1<html> 2<head> 3<title>pcre_compile specification</title> 4</head> 5<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB"> 6<h1>pcre_compile 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<br><b> 16SYNOPSIS 17</b><br> 18<P> 19<b>#include <pcre.h></b> 20</P> 21<P> 22<b>pcre *pcre_compile(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b> 23<b> const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b> 24<b> const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b> 25<br> 26<br> 27<b>pcre16 *pcre16_compile(PCRE_SPTR16 <i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b> 28<b> const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b> 29<b> const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b> 30<br> 31<br> 32<b>pcre32 *pcre32_compile(PCRE_SPTR32 <i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b> 33<b> const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b> 34<b> const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b> 35</P> 36<br><b> 37DESCRIPTION 38</b><br> 39<P> 40This function compiles a regular expression into an internal form. It is the 41same as <b>pcre[16|32]_compile2()</b>, except for the absence of the 42<i>errorcodeptr</i> argument. Its arguments are: 43<pre> 44 <i>pattern</i> A zero-terminated string containing the 45 regular expression to be compiled 46 <i>options</i> Zero or more option bits 47 <i>errptr</i> Where to put an error message 48 <i>erroffset</i> Offset in pattern where error was found 49 <i>tableptr</i> Pointer to character tables, or NULL to 50 use the built-in default 51</pre> 52The option bits are: 53<pre> 54 PCRE_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring 55 PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts 56 PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF 57 PCRE_BSR_UNICODE \R matches all Unicode line endings 58 PCRE_CASELESS Do caseless matching 59 PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end 60 PCRE_DOTALL . matches anything including NL 61 PCRE_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns 62 PCRE_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments 63 PCRE_EXTRA PCRE extra features 64 (not much use currently) 65 PCRE_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline 66 PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT JavaScript compatibility 67 PCRE_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data 68 PCRE_NEVER_UTF Lock out UTF, e.g. via (*UTF) 69 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY Recognize any Unicode newline sequence 70 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline 71 sequences 72 PCRE_NEWLINE_CR Set CR as the newline sequence 73 PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF Set CRLF as the newline sequence 74 PCRE_NEWLINE_LF Set LF as the newline sequence 75 PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren- 76 theses (named ones available) 77 PCRE_NO_AUTO_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification 78 PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations 79 PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-16 80 validity (only relevant if 81 PCRE_UTF16 is set) 82 PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-32 83 validity (only relevant if 84 PCRE_UTF32 is set) 85 PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-8 86 validity (only relevant if 87 PCRE_UTF8 is set) 88 PCRE_UCP Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc. 89 PCRE_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers 90 PCRE_UTF16 Run in <b>pcre16_compile()</b> UTF-16 mode 91 PCRE_UTF32 Run in <b>pcre32_compile()</b> UTF-32 mode 92 PCRE_UTF8 Run in <b>pcre_compile()</b> UTF-8 mode 93</pre> 94PCRE must be built with UTF support in order to use PCRE_UTF8/16/32 and 95PCRE_NO_UTF8/16/32_CHECK, and with UCP support if PCRE_UCP is used. 96</P> 97<P> 98The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that 99contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected. Note that 100compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different 101version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes. 102</P> 103<P> 104There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the 105<a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a> 106page and a description of the POSIX API in the 107<a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a> 108page. 109<p> 110Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>. 111</p> 112