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-PCRETEST(1) PCRETEST(1)
-
-
-
-NAME
- pcretest - a program for testing Perl-compatible regular expressions.
-
-SYNOPSIS
-
- pcretest [-C] [-d] [-i] [-m] [-o osize] [-p] [-t] [source]
- [destination]
-
- pcretest was written as a test program for the PCRE regular expression
- library itself, but it can also be used for experimenting with regular
- expressions. This document describes the features of the test program;
- for details of the regular expressions themselves, see the pcrepattern
- documentation. For details of the PCRE library function calls and their
- options, see the pcreapi documentation.
-
-
-OPTIONS
-
- -C Output the version number of the PCRE library, and all avail-
- able information about the optional features that are
- included, and then exit.
-
- -d Behave as if each regex had the /D (debug) modifier; the
- internal form is output after compilation.
-
- -i Behave as if each regex had the /I modifier; information
- about the compiled pattern is given after compilation.
-
- -m Output the size of each compiled pattern after it has been
- compiled. This is equivalent to adding /M to each regular
- expression. For compatibility with earlier versions of
- pcretest, -s is a synonym for -m.
-
- -o osize Set the number of elements in the output vector that is used
- when calling pcre_exec() to be osize. The default value is
- 45, which is enough for 14 capturing subexpressions. The vec-
- tor size can be changed for individual matching calls by
- including \O in the data line (see below).
-
- -p Behave as if each regex has /P modifier; the POSIX wrapper
- API is used to call PCRE. None of the other options has any
- effect when -p is set.
-
- -t Run each compile, study, and match many times with a timer,
- and output resulting time per compile or match (in millisec-
- onds). Do not set -m with -t, because you will then get the
- size output a zillion times, and the timing will be dis-
- torted.
-
-
-DESCRIPTION
-
- If pcretest is given two filename arguments, it reads from the first
- and writes to the second. If it is given only one filename argument, it
- reads from that file and writes to stdout. Otherwise, it reads from
- stdin and writes to stdout, and prompts for each line of input, using
- "re>" to prompt for regular expressions, and "data>" to prompt for data
- lines.
-
- The program handles any number of sets of input on a single input file.
- Each set starts with a regular expression, and continues with any num-
- ber of data lines to be matched against the pattern.
-
- Each data line is matched separately and independently. If you want to
- do multiple-line matches, you have to use the \n escape sequence in a
- single line of input to encode the newline characters. The maximum
- length of data line is 30,000 characters.
-
- An empty line signals the end of the data lines, at which point a new
- regular expression is read. The regular expressions are given enclosed
- in any non-alphanumeric delimiters other than backslash, for example
-
- /(a|bc)x+yz/
-
- White space before the initial delimiter is ignored. A regular expres-
- sion may be continued over several input lines, in which case the new-
- line characters are included within it. It is possible to include the
- delimiter within the pattern by escaping it, for example
-
- /abc\/def/
-
- If you do so, the escape and the delimiter form part of the pattern,
- but since delimiters are always non-alphanumeric, this does not affect
- its interpretation. If the terminating delimiter is immediately fol-
- lowed by a backslash, for example,
-
- /abc/\
-
- then a backslash is added to the end of the pattern. This is done to
- provide a way of testing the error condition that arises if a pattern
- finishes with a backslash, because
-
- /abc\/
-
- is interpreted as the first line of a pattern that starts with "abc/",
- causing pcretest to read the next line as a continuation of the regular
- expression.
-
-
-PATTERN MODIFIERS
-
- A pattern may be followed by any number of modifiers, which are mostly
- single characters. Following Perl usage, these are referred to below
- as, for example, "the /i modifier", even though the delimiter of the
- pattern need not always be a slash, and no slash is used when writing
- modifiers. Whitespace may appear between the final pattern delimiter
- and the first modifier, and between the modifiers themselves.
-
- The /i, /m, /s, and /x modifiers set the PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE,
- PCRE_DOTALL, or PCRE_EXTENDED options, respectively, when pcre_com-
- pile() is called. These four modifier letters have the same effect as
- they do in Perl. For example:
-
- /caseless/i
-
- The following table shows additional modifiers for setting PCRE options
- that do not correspond to anything in Perl:
-
- /A PCRE_ANCHORED
- /C PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT
- /E PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY
- /N PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE
- /U PCRE_UNGREEDY
- /X PCRE_EXTRA
-
- Searching for all possible matches within each subject string can be
- requested by the /g or /G modifier. After finding a match, PCRE is
- called again to search the remainder of the subject string. The differ-
- ence between /g and /G is that the former uses the startoffset argument
- to pcre_exec() to start searching at a new point within the entire
- string (which is in effect what Perl does), whereas the latter passes
- over a shortened substring. This makes a difference to the matching
- process if the pattern begins with a lookbehind assertion (including \b
- or \B).
-
- If any call to pcre_exec() in a /g or /G sequence matches an empty
- string, the next call is done with the PCRE_NOTEMPTY and PCRE_ANCHORED
- flags set in order to search for another, non-empty, match at the same
- point. If this second match fails, the start offset is advanced by
- one, and the normal match is retried. This imitates the way Perl han-
- dles such cases when using the /g modifier or the split() function.
-
- There are yet more modifiers for controlling the way pcretest operates.
-
- The /+ modifier requests that as well as outputting the substring that
- matched the entire pattern, pcretest should in addition output the
- remainder of the subject string. This is useful for tests where the
- subject contains multiple copies of the same substring.
-
- The /L modifier must be followed directly by the name of a locale, for
- example,
-
- /pattern/Lfr_FR
-
- For this reason, it must be the last modifier. The given locale is set,
- pcre_maketables() is called to build a set of character tables for the
- locale, and this is then passed to pcre_compile() when compiling the
- regular expression. Without an /L modifier, NULL is passed as the
- tables pointer; that is, /L applies only to the expression on which it
- appears.
-
- The /I modifier requests that pcretest output information about the
- compiled pattern (whether it is anchored, has a fixed first character,
- and so on). It does this by calling pcre_fullinfo() after compiling a
- pattern. If the pattern is studied, the results of that are also out-
- put.
-
- The /D modifier is a PCRE debugging feature, which also assumes /I. It
- causes the internal form of compiled regular expressions to be output
- after compilation. If the pattern was studied, the information returned
- is also output.
-
- The /F modifier causes pcretest to flip the byte order of the fields in
- the compiled pattern that contain 2-byte and 4-byte numbers. This
- facility is for testing the feature in PCRE that allows it to execute
- patterns that were compiled on a host with a different endianness. This
- feature is not available when the POSIX interface to PCRE is being
- used, that is, when the /P pattern modifier is specified. See also the
- section about saving and reloading compiled patterns below.
-
- The /S modifier causes pcre_study() to be called after the expression
- has been compiled, and the results used when the expression is matched.
-
- The /M modifier causes the size of memory block used to hold the com-
- piled pattern to be output.
-
- The /P modifier causes pcretest to call PCRE via the POSIX wrapper API
- rather than its native API. When this is done, all other modifiers
- except /i, /m, and /+ are ignored. REG_ICASE is set if /i is present,
- and REG_NEWLINE is set if /m is present. The wrapper functions force
- PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY always, and PCRE_DOTALL unless REG_NEWLINE is set.
-
- The /8 modifier causes pcretest to call PCRE with the PCRE_UTF8 option
- set. This turns on support for UTF-8 character handling in PCRE, pro-
- vided that it was compiled with this support enabled. This modifier
- also causes any non-printing characters in output strings to be printed
- using the \x{hh...} notation if they are valid UTF-8 sequences.
-
- If the /? modifier is used with /8, it causes pcretest to call
- pcre_compile() with the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option, to suppress the
- checking of the string for UTF-8 validity.
-
-
-DATA LINES
-
- Before each data line is passed to pcre_exec(), leading and trailing
- whitespace is removed, and it is then scanned for \ escapes. Some of
- these are pretty esoteric features, intended for checking out some of
- the more complicated features of PCRE. If you are just testing "ordi-
- nary" regular expressions, you probably don't need any of these. The
- following escapes are recognized:
-
- \a alarm (= BEL)
- \b backspace
- \e escape
- \f formfeed
- \n newline
- \r carriage return
- \t tab
- \v vertical tab
- \nnn octal character (up to 3 octal digits)
- \xhh hexadecimal character (up to 2 hex digits)
- \x{hh...} hexadecimal character, any number of digits
- in UTF-8 mode
- \A pass the PCRE_ANCHORED option to pcre_exec()
- \B pass the PCRE_NOTBOL option to pcre_exec()
- \Cdd call pcre_copy_substring() for substring dd
- after a successful match (number less than 32)
- \Cname call pcre_copy_named_substring() for substring
- "name" after a successful match (name termin-
- ated by next non alphanumeric character)
- \C+ show the current captured substrings at callout
- time
- \C- do not supply a callout function
- \C!n return 1 instead of 0 when callout number n is
- reached
- \C!n!m return 1 instead of 0 when callout number n is
- reached for the nth time
- \C*n pass the number n (may be negative) as callout
- data; this is used as the callout return value
- \Gdd call pcre_get_substring() for substring dd
- after a successful match (number less than 32)
- \Gname call pcre_get_named_substring() for substring
- "name" after a successful match (name termin-
- ated by next non-alphanumeric character)
- \L call pcre_get_substringlist() after a
- successful match
- \M discover the minimum MATCH_LIMIT setting
- \N pass the PCRE_NOTEMPTY option to pcre_exec()
- \Odd set the size of the output vector passed to
- pcre_exec() to dd (any number of digits)
- \P pass the PCRE_PARTIAL option to pcre_exec()
- \S output details of memory get/free calls during matching
- \Z pass the PCRE_NOTEOL option to pcre_exec()
- \? pass the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option to
- pcre_exec()
- \>dd start the match at offset dd (any number of digits);
- this sets the startoffset argument for pcre_exec()
-
- A backslash followed by anything else just escapes the anything else.
- If the very last character is a backslash, it is ignored. This gives a
- way of passing an empty line as data, since a real empty line termi-
- nates the data input.
-
- If \M is present, pcretest calls pcre_exec() several times, with dif-
- ferent values in the match_limit field of the pcre_extra data struc-
- ture, until it finds the minimum number that is needed for pcre_exec()
- to complete. This number is a measure of the amount of recursion and
- backtracking that takes place, and checking it out can be instructive.
- For most simple matches, the number is quite small, but for patterns
- with very large numbers of matching possibilities, it can become large
- very quickly with increasing length of subject string.
-
- When \O is used, the value specified may be higher or lower than the
- size set by the -O command line option (or defaulted to 45); \O applies
- only to the call of pcre_exec() for the line in which it appears.
-
- If the /P modifier was present on the pattern, causing the POSIX wrap-
- per API to be used, only \B and \Z have any effect, causing REG_NOTBOL
- and REG_NOTEOL to be passed to regexec() respectively.
-
- The use of \x{hh...} to represent UTF-8 characters is not dependent on
- the use of the /8 modifier on the pattern. It is recognized always.
- There may be any number of hexadecimal digits inside the braces. The
- result is from one to six bytes, encoded according to the UTF-8 rules.
-
-
-OUTPUT FROM PCRETEST
-
- When a match succeeds, pcretest outputs the list of captured substrings
- that pcre_exec() returns, starting with number 0 for the string that
- matched the whole pattern. Otherwise, it outputs "No match" or "Partial
- match" when pcre_exec() returns PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH or PCRE_ERROR_PAR-
- TIAL, respectively, and otherwise the PCRE negative error number. Here
- is an example of an interactive pcretest run.
-
- $ pcretest
- PCRE version 5.00 07-Sep-2004
-
- re> /^abc(\d+)/
- data> abc123
- 0: abc123
- 1: 123
- data> xyz
- No match
-
- If the strings contain any non-printing characters, they are output as
- \0x escapes, or as \x{...} escapes if the /8 modifier was present on
- the pattern. If the pattern has the /+ modifier, the output for sub-
- string 0 is followed by the the rest of the subject string, identified
- by "0+" like this:
-
- re> /cat/+
- data> cataract
- 0: cat
- 0+ aract
-
- If the pattern has the /g or /G modifier, the results of successive
- matching attempts are output in sequence, like this:
-
- re> /\Bi(\w\w)/g
- data> Mississippi
- 0: iss
- 1: ss
- 0: iss
- 1: ss
- 0: ipp
- 1: pp
-
- "No match" is output only if the first match attempt fails.
-
- If any of the sequences \C, \G, or \L are present in a data line that
- is successfully matched, the substrings extracted by the convenience
- functions are output with C, G, or L after the string number instead of
- a colon. This is in addition to the normal full list. The string length
- (that is, the return from the extraction function) is given in paren-
- theses after each string for \C and \G.
-
- Note that while patterns can be continued over several lines (a plain
- ">" prompt is used for continuations), data lines may not. However new-
- lines can be included in data by means of the \n escape.
-
-
-CALLOUTS
-
- If the pattern contains any callout requests, pcretest's callout func-
- tion is called during matching. By default, it displays the callout
- number, the start and current positions in the text at the callout
- time, and the next pattern item to be tested. For example, the output
-
- --->pqrabcdef
- 0 ^ ^ \d
-
- indicates that callout number 0 occurred for a match attempt starting
- at the fourth character of the subject string, when the pointer was at
- the seventh character of the data, and when the next pattern item was
- \d. Just one circumflex is output if the start and current positions
- are the same.
-
- Callouts numbered 255 are assumed to be automatic callouts, inserted as
- a result of the /C pattern modifier. In this case, instead of showing
- the callout number, the offset in the pattern, preceded by a plus, is
- output. For example:
-
- re> /\d?[A-E]\*/C
- data> E*
- --->E*
- +0 ^ \d?
- +3 ^ [A-E]
- +8 ^^ \*
- +10 ^ ^
- 0: E*
-
- The callout function in pcretest returns zero (carry on matching) by
- default, but you can use an \C item in a data line (as described above)
- to change this.
-
- Inserting callouts can be helpful when using pcretest to check compli-
- cated regular expressions. For further information about callouts, see
- the pcrecallout documentation.
-
-
-SAVING AND RELOADING COMPILED PATTERNS
-
- The facilities described in this section are not available when the
- POSIX inteface to PCRE is being used, that is, when the /P pattern mod-
- ifier is specified.
-
- When the POSIX interface is not in use, you can cause pcretest to write
- a compiled pattern to a file, by following the modifiers with > and a
- file name. For example:
-
- /pattern/im >/some/file
-
- See the pcreprecompile documentation for a discussion about saving and
- re-using compiled patterns.
-
- The data that is written is binary. The first eight bytes are the
- length of the compiled pattern data followed by the length of the
- optional study data, each written as four bytes in big-endian order
- (most significant byte first). If there is no study data (either the
- pattern was not studied, or studying did not return any data), the sec-
- ond length is zero. The lengths are followed by an exact copy of the
- compiled pattern. If there is additional study data, this follows imme-
- diately after the compiled pattern. After writing the file, pcretest
- expects to read a new pattern.
-
- A saved pattern can be reloaded into pcretest by specifing < and a file
- name instead of a pattern. The name of the file must not contain a <
- character, as otherwise pcretest will interpret the line as a pattern
- delimited by < characters. For example:
-
- re> </some/file
- Compiled regex loaded from /some/file
- No study data
-
- When the pattern has been loaded, pcretest proceeds to read data lines
- in the usual way.
-
- You can copy a file written by pcretest to a different host and reload
- it there, even if the new host has opposite endianness to the one on
- which the pattern was compiled. For example, you can compile on an i86
- machine and run on a SPARC machine.
-
- File names for saving and reloading can be absolute or relative, but
- note that the shell facility of expanding a file name that starts with
- a tilde (~) is not available.
-
- The ability to save and reload files in pcretest is intended for test-
- ing and experimentation. It is not intended for production use because
- only a single pattern can be written to a file. Furthermore, there is
- no facility for supplying custom character tables for use with a
- reloaded pattern. If the original pattern was compiled with custom
- tables, an attempt to match a subject string using a reloaded pattern
- is likely to cause pcretest to crash. Finally, if you attempt to load
- a file that is not in the correct format, the result is undefined.
-
-
-AUTHOR
-
- Philip Hazel <ph10@cam.ac.uk>
- University Computing Service,
- Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
-
-Last updated: 10 September 2004
-Copyright (c) 1997-2004 University of Cambridge.