --enable or
--disable. Because of the way that configure works, --enable and --disable always come in pairs, so the
complementary option always exists as well, but as it specifies the default, it is not described.
Options that specify values have names that start with --with. At the end of a configure run, a summary
of the configuration is output.
BUILDING 8-BIT, 16-BIT AND 32-BIT LIBRARIES
By default, a library called libpcre2-8 is built, containing functions that take string arguments
contained in arrays of bytes, interpreted either as single-byte characters, or UTF-8 strings. You can
also build two other libraries, called libpcre2-16 and libpcre2-32, which process strings that are
contained in arrays of 16-bit and 32-bit code units, respectively. These can be interpreted either as
single-unit characters or UTF-16/UTF-32 strings. To build these additional libraries, add one or both of
the following to the configure command:
--enable-pcre2-16
--enable-pcre2-32
If you do not want the 8-bit library, add
--disable-pcre2-8
as well. At least one of the three libraries must be built. Note that the POSIX wrapper is for the 8-bit
library only, and that pcre2grep is an 8-bit program. Neither of these are built if you select only the
16-bit or 32-bit libraries.
BUILDING SHARED AND STATIC LIBRARIES
The Autotools PCRE2 building process uses libtool to build both shared and static libraries by default.
You can suppress an unwanted library by adding one of
--disable-shared
--disable-static
to the configure command.
UNICODE AND UTF SUPPORT
By default, PCRE2 is built with support for Unicode and UTF character strings. To build it without
Unicode support, add
--disable-unicode
to the configure command. This setting applies to all three libraries. It is not possible to build one
library with Unicode support and another without in the same configuration.
Of itself, Unicode support does not make PCRE2 treat strings as UTF-8, UTF-16 or UTF-32. To do that,
applications that use the library can set the PCRE2_UTF option when they call pcre2_compile() to compile
a pattern. Alternatively, patterns may be started with (*UTF) unless the application has locked this out
by setting PCRE2_NEVER_UTF.
UTF support allows the libraries to process character code points up to 0x10ffff in the strings that they
handle. Unicode support also gives access to the Unicode properties of characters, using pattern escapes
such as \P, \p, and \X. Only the general category properties such as Lu and Nd, script names, and some
bi-directional properties are supported. Details are given in the pcre2pattern documentation.
Pattern escapes such as \d and \w do not by default make use of Unicode properties. The application can
request that they do by setting the PCRE2_UCP option. Unless the application has set PCRE2_NEVER_UCP, a
pattern may also request this by starting with (*UCP).
DISABLING THE USE OF \C
The \C escape sequence, which matches a single code unit, even in a UTF mode, can cause unpredictable
behaviour because it may leave the current matching point in the middle of a multi-code-unit character.
The application can lock it out by setting the PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C option when calling
pcre2_compile(). There is also a build-time option
--enable-never-backslash-C
(note the upper case C) which locks out the use of \C entirely.
JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER SUPPORT
Just-in-time (JIT) compiler support is included in the build by specifying
--enable-jit
This support is available only for certain hardware architectures. If this option is set for an
unsupported architecture, a building error occurs. If in doubt, use
--enable-jit=auto
which enables JIT only if the current hardware is supported. You can check if JIT is enabled in the
configuration summary that is output at the end of a configure run. If you are enabling JIT under SELinux
you may also want to add
--enable-jit-sealloc
which enables the use of an execmem allocator in JIT that is compatible with SELinux. This has no effect
if JIT is not enabled. See the pcre2jit documentation for a discussion of JIT usage. When JIT support is
enabled, pcre2grep automatically makes use of it, unless you add
--disable-pcre2grep-jit
to the configure command.
NEWLINE RECOGNITION
By default, PCRE2 interprets the linefeed (LF) character as indicating the end of a line. This is the
normal newline character on Unix-like systems. You can compile PCRE2 to use carriage return (CR) instead,
by adding
--enable-newline-is-cr
to the configure command. There is also an --enable-newline-is-lf option, which explicitly specifies
linefeed as the newline character.
Alternatively, you can specify that line endings are to be indicated by the two-character sequence CRLF
(CR immediately followed by LF). If you want this, add
--enable-newline-is-crlf
to the configure command. There is a fourth option, specified by
--enable-newline-is-anycrlf
which causes PCRE2 to recognize any of the three sequences CR, LF, or CRLF as indicating a line ending. A
fifth option, specified by
--enable-newline-is-any
causes PCRE2 to recognize any Unicode newline sequence. The Unicode newline sequences are the three just
mentioned, plus the single characters VT (vertical tab, U+000B), FF (form feed, U+000C), NEL (next line,
U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029). The final option is
--enable-newline-is-nul
which causes NUL (binary zero) to be set as the default line-ending character.
Whatever default line ending convention is selected when PCRE2 is built can be overridden by applications
that use the library. At build time it is recommended to use the standard for your operating system.
WHAT \R MATCHES
By default, the sequence \R in a pattern matches any Unicode newline sequence, independently of what has
been selected as the line ending sequence. If you specify
--enable-bsr-anycrlf
the default is changed so that \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF. Whatever is selected when PCRE2 is built
can be overridden by applications that use the library.
HANDLING VERY LARGE PATTERNS
Within a compiled pattern, offset values are used to point from one part to another (for example, from an
opening parenthesis to an alternation metacharacter). By default, in the 8-bit and 16-bit libraries, two-
byte values are used for these offsets, leading to a maximum size for a compiled pattern of around 64
thousand code units. This is sufficient to handle all but the most gigantic patterns. Nevertheless, some
people do want to process truly enormous patterns, so it is possible to compile PCRE2 to use three-byte
or four-byte offsets by adding a setting such as
--with-link-size=3
to the configure command. The value given must be 2, 3, or 4. For the 16-bit library, a value of 3 is
rounded up to 4. In these libraries, using longer offsets slows down the operation of PCRE2 because it
has to load additional data when handling them. For the 32-bit library the value is always 4 and cannot
be overridden; the value of --with-link-size is ignored.
LIMITING PCRE2 RESOURCE USAGE
The pcre2_match() function increments a counter each time it goes round its main loop. Putting a limit on
this counter controls the amount of computing resource used by a single call to pcre2_match(). The limit
can be changed at run time, as described in the pcre2api documentation. The default is 10 million, but
this can be changed by adding a setting such as
--with-match-limit=500000
to the configure command. This setting also applies to the pcre2_dfa_match() matching function, and to
JIT matching (though the counting is done differently).
The pcre2_match() function uses heap memory to record backtracking points. The more nested backtracking
points there are (that is, the deeper the search tree), the more memory is needed. There is an upper
limit, specified in kibibytes (units of 1024 bytes). This limit can be changed at run time, as described
in the pcre2api documentation. The default limit (in effect unlimited) is 20 million. You can change this
by a setting such as
--with-heap-limit=500
which limits the amount of heap to 500 KiB. This limit applies only to interpretive matching in
pcre2_match() and pcre2_dfa_match(), which may also use the heap for internal workspace when processing
complicated patterns. This limit does not apply when JIT (which has its own memory arrangements) is used.
You can also explicitly limit the depth of nested backtracking in the pcre2_match() interpreter. This
limit defaults to the value that is set for --with-match-limit. You can set a lower default limit by
adding, for example,
--with-match-limit-depth=10000
to the configure command. This value can be overridden at run time. This depth limit indirectly limits
the amount of heap memory that is used, but because the size of each backtracking "frame" depends on the
number of capturing parentheses in a pattern, the amount of heap that is used before the limit is reached
varies from pattern to pattern. This limit was more useful in versions before 10.30, where function
recursion was used for backtracking.
As well as applying to pcre2_match(), the depth limit also controls the depth of recursive function calls
in pcre2_dfa_match(). These are used for lookaround assertions, atomic groups, and recursion within
patterns. The limit does not apply to JIT matching.
CREATING CHARACTER TABLES AT BUILD TIME
PCRE2 uses fixed tables for processing characters whose code points are less than 256. By default, PCRE2
is built with a set of tables that are distributed in the file src/pcre2_chartables.c.dist. These tables
are for ASCII codes only. If you add
--enable-rebuild-chartables
to the configure command, the distributed tables are no longer used. Instead, a program called
pcre2_dftables is compiled and run. This outputs the source for new set of tables, created in the default
locale of your C run-time system. This method of replacing the tables does not work if you are cross
compiling, because pcre2_dftables needs to be run on the local host and therefore not compiled with the
cross compiler.
If you need to create alternative tables when cross compiling, you will have to do so "by hand". There
may also be other reasons for creating tables manually. To cause pcre2_dftables to be built on the local
host, run a normal compiling command, and then run the program with the output file as its argument, for
example:
cc src/pcre2_dftables.c -o pcre2_dftables
./pcre2_dftables src/pcre2_chartables.c
This builds the tables in the default locale of the local host. If you want to specify a locale, you must
use the -L option:
LC_ALL=fr_FR ./pcre2_dftables -L src/pcre2_chartables.c
You can also specify -b (with or without -L). This causes the tables to be written in binary instead of
as source code. A set of binary tables can be loaded into memory by an application and passed to
pcre2_compile() in the same way as tables created by calling pcre2_maketables(). The tables are just a
string of bytes, independent of hardware characteristics such as endianness. This means they can be
bundled with an application that runs in different environments, to ensure consistent behaviour.
USING EBCDIC CODE
PCRE2 assumes by default that it will run in an environment where the character code is ASCII or Unicode,
which is a superset of ASCII. This is the case for most computer operating systems. PCRE2 can, however,
be compiled to run in an 8-bit EBCDIC environment by adding
--enable-ebcdic --disable-unicode
to the configure command. This setting implies --enable-rebuild-chartables. You should only use it if you
know that you are in an EBCDIC environment (for example, an IBM mainframe operating system).
It is not possible to support both EBCDIC and UTF-8 codes in the same version of the library.
Consequently, --enable-unicode and --enable-ebcdic are mutually exclusive.
The EBCDIC character that corresponds to an ASCII LF is assumed to have the value 0x15 by default.
However, in some EBCDIC environments, 0x25 is used. In such an environment you should use
--enable-ebcdic-nl25
as well as, or instead of, --enable-ebcdic. The EBCDIC character for CR has the same value as in ASCII,
namely, 0x0d. Whichever of 0x15 and 0x25 is not chosen as LF is made to correspond to the Unicode NEL
character (which, in Unicode, is 0x85).
The options that select newline behaviour, such as --enable-newline-is-cr, and equivalent run-time
options, refer to these character values in an EBCDIC environment.
PCRE2GREP SUPPORT FOR EXTERNAL SCRIPTS
By default pcre2grep supports the use of callouts with string arguments within the patterns it is
matching. There are two kinds: one that generates output using local code, and another that calls an
external program or script. If --disable-pcre2grep-callout-fork is added to the configure command, only
the first kind of callout is supported; if --disable-pcre2grep-callout is used, all callouts are
completely ignored. For more details of pcre2grep callouts, see the pcre2grep documentation.
PCRE2GREP OPTIONS FOR COMPRESSED FILE SUPPORT
By default, pcre2grep reads all files as plain text. You can build it so that it recognizes files whose
names end in .gz or .bz2, and reads them with libz or libbz2, respectively, by adding one or both of
--enable-pcre2grep-libz
--enable-pcre2grep-libbz2
to the configure command. These options naturally require that the relevant libraries are installed on
your system. Configuration will fail if they are not.
PCRE2GREP BUFFER SIZE
pcre2grep uses an internal buffer to hold a "window" on the file it is scanning, in order to be able to
output "before" and "after" lines when it finds a match. The default starting size of the buffer is
20KiB. The buffer itself is three times this size, but because of the way it is used for holding "before"
lines, the longest line that is guaranteed to be processable is the notional buffer size. If a longer
line is encountered, pcre2grep automatically expands the buffer, up to a specified maximum size, whose
default is 1MiB or the starting size, whichever is the larger. You can change the default parameter
values by adding, for example,
--with-pcre2grep-bufsize=51200
--with-pcre2grep-max-bufsize=2097152
to the configure command. The caller of pcre2grep can override these values by using --buffer-size and
--max-buffer-size on the command line.
PCRE2TEST OPTION FOR LIBREADLINE SUPPORT
If you add one of
--enable-pcre2test-libreadline
--enable-pcre2test-libedit
to the configure command, pcre2test is linked with the libreadline orlibedit library, respectively, and
when its input is from a terminal, it reads it using the readline() function. This provides line-editing
and history facilities. Note that libreadline is GPL-licensed, so if you distribute a binary of pcre2test
linked in this way, there may be licensing issues. These can be avoided by linking instead with libedit,
which has a BSD licence.
Setting --enable-pcre2test-libreadline causes the -lreadline option to be added to the pcre2test build.
In many operating environments with a sytem-installed readline library this is sufficient. However, in
some environments (e.g. if an unmodified distribution version of readline is in use), some extra
configuration may be necessary. The INSTALL file for libreadline says this:
"Readline uses the termcap functions, but does not link with
the termcap or curses library itself, allowing applications
which link with readline the to choose an appropriate library."
If your environment has not been set up so that an appropriate library is automatically included, you may
need to add something like
LIBS="-ncurses"
immediately before the configure command.
INCLUDING DEBUGGING CODE
If you add
--enable-debug
to the configure command, additional debugging code is included in the build. This feature is intended
for use by the PCRE2 maintainers.
DEBUGGING WITH VALGRIND SUPPORT
If you add
--enable-valgrind
to the configure command, PCRE2 will use valgrind annotations to mark certain memory regions as
unaddressable. This allows it to detect invalid memory accesses, and is mostly useful for debugging PCRE2
itself.
CODE COVERAGE REPORTING
If your C compiler is gcc, you can build a version of PCRE2 that can generate a code coverage report for
its test suite. To enable this, you must install lcov version 1.6 or above. Then specify
--enable-coverage
to the configure command and build PCRE2 in the usual way.
Note that using ccache (a caching C compiler) is incompatible with code coverage reporting. If you have
configured ccache to run automatically on your system, you must set the environment variable
CCACHE_DISABLE=1
before running make to build PCRE2, so that ccache is not used.
When --enable-coverage is used, the following addition targets are added to the Makefile:
make coverage
This creates a fresh coverage report for the PCRE2 test suite. It is equivalent to running "make
coverage-reset", "make coverage-baseline", "make check", and then "make coverage-report".
make coverage-reset
This zeroes the coverage counters, but does nothing else.
make coverage-baseline
This captures baseline coverage information.
make coverage-report
This creates the coverage report.
make coverage-clean-report
This removes the generated coverage report without cleaning the coverage data itself.
make coverage-clean-data
This removes the captured coverage data without removing the coverage files created at compile time
(*.gcno).
make coverage-clean
This cleans all coverage data including the generated coverage report. For more information about code
coverage, see the gcov and lcov documentation.
DISABLING THE Z AND T FORMATTING MODIFIERS
The C99 standard defines formatting modifiers z and t for size_t and ptrdiff_t values, respectively. By
default, PCRE2 uses these modifiers in environments other than old versions of Microsoft Visual Studio
when __STDC_VERSION__ is defined and has a value greater than or equal to 199901L (indicating support for
C99). However, there is at least one environment that claims to be C99 but does not support these
modifiers. If
--disable-percent-zt
is specified, no use is made of the z or t modifiers. Instead of %td or %zu, a suitable format is used
depending in the size of long for the platform.
SUPPORT FOR FUZZERS
There is a special option for use by people who want to run fuzzing tests on PCRE2:
--enable-fuzz-support
At present this applies only to the 8-bit library. If set, it causes an extra library called
libpcre2-fuzzsupport.a to be built, but not installed. This contains a single function called
LLVMFuzzerTestOneInput() whose arguments are a pointer to a string and the length of the string. When
called, this function tries to compile the string as a pattern, and if that succeeds, to match it. This
is done both with no options and with some random options bits that are generated from the string.
Setting --enable-fuzz-support also causes a binary called pcre2fuzzcheck to be created. This is normally
run under valgrind or used when PCRE2 is compiled with address sanitizing enabled. It calls the fuzzing
function and outputs information about what it is doing. The input strings are specified by arguments: if
an argument starts with "=" the rest of it is a literal input string. Otherwise, it is assumed to be a
file name, and the contents of the file are the test string.
OBSOLETE OPTION
In versions of PCRE2 prior to 10.30, there were two ways of handling backtracking in the pcre2_match()
function. The default was to use the system stack, but if
--disable-stack-for-recursion
was set, memory on the heap was used. From release 10.30 onwards this has changed (the stack is no longer
used) and this option now does nothing except give a warning.
SEE ALSO
pcre2api(3), pcre2-config(3).
AUTHOR
Philip Hazel
Retired from University Computing Service
Cambridge, England.
REVISION
Last updated: 27 July 2022
Copyright (c) 1997-2022 University of Cambridge.