1<html>
2<head>
3<title>pcre2_serialize_encode specification</title>
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6<h1>pcre2_serialize_encode man page</h1>
7<p>
8Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
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10<p>
11This page is part of the PCRE2 HTML documentation. It was generated
12automatically from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it,
13please consult the man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
14<br>
15<br><b>
16SYNOPSIS
17</b><br>
18<P>
19<b>#include &#60;pcre2.h&#62;</b>
20</P>
21<P>
22<b>int32_t pcre2_serialize_encode(const pcre2_code **<i>codes</i>,</b>
23<b>  int32_t <i>number_of_codes</i>, uint8_t **<i>serialized_bytes</i>,</b>
24<b>  PCRE2_SIZE *<i>serialized_size</i>, pcre2_general_context *<i>gcontext</i>);</b>
25</P>
26<br><b>
27DESCRIPTION
28</b><br>
29<P>
30This function encodes a list of compiled patterns into a byte stream that can
31be saved on disc or elsewhere. Note that this is not an abstract format like
32Java or .NET. Conversion of the byte stream back into usable compiled patterns
33can only happen on a host that is running the same version of PCRE2, with the
34same code unit width, and the host must also have the same endianness, pointer
35width and PCRE2_SIZE type. The arguments for <b>pcre2_serialize_encode()</b>
36are:
37<pre>
38  <i>codes</i>             pointer to a vector containing the list
39  <i>number_of_codes</i>   number of slots in the vector
40  <i>serialized_bytes</i>  set to point to the serialized byte stream
41  <i>serialized_size</i>   set to the number of bytes in the byte stream
42  <i>gcontext</i>          pointer to a general context or NULL
43</pre>
44The context argument is used to obtain memory for the byte stream. When the
45serialized data is no longer needed, it must be freed by calling
46<b>pcre2_serialize_free()</b>. The yield of the function is the number of
47serialized patterns, or one of the following negative error codes:
48<pre>
49  PCRE2_ERROR_BADDATA      <i>number_of_codes</i> is zero or less
50  PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC     mismatch of id bytes in one of the patterns
51  PCRE2_ERROR_MEMORY       memory allocation failed
52  PCRE2_ERROR_MIXEDTABLES  the patterns do not all use the same tables
53  PCRE2_ERROR_NULL         an argument other than <i>gcontext</i> is NULL
54</pre>
55PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC means either that a pattern's code has been corrupted, or
56that a slot in the vector does not point to a compiled pattern.
57</P>
58<P>
59There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API in the
60<a href="pcre2api.html"><b>pcre2api</b></a>
61page and a description of the serialization functions in the
62<a href="pcre2serialize.html"><b>pcre2serialize</b></a>
63page.
64<p>
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67