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 pattern and any error offset that is returned are in code 41units, not characters. A compile context is needed only if you want to provide 42custom memory allocation functions, or to provide an external function for 43system stack size checking, or to change one or more of these parameters: 44<pre> 45 What \R matches (Unicode newlines, or CR, LF, CRLF only); 46 PCRE2's character tables; 47 The newline character sequence; 48 The compile time nested parentheses limit; 49 The maximum pattern length (in code units) that is allowed. 50 The additional options bits (see pcre2_set_compile_extra_options()) 51</pre> 52The option bits are: 53<pre> 54 PCRE2_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring 55 PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS Allow empty classes 56 PCRE2_ALT_BSUX Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x 57 PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode 58 PCRE2_ALT_VERBNAMES Process backslashes in verb names 59 PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts 60 PCRE2_CASELESS Do caseless matching 61 PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end 62 PCRE2_DOTALL . matches anything including NL 63 PCRE2_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns 64 PCRE2_ENDANCHORED Pattern can match only at end of subject 65 PCRE2_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments 66 PCRE2_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline 67 PCRE2_LITERAL Pattern characters are all literal 68 PCRE2_MATCH_INVALID_UTF Enable support for matching invalid UTF 69 PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF Match unset backreferences 70 PCRE2_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data 71 PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C Lock out the use of \C in patterns 72 PCRE2_NEVER_UCP Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP) 73 PCRE2_NEVER_UTF Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF) 74 PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren- 75 theses (named ones available) 76 PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification 77 PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR Disable automatic anchoring for .* 78 PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations 79 PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF validity 80 (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set) 81 PCRE2_UCP Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc. 82 PCRE2_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers 83 PCRE2_USE_OFFSET_LIMIT Enable offset limit for unanchored matching 84 PCRE2_UTF Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings 85</pre> 86PCRE2 must be built with Unicode support (the default) in order to use 87PCRE2_UTF, PCRE2_UCP and related options. 88</P> 89<P> 90Additional options may be set in the compile context via the 91<a href="pcre2_set_compile_extra_options.html"><b>pcre2_set_compile_extra_options</b></a> 92function. 93</P> 94<P> 95The yield of this function is a pointer to a private data structure that 96contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected. 97</P> 98<P> 99There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API, with more detail on 100each option, in the 101<a href="pcre2api.html"><b>pcre2api</b></a> 102page, and a description of the POSIX API in the 103<a href="pcre2posix.html"><b>pcre2posix</b></a> 104page. 105<p> 106Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>. 107</p> 108