Provided by: libpcre3-dev_8.31-2ubuntu2.3_amd64 
NAME
PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
UTF-8, UTF-16, AND UNICODE PROPERTY SUPPORT
From Release 8.30, in addition to its previous UTF-8 support, PCRE also supports UTF-16 by
means of a separate 16-bit library. This can be built as well as, or instead of, the 8-bit
library.
UTF-8 SUPPORT
In order process UTF-8 strings, you must build PCRE's 8-bit library with UTF support, and,
in addition, you must call pcre_compile() with the PCRE_UTF8 option flag, or the pattern
must start with the sequence (*UTF8). When either of these is the case, both the pattern
and any subject strings that are matched against it are treated as UTF-8 strings instead
of strings of 1-byte characters.
UTF-16 SUPPORT
In order process UTF-16 strings, you must build PCRE's 16-bit library with UTF support,
and, in addition, you must call pcre16_compile() with the PCRE_UTF16 option flag, or the
pattern must start with the sequence (*UTF16). When either of these is the case, both the
pattern and any subject strings that are matched against it are treated as UTF-16 strings
instead of strings of 16-bit characters.
UTF SUPPORT OVERHEAD
If you compile PCRE with UTF support, but do not use it at run time, the library will be a
bit bigger, but the additional run time overhead is limited to testing the PCRE_UTF8/16
flag occasionally, so should not be very big.
UNICODE PROPERTY SUPPORT
If PCRE is built with Unicode character property support (which implies UTF support), the
escape sequences \p{..}, \P{..}, and \X can be used. The available properties that can be
tested are limited to the general category properties such as Lu for an upper case letter
or Nd for a decimal number, the Unicode script names such as Arabic or Han, and the
derived properties Any and L&. A full list is given in the pcrepattern documentation. Only
the short names for properties are supported. For example, \p{L} matches a letter. Its
Perl synonym, \p{Letter}, is not supported. Furthermore, in Perl, many properties may
optionally be prefixed by "Is", for compatibility with Perl 5.6. PCRE does not support
this.
Validity of UTF-8 strings
When you set the PCRE_UTF8 flag, the byte strings passed as patterns and subjects are (by
default) checked for validity on entry to the relevant functions. The entire string is
checked before any other processing takes place. From release 7.3 of PCRE, the check is
according the rules of RFC 3629, which are themselves derived from the Unicode
specification. Earlier releases of PCRE followed the rules of RFC 2279, which allows the
full range of 31-bit values (0 to 0x7FFFFFFF). The current check allows only values in the
range U+0 to U+10FFFF, excluding U+D800 to U+DFFF.
The excluded code points are the "Surrogate Area" of Unicode. They are reserved for use by
UTF-16, where they are used in pairs to encode codepoints with values greater than 0xFFFF.
The code points that are encoded by UTF-16 pairs are available independently in the UTF-8
encoding. (In other words, the whole surrogate thing is a fudge for UTF-16 which
unfortunately messes up UTF-8.)
If an invalid UTF-8 string is passed to PCRE, an error return is given. At compile time,
the only additional information is the offset to the first byte of the failing character.
The run-time functions pcre_exec() and pcre_dfa_exec() also pass back this information, as
well as a more detailed reason code if the caller has provided memory in which to do this.
In some situations, you may already know that your strings are valid, and therefore want
to skip these checks in order to improve performance, for example in the case of a long
subject string that is being scanned repeatedly with different patterns. If you set the
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK flag at compile time or at run time, PCRE assumes that the pattern or
subject it is given (respectively) contains only valid UTF-8 codes. In this case, it does
not diagnose an invalid UTF-8 string.
If you pass an invalid UTF-8 string when PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK is set, what happens depends
on why the string is invalid. If the string conforms to the "old" definition of UTF-8 (RFC
2279), it is processed as a string of characters in the range 0 to 0x7FFFFFFF by
pcre_dfa_exec() and the interpreted version of pcre_exec(). In other words, apart from the
initial validity test, these functions (when in UTF-8 mode) handle strings according to
the more liberal rules of RFC 2279. However, the just-in-time (JIT) optimization for
pcre_exec() supports only RFC 3629. If you are using JIT optimization, or if the string
does not even conform to RFC 2279, the result is undefined. Your program may crash.
If you want to process strings of values in the full range 0 to 0x7FFFFFFF, encoded in a
UTF-8-like manner as per the old RFC, you can set PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK to bypass the more
restrictive test. However, in this situation, you will have to apply your own validity
check, and avoid the use of JIT optimization.
Validity of UTF-16 strings
When you set the PCRE_UTF16 flag, the strings of 16-bit data units that are passed as
patterns and subjects are (by default) checked for validity on entry to the relevant
functions. Values other than those in the surrogate range U+D800 to U+DFFF are independent
code points. Values in the surrogate range must be used in pairs in the correct manner.
If an invalid UTF-16 string is passed to PCRE, an error return is given. At compile time,
the only additional information is the offset to the first data unit of the failing
character. The run-time functions pcre16_exec() and pcre16_dfa_exec() also pass back this
information, as well as a more detailed reason code if the caller has provided memory in
which to do this.
In some situations, you may already know that your strings are valid, and therefore want
to skip these checks in order to improve performance. If you set the PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK
flag at compile time or at run time, PCRE assumes that the pattern or subject it is given
(respectively) contains only valid UTF-16 sequences. In this case, it does not diagnose an
invalid UTF-16 string.
General comments about UTF modes
1. Codepoints less than 256 can be specified by either braced or unbraced hexadecimal
escape sequences (for example, \x{b3} or \xb3). Larger values have to use braced
sequences.
2. Octal numbers up to \777 are recognized, and in UTF-8 mode, they match two-byte
characters for values greater than \177.
3. Repeat quantifiers apply to complete UTF characters, not to individual data units, for
example: \x{100}{3}.
4. The dot metacharacter matches one UTF character instead of a single data unit.
5. The escape sequence \C can be used to match a single byte in UTF-8 mode, or a single
16-bit data unit in UTF-16 mode, but its use can lead to some strange effects because it
breaks up multi-unit characters (see the description of \C in the pcrepattern
documentation). The use of \C is not supported in the alternative matching function
pcre[16]_dfa_exec(), nor is it supported in UTF mode by the JIT optimization of
pcre[16]_exec(). If JIT optimization is requested for a UTF pattern that contains \C, it
will not succeed, and so the matching will be carried out by the normal interpretive
function.
6. The character escapes \b, \B, \d, \D, \s, \S, \w, and \W correctly test characters of
any code value, but, by default, the characters that PCRE recognizes as digits, spaces, or
word characters remain the same set as in non-UTF mode, all with values less than 256.
This remains true even when PCRE is built to include Unicode property support, because to
do otherwise would slow down PCRE in many common cases. Note in particular that this
applies to \b and \B, because they are defined in terms of \w and \W. If you really want
to test for a wider sense of, say, "digit", you can use explicit Unicode property tests
such as \p{Nd}. Alternatively, if you set the PCRE_UCP option, the way that the character
escapes work is changed so that Unicode properties are used to determine which characters
match. There are more details in the section on generic character types in the pcrepattern
documentation.
7. Similarly, characters that match the POSIX named character classes are all low-valued
characters, unless the PCRE_UCP option is set.
8. However, the horizontal and vertical white space matching escapes (\h, \H, \v, and \V)
do match all the appropriate Unicode characters, whether or not PCRE_UCP is set.
9. Case-insensitive matching applies only to characters whose values are less than 128,
unless PCRE is built with Unicode property support. Even when Unicode property support is
available, PCRE still uses its own character tables when checking the case of low-valued
characters, so as not to degrade performance. The Unicode property information is used
only for characters with higher values. Furthermore, PCRE supports case-insensitive
matching only when there is a one-to-one mapping between a letter's cases. There are a
small number of many-to-one mappings in Unicode; these are not supported by PCRE.
AUTHOR
Philip Hazel
University Computing Service
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
REVISION
Last updated: 14 April 2012
Copyright (c) 1997-2012 University of Cambridge.