1<html>
2<head>
3<title>pcrebuild specification</title>
4</head>
5<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
6<h1>pcrebuild man page</h1>
7<p>
8Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
9</p>
10<p>
11This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically
12from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the
13man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
14<br>
15<ul>
16<li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">BUILDING PCRE</a>
17<li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">PCRE BUILD-TIME OPTIONS</a>
18<li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">BUILDING 8-BIT, 16-BIT AND 32-BIT LIBRARIES</a>
19<li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">BUILDING SHARED AND STATIC LIBRARIES</a>
20<li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">C++ SUPPORT</a>
21<li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">UTF-8, UTF-16 AND UTF-32 SUPPORT</a>
22<li><a name="TOC7" href="#SEC7">UNICODE CHARACTER PROPERTY SUPPORT</a>
23<li><a name="TOC8" href="#SEC8">JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER SUPPORT</a>
24<li><a name="TOC9" href="#SEC9">CODE VALUE OF NEWLINE</a>
25<li><a name="TOC10" href="#SEC10">WHAT \R MATCHES</a>
26<li><a name="TOC11" href="#SEC11">POSIX MALLOC USAGE</a>
27<li><a name="TOC12" href="#SEC12">HANDLING VERY LARGE PATTERNS</a>
28<li><a name="TOC13" href="#SEC13">AVOIDING EXCESSIVE STACK USAGE</a>
29<li><a name="TOC14" href="#SEC14">LIMITING PCRE RESOURCE USAGE</a>
30<li><a name="TOC15" href="#SEC15">CREATING CHARACTER TABLES AT BUILD TIME</a>
31<li><a name="TOC16" href="#SEC16">USING EBCDIC CODE</a>
32<li><a name="TOC17" href="#SEC17">PCREGREP OPTIONS FOR COMPRESSED FILE SUPPORT</a>
33<li><a name="TOC18" href="#SEC18">PCREGREP BUFFER SIZE</a>
34<li><a name="TOC19" href="#SEC19">PCRETEST OPTION FOR LIBREADLINE SUPPORT</a>
35<li><a name="TOC20" href="#SEC20">DEBUGGING WITH VALGRIND SUPPORT</a>
36<li><a name="TOC21" href="#SEC21">CODE COVERAGE REPORTING</a>
37<li><a name="TOC22" href="#SEC22">SEE ALSO</a>
38<li><a name="TOC23" href="#SEC23">AUTHOR</a>
39<li><a name="TOC24" href="#SEC24">REVISION</a>
40</ul>
41<br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">BUILDING PCRE</a><br>
42<P>
43PCRE is distributed with a <b>configure</b> script that can be used to build the
44library in Unix-like environments using the applications known as Autotools.
45Also in the distribution are files to support building using <b>CMake</b>
46instead of <b>configure</b>. The text file
47<a href="README.txt"><b>README</b></a>
48contains general information about building with Autotools (some of which is
49repeated below), and also has some comments about building on various operating
50systems. There is a lot more information about building PCRE without using
51Autotools (including information about using <b>CMake</b> and building "by
52hand") in the text file called
53<a href="NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.txt"><b>NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD</b>.</a>
54You should consult this file as well as the
55<a href="README.txt"><b>README</b></a>
56file if you are building in a non-Unix-like environment.
57</P>
58<br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">PCRE BUILD-TIME OPTIONS</a><br>
59<P>
60The rest of this document describes the optional features of PCRE that can be
61selected when the library is compiled. It assumes use of the <b>configure</b>
62script, where the optional features are selected or deselected by providing
63options to <b>configure</b> before running the <b>make</b> command. However, the
64same options can be selected in both Unix-like and non-Unix-like environments
65using the GUI facility of <b>cmake-gui</b> if you are using <b>CMake</b> instead
66of <b>configure</b> to build PCRE.
67</P>
68<P>
69If you are not using Autotools or <b>CMake</b>, option selection can be done by
70editing the <b>config.h</b> file, or by passing parameter settings to the
71compiler, as described in
72<a href="NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.txt"><b>NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD</b>.</a>
73</P>
74<P>
75The complete list of options for <b>configure</b> (which includes the standard
76ones such as the selection of the installation directory) can be obtained by
77running
78<pre>
79  ./configure --help
80</pre>
81The following sections include descriptions of options whose names begin with
82--enable or --disable. These settings specify changes to the defaults for the
83<b>configure</b> command. Because of the way that <b>configure</b> works,
84--enable and --disable always come in pairs, so the complementary option always
85exists as well, but as it specifies the default, it is not described.
86</P>
87<br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">BUILDING 8-BIT, 16-BIT AND 32-BIT LIBRARIES</a><br>
88<P>
89By default, a library called <b>libpcre</b> is built, containing functions that
90take string arguments contained in vectors of bytes, either as single-byte
91characters, or interpreted as UTF-8 strings. You can also build a separate
92library, called <b>libpcre16</b>, in which strings are contained in vectors of
9316-bit data units and interpreted either as single-unit characters or UTF-16
94strings, by adding
95<pre>
96  --enable-pcre16
97</pre>
98to the <b>configure</b> command. You can also build yet another separate
99library, called <b>libpcre32</b>, in which strings are contained in vectors of
10032-bit data units and interpreted either as single-unit characters or UTF-32
101strings, by adding
102<pre>
103  --enable-pcre32
104</pre>
105to the <b>configure</b> command. If you do not want the 8-bit library, add
106<pre>
107  --disable-pcre8
108</pre>
109as well. At least one of the three libraries must be built. Note that the C++
110and POSIX wrappers are for the 8-bit library only, and that <b>pcregrep</b> is
111an 8-bit program. None of these are built if you select only the 16-bit or
11232-bit libraries.
113</P>
114<br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">BUILDING SHARED AND STATIC LIBRARIES</a><br>
115<P>
116The Autotools PCRE building process uses <b>libtool</b> to build both shared and
117static libraries by default. You can suppress one of these by adding one of
118<pre>
119  --disable-shared
120  --disable-static
121</pre>
122to the <b>configure</b> command, as required.
123</P>
124<br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">C++ SUPPORT</a><br>
125<P>
126By default, if the 8-bit library is being built, the <b>configure</b> script
127will search for a C++ compiler and C++ header files. If it finds them, it
128automatically builds the C++ wrapper library (which supports only 8-bit
129strings). You can disable this by adding
130<pre>
131  --disable-cpp
132</pre>
133to the <b>configure</b> command.
134</P>
135<br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">UTF-8, UTF-16 AND UTF-32 SUPPORT</a><br>
136<P>
137To build PCRE with support for UTF Unicode character strings, add
138<pre>
139  --enable-utf
140</pre>
141to the <b>configure</b> command. This setting applies to all three libraries,
142adding support for UTF-8 to the 8-bit library, support for UTF-16 to the 16-bit
143library, and support for UTF-32 to the to the 32-bit library. There are no
144separate options for enabling UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 independently because
145that would allow ridiculous settings such as requesting UTF-16 support while
146building only the 8-bit library. It is not possible to build one library with
147UTF support and another without in the same configuration. (For backwards
148compatibility, --enable-utf8 is a synonym of --enable-utf.)
149</P>
150<P>
151Of itself, this setting does not make PCRE treat strings as UTF-8, UTF-16 or
152UTF-32. As well as compiling PCRE with this option, you also have have to set
153the PCRE_UTF8, PCRE_UTF16 or PCRE_UTF32 option (as appropriate) when you call
154one of the pattern compiling functions.
155</P>
156<P>
157If you set --enable-utf when compiling in an EBCDIC environment, PCRE expects
158its input to be either ASCII or UTF-8 (depending on the run-time option). It is
159not possible to support both EBCDIC and UTF-8 codes in the same version of the
160library. Consequently, --enable-utf and --enable-ebcdic are mutually
161exclusive.
162</P>
163<br><a name="SEC7" href="#TOC1">UNICODE CHARACTER PROPERTY SUPPORT</a><br>
164<P>
165UTF support allows the libraries to process character codepoints up to 0x10ffff
166in the strings that they handle. On its own, however, it does not provide any
167facilities for accessing the properties of such characters. If you want to be
168able to use the pattern escapes \P, \p, and \X, which refer to Unicode
169character properties, you must add
170<pre>
171  --enable-unicode-properties
172</pre>
173to the <b>configure</b> command. This implies UTF support, even if you have
174not explicitly requested it.
175</P>
176<P>
177Including Unicode property support adds around 30K of tables to the PCRE
178library. Only the general category properties such as <i>Lu</i> and <i>Nd</i> are
179supported. Details are given in the
180<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
181documentation.
182</P>
183<br><a name="SEC8" href="#TOC1">JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER SUPPORT</a><br>
184<P>
185Just-in-time compiler support is included in the build by specifying
186<pre>
187  --enable-jit
188</pre>
189This support is available only for certain hardware architectures. If this
190option is set for an unsupported architecture, a compile time error occurs.
191See the
192<a href="pcrejit.html"><b>pcrejit</b></a>
193documentation for a discussion of JIT usage. When JIT support is enabled,
194pcregrep automatically makes use of it, unless you add
195<pre>
196  --disable-pcregrep-jit
197</pre>
198to the "configure" command.
199</P>
200<br><a name="SEC9" href="#TOC1">CODE VALUE OF NEWLINE</a><br>
201<P>
202By default, PCRE interprets the linefeed (LF) character as indicating the end
203of a line. This is the normal newline character on Unix-like systems. You can
204compile PCRE to use carriage return (CR) instead, by adding
205<pre>
206  --enable-newline-is-cr
207</pre>
208to the <b>configure</b> command. There is also a --enable-newline-is-lf option,
209which explicitly specifies linefeed as the newline character.
210<br>
211<br>
212Alternatively, you can specify that line endings are to be indicated by the two
213character sequence CRLF. If you want this, add
214<pre>
215  --enable-newline-is-crlf
216</pre>
217to the <b>configure</b> command. There is a fourth option, specified by
218<pre>
219  --enable-newline-is-anycrlf
220</pre>
221which causes PCRE to recognize any of the three sequences CR, LF, or CRLF as
222indicating a line ending. Finally, a fifth option, specified by
223<pre>
224  --enable-newline-is-any
225</pre>
226causes PCRE to recognize any Unicode newline sequence.
227</P>
228<P>
229Whatever line ending convention is selected when PCRE is built can be
230overridden when the library functions are called. At build time it is
231conventional to use the standard for your operating system.
232</P>
233<br><a name="SEC10" href="#TOC1">WHAT \R MATCHES</a><br>
234<P>
235By default, the sequence \R in a pattern matches any Unicode newline sequence,
236whatever has been selected as the line ending sequence. If you specify
237<pre>
238  --enable-bsr-anycrlf
239</pre>
240the default is changed so that \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF. Whatever is
241selected when PCRE is built can be overridden when the library functions are
242called.
243</P>
244<br><a name="SEC11" href="#TOC1">POSIX MALLOC USAGE</a><br>
245<P>
246When the 8-bit library is called through the POSIX interface (see the
247<a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>
248documentation), additional working storage is required for holding the pointers
249to capturing substrings, because PCRE requires three integers per substring,
250whereas the POSIX interface provides only two. If the number of expected
251substrings is small, the wrapper function uses space on the stack, because this
252is faster than using <b>malloc()</b> for each call. The default threshold above
253which the stack is no longer used is 10; it can be changed by adding a setting
254such as
255<pre>
256  --with-posix-malloc-threshold=20
257</pre>
258to the <b>configure</b> command.
259</P>
260<br><a name="SEC12" href="#TOC1">HANDLING VERY LARGE PATTERNS</a><br>
261<P>
262Within a compiled pattern, offset values are used to point from one part to
263another (for example, from an opening parenthesis to an alternation
264metacharacter). By default, in the 8-bit and 16-bit libraries, two-byte values
265are used for these offsets, leading to a maximum size for a compiled pattern of
266around 64K. This is sufficient to handle all but the most gigantic patterns.
267Nevertheless, some people do want to process truly enormous patterns, so it is
268possible to compile PCRE to use three-byte or four-byte offsets by adding a
269setting such as
270<pre>
271  --with-link-size=3
272</pre>
273to the <b>configure</b> command. The value given must be 2, 3, or 4. For the
27416-bit library, a value of 3 is rounded up to 4. In these libraries, using
275longer offsets slows down the operation of PCRE because it has to load
276additional data when handling them. For the 32-bit library the value is always
2774 and cannot be overridden; the value of --with-link-size is ignored.
278</P>
279<br><a name="SEC13" href="#TOC1">AVOIDING EXCESSIVE STACK USAGE</a><br>
280<P>
281When matching with the <b>pcre_exec()</b> function, PCRE implements backtracking
282by making recursive calls to an internal function called <b>match()</b>. In
283environments where the size of the stack is limited, this can severely limit
284PCRE's operation. (The Unix environment does not usually suffer from this
285problem, but it may sometimes be necessary to increase the maximum stack size.
286There is a discussion in the
287<a href="pcrestack.html"><b>pcrestack</b></a>
288documentation.) An alternative approach to recursion that uses memory from the
289heap to remember data, instead of using recursive function calls, has been
290implemented to work round the problem of limited stack size. If you want to
291build a version of PCRE that works this way, add
292<pre>
293  --disable-stack-for-recursion
294</pre>
295to the <b>configure</b> command. With this configuration, PCRE will use the
296<b>pcre_stack_malloc</b> and <b>pcre_stack_free</b> variables to call memory
297management functions. By default these point to <b>malloc()</b> and
298<b>free()</b>, but you can replace the pointers so that your own functions are
299used instead.
300</P>
301<P>
302Separate functions are provided rather than using <b>pcre_malloc</b> and
303<b>pcre_free</b> because the usage is very predictable: the block sizes
304requested are always the same, and the blocks are always freed in reverse
305order. A calling program might be able to implement optimized functions that
306perform better than <b>malloc()</b> and <b>free()</b>. PCRE runs noticeably more
307slowly when built in this way. This option affects only the <b>pcre_exec()</b>
308function; it is not relevant for <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>.
309</P>
310<br><a name="SEC14" href="#TOC1">LIMITING PCRE RESOURCE USAGE</a><br>
311<P>
312Internally, PCRE has a function called <b>match()</b>, which it calls repeatedly
313(sometimes recursively) when matching a pattern with the <b>pcre_exec()</b>
314function. By controlling the maximum number of times this function may be
315called during a single matching operation, a limit can be placed on the
316resources used by a single call to <b>pcre_exec()</b>. The limit can be changed
317at run time, as described in the
318<a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
319documentation. The default is 10 million, but this can be changed by adding a
320setting such as
321<pre>
322  --with-match-limit=500000
323</pre>
324to the <b>configure</b> command. This setting has no effect on the
325<b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> matching function.
326</P>
327<P>
328In some environments it is desirable to limit the depth of recursive calls of
329<b>match()</b> more strictly than the total number of calls, in order to
330restrict the maximum amount of stack (or heap, if --disable-stack-for-recursion
331is specified) that is used. A second limit controls this; it defaults to the
332value that is set for --with-match-limit, which imposes no additional
333constraints. However, you can set a lower limit by adding, for example,
334<pre>
335  --with-match-limit-recursion=10000
336</pre>
337to the <b>configure</b> command. This value can also be overridden at run time.
338</P>
339<br><a name="SEC15" href="#TOC1">CREATING CHARACTER TABLES AT BUILD TIME</a><br>
340<P>
341PCRE uses fixed tables for processing characters whose code values are less
342than 256. By default, PCRE is built with a set of tables that are distributed
343in the file <i>pcre_chartables.c.dist</i>. These tables are for ASCII codes
344only. If you add
345<pre>
346  --enable-rebuild-chartables
347</pre>
348to the <b>configure</b> command, the distributed tables are no longer used.
349Instead, a program called <b>dftables</b> is compiled and run. This outputs the
350source for new set of tables, created in the default locale of your C run-time
351system. (This method of replacing the tables does not work if you are cross
352compiling, because <b>dftables</b> is run on the local host. If you need to
353create alternative tables when cross compiling, you will have to do so "by
354hand".)
355</P>
356<br><a name="SEC16" href="#TOC1">USING EBCDIC CODE</a><br>
357<P>
358PCRE assumes by default that it will run in an environment where the character
359code is ASCII (or Unicode, which is a superset of ASCII). This is the case for
360most computer operating systems. PCRE can, however, be compiled to run in an
361EBCDIC environment by adding
362<pre>
363  --enable-ebcdic
364</pre>
365to the <b>configure</b> command. This setting implies
366--enable-rebuild-chartables. You should only use it if you know that you are in
367an EBCDIC environment (for example, an IBM mainframe operating system). The
368--enable-ebcdic option is incompatible with --enable-utf.
369</P>
370<P>
371The EBCDIC character that corresponds to an ASCII LF is assumed to have the
372value 0x15 by default. However, in some EBCDIC environments, 0x25 is used. In
373such an environment you should use
374<pre>
375  --enable-ebcdic-nl25
376</pre>
377as well as, or instead of, --enable-ebcdic. The EBCDIC character for CR has the
378same value as in ASCII, namely, 0x0d. Whichever of 0x15 and 0x25 is <i>not</i>
379chosen as LF is made to correspond to the Unicode NEL character (which, in
380Unicode, is 0x85).
381</P>
382<P>
383The options that select newline behaviour, such as --enable-newline-is-cr,
384and equivalent run-time options, refer to these character values in an EBCDIC
385environment.
386</P>
387<br><a name="SEC17" href="#TOC1">PCREGREP OPTIONS FOR COMPRESSED FILE SUPPORT</a><br>
388<P>
389By default, <b>pcregrep</b> reads all files as plain text. You can build it so
390that it recognizes files whose names end in <b>.gz</b> or <b>.bz2</b>, and reads
391them with <b>libz</b> or <b>libbz2</b>, respectively, by adding one or both of
392<pre>
393  --enable-pcregrep-libz
394  --enable-pcregrep-libbz2
395</pre>
396to the <b>configure</b> command. These options naturally require that the
397relevant libraries are installed on your system. Configuration will fail if
398they are not.
399</P>
400<br><a name="SEC18" href="#TOC1">PCREGREP BUFFER SIZE</a><br>
401<P>
402<b>pcregrep</b> uses an internal buffer to hold a "window" on the file it is
403scanning, in order to be able to output "before" and "after" lines when it
404finds a match. The size of the buffer is controlled by a parameter whose
405default value is 20K. The buffer itself is three times this size, but because
406of the way it is used for holding "before" lines, the longest line that is
407guaranteed to be processable is the parameter size. You can change the default
408parameter value by adding, for example,
409<pre>
410  --with-pcregrep-bufsize=50K
411</pre>
412to the <b>configure</b> command. The caller of \fPpcregrep\fP can, however,
413override this value by specifying a run-time option.
414</P>
415<br><a name="SEC19" href="#TOC1">PCRETEST OPTION FOR LIBREADLINE SUPPORT</a><br>
416<P>
417If you add
418<pre>
419  --enable-pcretest-libreadline
420</pre>
421to the <b>configure</b> command, <b>pcretest</b> is linked with the
422<b>libreadline</b> library, and when its input is from a terminal, it reads it
423using the <b>readline()</b> function. This provides line-editing and history
424facilities. Note that <b>libreadline</b> is GPL-licensed, so if you distribute a
425binary of <b>pcretest</b> linked in this way, there may be licensing issues.
426</P>
427<P>
428Setting this option causes the <b>-lreadline</b> option to be added to the
429<b>pcretest</b> build. In many operating environments with a sytem-installed
430<b>libreadline</b> this is sufficient. However, in some environments (e.g.
431if an unmodified distribution version of readline is in use), some extra
432configuration may be necessary. The INSTALL file for <b>libreadline</b> says
433this:
434<pre>
435  "Readline uses the termcap functions, but does not link with the
436  termcap or curses library itself, allowing applications which link
437  with readline the to choose an appropriate library."
438</pre>
439If your environment has not been set up so that an appropriate library is
440automatically included, you may need to add something like
441<pre>
442  LIBS="-ncurses"
443</pre>
444immediately before the <b>configure</b> command.
445</P>
446<br><a name="SEC20" href="#TOC1">DEBUGGING WITH VALGRIND SUPPORT</a><br>
447<P>
448By adding the
449<pre>
450  --enable-valgrind
451</pre>
452option to to the <b>configure</b> command, PCRE will use valgrind annotations
453to mark certain memory regions as unaddressable. This allows it to detect
454invalid memory accesses, and is mostly useful for debugging PCRE itself.
455</P>
456<br><a name="SEC21" href="#TOC1">CODE COVERAGE REPORTING</a><br>
457<P>
458If your C compiler is gcc, you can build a version of PCRE that can generate a
459code coverage report for its test suite. To enable this, you must install
460<b>lcov</b> version 1.6 or above. Then specify
461<pre>
462  --enable-coverage
463</pre>
464to the <b>configure</b> command and build PCRE in the usual way.
465</P>
466<P>
467Note that using <b>ccache</b> (a caching C compiler) is incompatible with code
468coverage reporting. If you have configured <b>ccache</b> to run automatically
469on your system, you must set the environment variable
470<pre>
471  CCACHE_DISABLE=1
472</pre>
473before running <b>make</b> to build PCRE, so that <b>ccache</b> is not used.
474</P>
475<P>
476When --enable-coverage is used, the following addition targets are added to the
477<i>Makefile</i>:
478<pre>
479  make coverage
480</pre>
481This creates a fresh coverage report for the PCRE test suite. It is equivalent
482to running "make coverage-reset", "make coverage-baseline", "make check", and
483then "make coverage-report".
484<pre>
485  make coverage-reset
486</pre>
487This zeroes the coverage counters, but does nothing else.
488<pre>
489  make coverage-baseline
490</pre>
491This captures baseline coverage information.
492<pre>
493  make coverage-report
494</pre>
495This creates the coverage report.
496<pre>
497  make coverage-clean-report
498</pre>
499This removes the generated coverage report without cleaning the coverage data
500itself.
501<pre>
502  make coverage-clean-data
503</pre>
504This removes the captured coverage data without removing the coverage files
505created at compile time (*.gcno).
506<pre>
507  make coverage-clean
508</pre>
509This cleans all coverage data including the generated coverage report. For more
510information about code coverage, see the <b>gcov</b> and <b>lcov</b>
511documentation.
512</P>
513<br><a name="SEC22" href="#TOC1">SEE ALSO</a><br>
514<P>
515<b>pcreapi</b>(3), <b>pcre16</b>, <b>pcre32</b>, <b>pcre_config</b>(3).
516</P>
517<br><a name="SEC23" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a><br>
518<P>
519Philip Hazel
520<br>
521University Computing Service
522<br>
523Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
524<br>
525</P>
526<br><a name="SEC24" href="#TOC1">REVISION</a><br>
527<P>
528Last updated: 12 May 2013
529<br>
530Copyright &copy; 1997-2013 University of Cambridge.
531<br>
532<p>
533Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
534</p>
535