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-.TH PCRE 3
-.SH NAME
-PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
-.SH INTRODUCTION
-.rs
-.sp
-The PCRE library is a set of functions that implement regular expression
-pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics as Perl, with just a few
-differences. The current implementation of PCRE (release 5.x) corresponds
-approximately with Perl 5.8, including support for UTF-8 encoded strings and
-Unicode general category properties. However, this support has to be explicitly
-enabled; it is not the default.
-.P
-PCRE is written in C and released as a C library. A number of people have
-written wrappers and interfaces of various kinds. A C++ class is included in
-these contributions, which can be found in the \fIContrib\fR directory at the
-primary FTP site, which is:
-.sp
-.\" HTML <a href="ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre">
-.\" </a>
-ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre
-.P
-Details of exactly which Perl regular expression features are and are not
-supported by PCRE are given in separate documents. See the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrepattern\fR
-.\"
-and
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrecompat\fR
-.\"
-pages.
-.P
-Some features of PCRE can be included, excluded, or changed when the library is
-built. The
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcre_config()\fR
-.\"
-function makes it possible for a client to discover which features are
-available. The features themselves are described in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrebuild\fP
-.\"
-page. Documentation about building PCRE for various operating systems can be
-found in the \fBREADME\fP file in the source distribution.
-.
-.
-.SH "USER DOCUMENTATION"
-.rs
-.sp
-The user documentation for PCRE comprises a number of different sections. In
-the "man" format, each of these is a separate "man page". In the HTML format,
-each is a separate page, linked from the index page. In the plain text format,
-all the sections are concatenated, for ease of searching. The sections are as
-follows:
-.sp
- pcre this document
- pcreapi details of PCRE's native API
- pcrebuild options for building PCRE
- pcrecallout details of the callout feature
- pcrecompat discussion of Perl compatibility
- pcregrep description of the \fBpcregrep\fP command
- pcrepartial details of the partial matching facility
-.\" JOIN
- pcrepattern syntax and semantics of supported
- regular expressions
- pcreperform discussion of performance issues
- pcreposix the POSIX-compatible API
- pcreprecompile details of saving and re-using precompiled patterns
- pcresample discussion of the sample program
- pcretest description of the \fBpcretest\fP testing command
-.sp
-In addition, in the "man" and HTML formats, there is a short page for each
-library function, listing its arguments and results.
-.
-.
-.SH LIMITATIONS
-.rs
-.sp
-There are some size limitations in PCRE but it is hoped that they will never in
-practice be relevant.
-.P
-The maximum length of a compiled pattern is 65539 (sic) bytes if PCRE is
-compiled with the default internal linkage size of 2. If you want to process
-regular expressions that are truly enormous, you can compile PCRE with an
-internal linkage size of 3 or 4 (see the \fBREADME\fP file in the source
-distribution and the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrebuild\fP
-.\"
-documentation for details). In these cases the limit is substantially larger.
-However, the speed of execution will be slower.
-.P
-All values in repeating quantifiers must be less than 65536.
-The maximum number of capturing subpatterns is 65535.
-.P
-There is no limit to the number of non-capturing subpatterns, but the maximum
-depth of nesting of all kinds of parenthesized subpattern, including capturing
-subpatterns, assertions, and other types of subpattern, is 200.
-.P
-The maximum length of a subject string is the largest positive number that an
-integer variable can hold. However, PCRE uses recursion to handle subpatterns
-and indefinite repetition. This means that the available stack space may limit
-the size of a subject string that can be processed by certain patterns.
-.sp
-.\" HTML <a name="utf8support"></a>
-.
-.
-.SH "UTF-8 AND UNICODE PROPERTY SUPPORT"
-.rs
-.sp
-From release 3.3, PCRE has had some support for character strings encoded in
-the UTF-8 format. For release 4.0 this was greatly extended to cover most
-common requirements, and in release 5.0 additional support for Unicode general
-category properties was added.
-.P
-In order process UTF-8 strings, you must build PCRE to include UTF-8 support in
-the code, and, in addition, you must call
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcre_compile()\fP
-.\"
-with the PCRE_UTF8 option flag. When you do this, both the pattern and any
-subject strings that are matched against it are treated as UTF-8 strings
-instead of just strings of bytes.
-.P
-If you compile PCRE with UTF-8 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 flag in several places, so should not be very large.
-.P
-If PCRE is built with Unicode character property support (which implies UTF-8
-support), the escape sequences \ep{..}, \eP{..}, and \eX are supported.
-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. A full list is given in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrepattern\fP
-.\"
-documentation. The PCRE library is increased in size by about 90K when Unicode
-property support is included.
-.P
-The following comments apply when PCRE is running in UTF-8 mode:
-.P
-1. When you set the PCRE_UTF8 flag, the strings passed as patterns and subjects
-are checked for validity on entry to the relevant functions. If an invalid
-UTF-8 string is passed, an error return is given. 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_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 to
-PCRE when PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK is set, the results are undefined. Your program
-may crash.
-.P
-2. In a pattern, the escape sequence \ex{...}, where the contents of the braces
-is a string of hexadecimal digits, is interpreted as a UTF-8 character whose
-code number is the given hexadecimal number, for example: \ex{1234}. If a
-non-hexadecimal digit appears between the braces, the item is not recognized.
-This escape sequence can be used either as a literal, or within a character
-class.
-.P
-3. The original hexadecimal escape sequence, \exhh, matches a two-byte UTF-8
-character if the value is greater than 127.
-.P
-4. Repeat quantifiers apply to complete UTF-8 characters, not to individual
-bytes, for example: \ex{100}{3}.
-.P
-5. The dot metacharacter matches one UTF-8 character instead of a single byte.
-.P
-6. The escape sequence \eC can be used to match a single byte in UTF-8 mode,
-but its use can lead to some strange effects.
-.P
-7. The character escapes \eb, \eB, \ed, \eD, \es, \eS, \ew, and \eW correctly
-test characters of any code value, but the characters that PCRE recognizes as
-digits, spaces, or word characters remain the same set as before, all with
-values less than 256. This remains true even when PCRE includes Unicode
-property support, because to do otherwise would slow down PCRE in many common
-cases. If you really want to test for a wider sense of, say, "digit", you
-must use Unicode property tests such as \ep{Nd}.
-.P
-8. Similarly, characters that match the POSIX named character classes are all
-low-valued characters.
-.P
-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.
-.
-.SH AUTHOR
-.rs
-.sp
-Philip Hazel <ph10@cam.ac.uk>
-.br
-University Computing Service,
-.br
-Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
-.br
-Phone: +44 1223 334714
-.sp
-.in 0
-Last updated: 09 September 2004
-.br
-Copyright (c) 1997-2004 University of Cambridge.