1<html> 2<head> 3<title>pcre2_compile specification</title> 4</head> 5<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB"> 6<h1>pcre2_compile man page</h1> 7<p> 8Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>. 9</p> 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 <pcre2.h></b> 20</P> 21<P> 22<b>pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR <i>pattern</i>, PCRE2_SIZE <i>length</i>,</b> 23<b> uint32_t <i>options</i>, int *<i>errorcode</i>, PCRE2_SIZE *<i>erroroffset,</i></b> 24<b> pcre2_compile_context *<i>ccontext</i>);</b> 25</P> 26<br><b> 27DESCRIPTION 28</b><br> 29<P> 30This function compiles a regular expression pattern into an internal form. Its 31arguments are: 32<pre> 33 <i>pattern</i> A string containing expression to be compiled 34 <i>length</i> The length of the string or PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED 35 <i>options</i> Option bits 36 <i>errorcode</i> Where to put an error code 37 <i>erroffset</i> Where to put an error offset 38 <i>ccontext</i> Pointer to a compile context or NULL 39</pre> 40The length of the string and any error offset that is returned are in code 41units, not characters. A compile context is needed only if you want to change 42<pre> 43 What \R matches (Unicode newlines or CR, LF, CRLF only) 44 PCRE2's character tables 45 The newline character sequence 46 The compile time nested parentheses limit 47</pre> 48or provide an external function for stack size checking. The option bits are: 49<pre> 50 PCRE2_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring 51 PCRE2_ALT_BSUX Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x 52 PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode 53 PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts 54 PCRE2_CASELESS Do caseless matching 55 PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end 56 PCRE2_DOTALL . matches anything including NL 57 PCRE2_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns 58 PCRE2_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments 59 PCRE2_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline 60 PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF Match unset back references 61 PCRE2_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data 62 PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C Lock out the use of \C in patterns 63 PCRE2_NEVER_UCP Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP) 64 PCRE2_NEVER_UTF Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF) 65 PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren- 66 theses (named ones available) 67 PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification 68 PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR Disable automatic anchoring for .* 69 PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations 70 PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF validity 71 (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set) 72 PCRE2_UCP Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc. 73 PCRE2_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers 74 PCRE2_UTF Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings 75</pre> 76PCRE2 must be built with Unicode support in order to use PCRE2_UTF, PCRE2_UCP 77and related options. 78</P> 79<P> 80The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that 81contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected. 82</P> 83<P> 84There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API in the 85<a href="pcre2api.html"><b>pcre2api</b></a> 86page and a description of the POSIX API in the 87<a href="pcre2posix.html"><b>pcre2posix</b></a> 88page. 89<p> 90Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>. 91</p> 92