pcre2api man page

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• PCRE2 NATIVE API BASIC FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API AUXILIARY MATCH FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API GENERAL CONTEXT FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API COMPILE CONTEXT FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API MATCH CONTEXT FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API STRING EXTRACTION FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API STRING SUBSTITUTION FUNCTION
• PCRE2 NATIVE API JIT FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 NATIVE API AUXILIARY FUNCTIONS
• PCRE2 8-BIT, 16-BIT, AND 32-BIT LIBRARIES
• PCRE2 API OVERVIEW
• STRING LENGTHS AND OFFSETS
• NEWLINES
• MULTITHREADING
• PCRE2 CONTEXTS
• CHECKING BUILD-TIME OPTIONS
• COMPILING A PATTERN
• COMPILATION ERROR CODES
• JUST-IN-TIME (JIT) COMPILATION
• LOCALE SUPPORT
• INFORMATION ABOUT A COMPILED PATTERN
• THE MATCH DATA BLOCK
• MATCHING A PATTERN: THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTION
• NEWLINE HANDLING WHEN MATCHING
• HOW PCRE2_MATCH() RETURNS A STRING AND CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS
• OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT A MATCH
• ERROR RETURNS FROM pcre2_match()
• EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NUMBER
• EXTRACTING A LIST OF ALL CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS
• EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NAME
• CREATING A NEW STRING WITH SUBSTITUTIONS
• DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NAMES
• FINDING ALL POSSIBLE MATCHES AT ONE POSITION
• MATCHING A PATTERN: THE ALTERNATIVE FUNCTION
• SEE ALSO
• AUTHOR
• REVISION

#include <pcre2.h>

PCRE2 is a new API for PCRE. This document contains a description of all its functions. See the pcre2 document for an overview of all the PCRE2 documentation.

pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR pattern, PCRE2_SIZE length, uint32_t options, int *errorcode, PCRE2_SIZE *erroroffset, pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

pcre2_code_free(pcre2_code *code);

pcre2_match_data_create(uint32_t ovecsize, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_match_data_create_from_pattern(const pcre2_code *code, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

int pcre2_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

int pcre2_dfa_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext, int *workspace, PCRE2_SIZE wscount);

void pcre2_match_data_free(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

PCRE2_SPTR pcre2_get_mark(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

uint32_t pcre2_get_ovector_count(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

PCRE2_SIZE *pcre2_get_ovector_pointer(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

PCRE2_SIZE pcre2_get_startchar(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

pcre2_general_context *pcre2_general_context_create( void *(*private_malloc)(PCRE2_SIZE, void *), void (*private_free)(void *, void *), void *memory_data);

pcre2_general_context *pcre2_general_context_copy( pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

void pcre2_general_context_free(pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_compile_context *pcre2_compile_context_create( pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_compile_context *pcre2_compile_context_copy( pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

void pcre2_compile_context_free(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

int pcre2_set_bsr(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, uint32_t value);

int pcre2_set_character_tables(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, const unsigned char *tables);

int pcre2_set_newline(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, uint32_t value);

int pcre2_set_parens_nest_limit(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, uint32_t value);

int pcre2_set_compile_recursion_guard(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, int (*guard_function)(uint32_t, void *), void *user_data);

pcre2_match_context *pcre2_match_context_create( pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_match_context *pcre2_match_context_copy( pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

void pcre2_match_context_free(pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

int pcre2_set_callout(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, int (*callout_function)(pcre2_callout_block *, void *), void *callout_data);

int pcre2_set_match_limit(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, uint32_t value);

int pcre2_set_recursion_limit(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, uint32_t value);

int pcre2_set_recursion_memory_management( pcre2_match_context *mcontext, void *(*private_malloc)(PCRE2_SIZE, void *), void (*private_free)(void *, void *), void *memory_data);

int pcre2_substring_copy_byname(pcre2_match_data *match_data, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

int pcre2_substring_copy_bynumber(pcre2_match_data *match_data, uint32_t number, PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

void pcre2_substring_free(PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer);

int pcre2_substring_get_byname(pcre2_match_data *match_data, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_UCHAR **bufferptr, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

int pcre2_substring_get_bynumber(pcre2_match_data *match_data, uint32_t number, PCRE2_UCHAR **bufferptr, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

int pcre2_substring_length_byname(pcre2_match_data *match_data, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_SIZE *length);

int pcre2_substring_length_bynumber(pcre2_match_data *match_data, uint32_t number, PCRE2_SIZE *length);

int pcre2_substring_nametable_scan(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_SPTR *first, PCRE2_SPTR *last);

int pcre2_substring_number_from_name(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR name);

void pcre2_substring_list_free(PCRE2_SPTR *list);

int pcre2_substring_list_get(pcre2_match_data *match_data, " PCRE2_UCHAR ***listptr, PCRE2_SIZE **lengthsptr);

int pcre2_substitute(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext, PCRE2_SPTR \fIreplacementzfP, PCRE2_SIZE rlength, PCRE2_UCHAR *outputbuffer, PCRE2_SIZE *outlengthptr);

int pcre2_jit_compile(pcre2_code *code, uint32_t options);

int pcre2_jit_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

void pcre2_jit_free_unused_memory(pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_jit_stack *pcre2_jit_stack_create(PCRE2_SIZE startsize, PCRE2_SIZE maxsize, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

void pcre2_jit_stack_assign(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, pcre2_jit_callback callback_function, void *callback_data);

void pcre2_jit_stack_free(pcre2_jit_stack *jit_stack);

int pcre2_get_error_message(int errorcode, PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer, PCRE2_SIZE bufflen);

const unsigned char *pcre2_maketables(pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

int pcre2_pattern_info(const pcre2 *code, uint32_t what, void *where);

int pcre2_config(uint32_t what, void *where);

There are three PCRE2 libraries, supporting 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit code units, respectively. However, there is just one header file, pcre2.h. This contains the function prototypes and other definitions for all three libraries. One, two, or all three can be installed simultaneously. On Unix-like systems the libraries are called libpcre2-8, libpcre2-16, and libpcre2-32, and they can also co-exist with the original PCRE libraries.

Character strings are passed to and from a PCRE2 library as a sequence of unsigned integers in code units of the appropriate width. Every PCRE2 function comes in three different forms, one for each library, for example:

  pcre2_compile_8()
  pcre2_compile_16()
  pcre2_compile_32()

  PCRE2_UCHAR8, PCRE2_UCHAR16, PCRE2_UCHAR32
  PCRE2_SPTR8,  PCRE2_SPTR16,  PCRE2_SPTR32

Many applications use only one code unit width. For their convenience, macros are defined whose names are the generic forms such as pcre2_compile() and PCRE2_SPTR. These macros use the value of the macro PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH to generate the appropriate width-specific function and macro names. PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH is not defined by default. An application must define it to be 8, 16, or 32 before including pcre2.h in order to make use of the generic names.

Applications that use more than one code unit width can be linked with more than one PCRE2 library, but must define PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH to be 0 before including pcre2.h, and then use the real function names. Any code that is to be included in an environment where the value of PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH is unknown should also use the real function names. (Unfortunately, it is not possible in C code to save and restore the value of a macro.)

If PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH is not defined before including pcre2.h, a compiler error occurs.

When using multiple libraries in an application, you must take care when processing any particular pattern to use only functions from a single library. For example, if you want to run a match using a pattern that was compiled with pcre2_compile_16(), you must do so with pcre2_match_16(), not pcre2_match_8().

In the function summaries above, and in the rest of this document and other PCRE2 documents, functions and data types are described using their generic names, without the 8, 16, or 32 suffix.

PCRE2 has its own native API, which is described in this document. There are also some wrapper functions for the 8-bit library that correspond to the POSIX regular expression API, but they do not give access to all the functionality. They are described in the pcre2posix documentation. Both these APIs define a set of C function calls.

The native API C data types, function prototypes, option values, and error codes are defined in the header file pcre2.h, which contains definitions of PCRE2_MAJOR and PCRE2_MINOR, the major and minor release numbers for the library. Applications can use these to include support for different releases of PCRE2.

In a Windows environment, if you want to statically link an application program against a non-dll PCRE2 library, you must define PCRE2_STATIC before including pcre2.h.

The functions pcre2_compile(), and pcre2_match() are used for compiling and matching regular expressions in a Perl-compatible manner. A sample program that demonstrates the simplest way of using them is provided in the file called pcre2demo.c in the PCRE2 source distribution. A listing of this program is given in the pcre2demo documentation, and the pcre2sample documentation describes how to compile and run it.

Just-in-time compiler support is an optional feature of PCRE2 that can be built in appropriate hardware environments. It greatly speeds up the matching performance of many patterns. Programs can request that it be used if available, by calling pcre2_jit_compile() after a pattern has been successfully compiled by pcre2_compile(). This does nothing if JIT support is not available.

More complicated programs might need to make use of the specialist functions pcre2_jit_stack_create(), pcre2_jit_stack_free(), and pcre2_jit_stack_assign() in order to control the JIT code's memory usage.

JIT matching is automatically used by pcre2_match() if it is available. There is also a direct interface for JIT matching, which gives improved performance. The JIT-specific functions are discussed in the pcre2jit documentation.

A second matching function, pcre2_dfa_match(), which is not Perl-compatible, is also provided. This uses a different algorithm for the matching. The alternative algorithm finds all possible matches (at a given point in the subject), and scans the subject just once (unless there are lookbehind assertions). However, this algorithm does not return captured substrings. A description of the two matching algorithms and their advantages and disadvantages is given in the pcre2matching documentation. There is no JIT support for pcre2_dfa_match().

In addition to the main compiling and matching functions, there are convenience functions for extracting captured substrings from a subject string that has been matched by pcre2_match(). They are:

  pcre2_substring_copy_byname()
  pcre2_substring_copy_bynumber()
  pcre2_substring_get_byname()
  pcre2_substring_get_bynumber()
  pcre2_substring_list_get()
  pcre2_substring_length_byname()
  pcre2_substring_length_bynumber()
  pcre2_substring_nametable_scan()
  pcre2_substring_number_from_name()

The function pcre2_substitute() can be called to match a pattern and return a copy of the subject string with substitutions for parts that were matched.

Finally, there are functions for finding out information about a compiled pattern (pcre2_pattern_info()) and about the configuration with which PCRE2 was built (pcre2_config()).

The PCRE2 API uses string lengths and offsets into strings of code units in several places. These values are always of type PCRE2_SIZE, which is an unsigned integer type, currently always defined as size_t. The largest value that can be stored in such a type (that is ~(PCRE2_SIZE)0) is reserved as a special indicator for zero-terminated strings and unset offsets. Therefore, the longest string that can be handled is one less than this maximum.

PCRE2 supports five different conventions for indicating line breaks in strings: a single CR (carriage return) character, a single LF (linefeed) character, the two-character sequence CRLF, any of the three preceding, or any Unicode newline sequence. The Unicode newline sequences are the three just mentioned, plus the single characters VT (vertical tab, U+000B), FF (form feed, U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029).

Each of the first three conventions is used by at least one operating system as its standard newline sequence. When PCRE2 is built, a default can be specified. The default default is LF, which is the Unix standard. However, the newline convention can be changed by an application when calling pcre2_compile(), or it can be specified by special text at the start of the pattern itself; this overrides any other settings. See the pcre2pattern page for details of the special character sequences.

In the PCRE2 documentation the word "newline" is used to mean "the character or pair of characters that indicate a line break". The choice of newline convention affects the handling of the dot, circumflex, and dollar metacharacters, the handling of #-comments in /x mode, and, when CRLF is a recognized line ending sequence, the match position advancement for a non-anchored pattern. There is more detail about this in the section on pcre2_match() options below.

The choice of newline convention does not affect the interpretation of the \n or \r escape sequences, nor does it affect what \R matches; this has its own separate convention.

In a multithreaded application it is important to keep thread-specific data separate from data that can be shared between threads. The PCRE2 library code itself is thread-safe: it contains no static or global variables. The API is designed to be fairly simple for non-threaded applications while at the same time ensuring that multithreaded applications can use it.

There are several different blocks of data that are used to pass information between the application and the PCRE2 libraries.

(1) A pointer to the compiled form of a pattern is returned to the user when pcre2_compile() is successful. The data in the compiled pattern is fixed, and does not change when the pattern is matched. Therefore, it is thread-safe, that is, the same compiled pattern can be used by more than one thread simultaneously. An application can compile all its patterns at the start, before forking off multiple threads that use them. However, if the just-in-time optimization feature is being used, it needs separate memory stack areas for each thread. See the pcre2jit documentation for more details.

(2) The next section below introduces the idea of "contexts" in which PCRE2 functions are called. A context is nothing more than a collection of parameters that control the way PCRE2 operates. Grouping a number of parameters together in a context is a convenient way of passing them to a PCRE2 function without using lots of arguments. The parameters that are stored in contexts are in some sense "advanced features" of the API. Many straightforward applications will not need to use contexts.

In a multithreaded application, if the parameters in a context are values that are never changed, the same context can be used by all the threads. However, if any thread needs to change any value in a context, it must make its own thread-specific copy.

(3) The matching functions need a block of memory for working space and for storing the results of a match. This includes details of what was matched, as well as additional information such as the name of a (*MARK) setting. Each thread must provide its own version of this memory.

Some PCRE2 functions have a lot of parameters, many of which are used only by specialist applications, for example, those that use custom memory management or non-standard character tables. To keep function argument lists at a reasonable size, and at the same time to keep the API extensible, "uncommon" parameters are passed to certain functions in a context instead of directly. A context is just a block of memory that holds the parameter values. Applications that do not need to adjust any of the context parameters can pass NULL when a context pointer is required.

There are three different types of context: a general context that is relevant for several PCRE2 operations, a compile-time context, and a match-time context.

At present, this context just contains pointers to (and data for) external memory management functions that are called from several places in the PCRE2 library. The context is named `general' rather than specifically `memory' because in future other fields may be added. If you do not want to supply your own custom memory management functions, you do not need to bother with a general context. A general context is created by: pcre2_general_context *pcre2_general_context_create( void *(*private_malloc)(PCRE2_SIZE, void *), void (*private_free)(void *, void *), void *memory_data);

The two function pointers specify custom memory management functions, whose prototypes are:

  void *private_malloc(PCRE2_SIZE, void *);
  void  private_free(void *, void *);

Whenever PCRE2 creates a data block of any kind, the block contains a pointer to the free() function that matches the malloc() function that was used. When the time comes to free the block, this function is called.

A general context can be copied by calling: pcre2_general_context *pcre2_general_context_copy( pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

The memory used for a general context should be freed by calling: void pcre2_general_context_free(pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

A compile context is required if you want to change the default values of any of the following compile-time parameters:

  What \R matches (Unicode newlines or CR, LF, CRLF only)
  PCRE2's character tables
  The newline character sequence
  The compile time nested parentheses limit
  An external function for stack checking

A compile context is created, copied, and freed by the following functions: pcre2_compile_context *pcre2_compile_context_create( pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_compile_context *pcre2_compile_context_copy( pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

void pcre2_compile_context_free(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

A compile context is created with default values for its parameters. These can be changed by calling the following functions, which return 0 on success, or PCRE2_ERROR_BADDATA if invalid data is detected. int pcre2_set_bsr(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, uint32_t value);

The value must be PCRE2_BSR_ANYCRLF, to specify that \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF, or PCRE2_BSR_UNICODE, to specify that \R matches any Unicode line ending sequence. The value is used by the JIT compiler and by the two interpreted matching functions, pcre2_match() and pcre2_dfa_match(). int pcre2_set_character_tables(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, const unsigned char *tables);

The value must be the result of a call to pcre2_maketables(), whose only argument is a general context. This function builds a set of character tables in the current locale. int pcre2_set_newline(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, uint32_t value);

This specifies which characters or character sequences are to be recognized as newlines. The value must be one of PCRE2_NEWLINE_CR (carriage return only), PCRE2_NEWLINE_LF (linefeed only), PCRE2_NEWLINE_CRLF (the two-character sequence CR followed by LF), PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF (any of the above), or PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANY (any Unicode newline sequence).

When a pattern is compiled with the PCRE2_EXTENDED option, the value of this parameter affects the recognition of white space and the end of internal comments starting with #. The value is saved with the compiled pattern for subsequent use by the JIT compiler and by the two interpreted matching functions, pcre2_match() and pcre2_dfa_match(). int pcre2_set_parens_nest_limit(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, uint32_t value);

This parameter ajusts the limit, set when PCRE2 is built (default 250), on the depth of parenthesis nesting in a pattern. This limit stops rogue patterns using up too much system stack when being compiled. int pcre2_set_compile_recursion_guard(pcre2_compile_context *ccontext, int (*guard_function)(uint32_t, void *), void *user_data);

There is at least one application that runs PCRE2 in threads with very limited system stack, where running out of stack is to be avoided at all costs. The parenthesis limit above cannot take account of how much stack is actually available. For a finer control, you can supply a function that is called whenever pcre2_compile() starts to compile a parenthesized part of a pattern. This function can check the actual stack size (or anything else that it wants to, of course).

The first argument to the callout function gives the current depth of nesting, and the second is user data that is set up by the last argument of pcre2_set_compile_recursion_guard(). The callout function should return zero if all is well, or non-zero to force an error.

A match context is required if you want to change the default values of any of the following match-time parameters:

  A callout function
  The limit for calling match()
  The limit for calling match() recursively

A match context is created, copied, and freed by the following functions: pcre2_match_context *pcre2_match_context_create( pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_match_context *pcre2_match_context_copy( pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

void pcre2_match_context_free(pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

A match context is created with default values for its parameters. These can be changed by calling the following functions, which return 0 on success, or PCRE2_ERROR_BADDATA if invalid data is detected. int pcre2_set_callout(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, int (*callout_function)(pcre2_callout_block *, void *), void *callout_data);

This sets up a "callout" function, which PCRE2 will call at specified points during a matching operation. Details are given in the pcre2callout documentation. int pcre2_set_match_limit(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, uint32_t value);

The match_limit parameter provides a means of preventing PCRE2 from using up too many resources when processing patterns that are not going to match, but which have a very large number of possibilities in their search trees. The classic example is a pattern that uses nested unlimited repeats.

Internally, pcre2_match() uses a function called match(), which it calls repeatedly (sometimes recursively). The limit set by match_limit is imposed on the number of times this function is called during a match, which has the effect of limiting the amount of backtracking that can take place. For patterns that are not anchored, the count restarts from zero for each position in the subject string. This limit is not relevant to pcre2_dfa_match(), which ignores it.

When pcre2_match() is called with a pattern that was successfully processed by pcre2_jit_compile(), the way in which matching is executed is entirely different. However, there is still the possibility of runaway matching that goes on for a very long time, and so the match_limit value is also used in this case (but in a different way) to limit how long the matching can continue.

The default value for the limit can be set when PCRE2 is built; the default default is 10 million, which handles all but the most extreme cases. If the limit is exceeded, pcre2_match() returns PCRE2_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT. A value for the match limit may also be supplied by an item at the start of a pattern of the form

  (*LIMIT_MATCH=ddd)

Limiting the recursion depth limits the amount of system stack that can be used, or, when PCRE2 has been compiled to use memory on the heap instead of the stack, the amount of heap memory that can be used. This limit is not relevant, and is ignored, when matching is done using JIT compiled code or by the pcre2_dfa_match() function.

The default value for recursion_limit can be set when PCRE2 is built; the default default is the same value as the default for match_limit. If the limit is exceeded, pcre2_match() returns PCRE2_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT. A value for the recursion limit may also be supplied by an item at the start of a pattern of the form

  (*LIMIT_RECURSION=ddd)

Using the heap for recursion is a non-standard way of building PCRE2, for use in environments that have limited stacks. Because of the greater use of memory management, pcre2_match() runs more slowly. Functions that are different to the general custom memory functions are provided so that special-purpose external code can be used for this case, because the memory blocks are all the same size. The blocks are retained by pcre2_match() until it is about to exit so that they can be re-used when possible during the match. In the absence of these functions, the normal custom memory management functions are used, if supplied, otherwise the system functions.

int pcre2_config(uint32_t what, void *where);

The function pcre2_config() makes it possible for a PCRE2 client to discover which optional features have been compiled into the PCRE2 library. The pcre2build documentation has more details about these optional features.

The first argument for pcre2_config() specifies which information is required. The second argument is a pointer to memory into which the information is placed. If NULL is passed, the function returns the amount of memory that is needed for the requested information. For calls that return numerical values, the value is in bytes; when requesting these values, where should point to appropriately aligned memory. For calls that return strings, the required length is given in code units, not counting the terminating zero.

When requesting information, the returned value from pcre2_config() is non-negative on success, or the negative error code PCRE2_ERROR_BADOPTION if the value in the first argument is not recognized. The following information is available:

  PCRE2_CONFIG_BSR

  PCRE2_CONFIG_JIT

  PCRE2_CONFIG_JITTARGET

  PCRE2_CONFIG_LINKSIZE

The default value of 2 for the 8-bit and 16-bit libraries is sufficient for all but the most massive patterns, since it allows the size of the compiled pattern to be up to 64K code units. Larger values allow larger regular expressions to be compiled by those two libraries, but at the expense of slower matching.

  PCRE2_CONFIG_MATCHLIMIT

  PCRE2_CONFIG_NEWLINE

  PCRE2_NEWLINE_CR       Carriage return (CR)
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_LF       Linefeed (LF)
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_CRLF     Carriage return, linefeed (CRLF)
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANY      Any Unicode line ending
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF  Any of CR, LF, or CRLF

  PCRE2_CONFIG_PARENSLIMIT

  PCRE2_CONFIG_RECURSIONLIMIT

  PCRE2_CONFIG_STACKRECURSE

  PCRE2_CONFIG_UNICODE_VERSION

  PCRE2_CONFIG_UNICODE

  PCRE2_CONFIG_VERSION

pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR pattern, PCRE2_SIZE length, uint32_t options, int *errorcode, PCRE2_SIZE *erroroffset, pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

pcre2_code_free(pcre2_code *code);

The pcre2_compile() function compiles a pattern into an internal form. The pattern is defined by a pointer to a string of code units and a length, If the pattern is zero-terminated, the length can be specified as PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED. The function returns a pointer to a block of memory that contains the compiled pattern and related data. The caller must free the memory by calling pcre2_code_free() when it is no longer needed.

NOTE: When one of the matching functions is called, pointers to the compiled pattern and the subject string are set in the match data block so that they can be referenced by the extraction functions. After running a match, you must not free a compiled pattern (or a subject string) until after all operations on the match data block have taken place.

If the compile context argument ccontext is NULL, memory for the compiled pattern is obtained by calling malloc(). Otherwise, it is obtained from the same memory function that was used for the compile context.

The options argument contains various bit settings that affect the compilation. It should be zero if no options are required. The available options are described below. Some of them (in particular, those that are compatible with Perl, but some others as well) can also be set and unset from within the pattern (see the detailed description in the pcre2pattern documentation).

For those options that can be different in different parts of the pattern, the contents of the options argument specifies their settings at the start of compilation. The PCRE2_ANCHORED and PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK options can be set at the time of matching as well as at compile time.

Other, less frequently required compile-time parameters (for example, the newline setting) can be provided in a compile context (as described above).

If errorcode or erroroffset is NULL, pcre2_compile() returns NULL immediately. Otherwise, if compilation of a pattern fails, pcre2_compile() returns NULL, having set these variables to an error code and an offset (number of code units) within the pattern, respectively. The pcre2_get_error_message() function provides a textual message for each error code. Compilation errors are positive numbers, but UTF formatting errors are negative numbers. For an invalid UTF-8 or UTF-16 string, the offset is that of the first code unit of the failing character.

Some errors are not detected until the whole pattern has been scanned; in these cases, the offset passed back is the length of the pattern. Note that the offset is in code units, not characters, even in a UTF mode. It may sometimes point into the middle of a UTF-8 or UTF-16 character.

This code fragment shows a typical straightforward call to pcre2_compile():

  pcre2_code *re;
  PCRE2_SIZE erroffset;
  int errorcode;
  re = pcre2_compile(
    "^A.*Z",                /* the pattern */
    PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED,  /* the pattern is zero-terminated */
    0,                      /* default options */
    &errorcode,             /* for error code */
    &erroffset,             /* for error offset */
    NULL);                  /* no compile context */

  PCRE2_ANCHORED

  PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS

  PCRE2_ALT_BSUX

(1) \U matches an upper case "U" character; by default \U causes a compile time error (Perl uses \U to upper case subsequent characters).

(2) \u matches a lower case "u" character unless it is followed by four hexadecimal digits, in which case the hexadecimal number defines the code point to match. By default, \u causes a compile time error (Perl uses it to upper case the following character).

(3) \x matches a lower case "x" character unless it is followed by two hexadecimal digits, in which case the hexadecimal number defines the code point to match. By default, as in Perl, a hexadecimal number is always expected after \x, but it may have zero, one, or two digits (so, for example, \xz matches a binary zero character followed by z).

  PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT

  PCRE2_CASELESS

  PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY

  PCRE2_DOTALL

  PCRE2_DUPNAMES

  PCRE2_EXTENDED

PCRE2_EXTENDED also causes characters between an unescaped # outside a character class and the next newline, inclusive, to be ignored, which makes it possible to include comments inside complicated patterns. Note that the end of this type of comment is a literal newline sequence in the pattern; escape sequences that happen to represent a newline do not count. PCRE2_EXTENDED is equivalent to Perl's /x option, and it can be changed within a pattern by a (?x) option setting.

Which characters are interpreted as newlines can be specified by a setting in the compile context that is passed to pcre2_compile() or by a special sequence at the start of the pattern, as described in the section entitled "Newline conventions" in the pcre2pattern documentation. A default is defined when PCRE2 is built.

  PCRE2_FIRSTLINE

  PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF

  PCRE2_MULTILINE

When PCRE2_MULTILINE it is set, the "start of line" and "end of line" constructs match immediately following or immediately before internal newlines in the subject string, respectively, as well as at the very start and end. This is equivalent to Perl's /m option, and it can be changed within a pattern by a (?m) option setting. If there are no newlines in a subject string, or no occurrences of ^ or $ in a pattern, setting PCRE2_MULTILINE has no effect.

  PCRE2_NEVER_UCP

  PCRE2_NEVER_UTF

  PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE

  PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS

  PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE

There are a number of optimizations that may occur at the start of a match, in order to speed up the process. For example, if it is known that an unanchored match must start with a specific character, the matching code searches the subject for that character, and fails immediately if it cannot find it, without actually running the main matching function. This means that a special item such as (*COMMIT) at the start of a pattern is not considered until after a suitable starting point for the match has been found. Also, when callouts or (*MARK) items are in use, these "start-up" optimizations can cause them to be skipped if the pattern is never actually used. The start-up optimizations are in effect a pre-scan of the subject that takes place before the pattern is run.

The PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option disables the start-up optimizations, possibly causing performance to suffer, but ensuring that in cases where the result is "no match", the callouts do occur, and that items such as (*COMMIT) and (*MARK) are considered at every possible starting position in the subject string.

Setting PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE may change the outcome of a matching operation. Consider the pattern

  (*COMMIT)ABC

  (*MARK:A)(X|Y)

  PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK

If you know that your pattern is valid, and you want to skip this check for performance reasons, you can set the PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK option. When it is set, the effect of passing an invalid UTF string as a pattern is undefined. It may cause your program to crash or loop. Note that this option can also be passed to pcre2_match() and pcre_dfa_match(), to suppress validity checking of the subject string.

  PCRE2_UCP

  PCRE2_UNGREEDY

  PCRE2_UTF

There are over 80 positive error codes that pcre2_compile() may return if it finds an error in the pattern. There are also some negative error codes that are used for invalid UTF strings. These are the same as given by pcre2_match() and pcre2_dfa_match(), and are described in the pcre2unicode page. The pcre2_get_error_message() function can be called to obtain a textual error message from any error code.

int pcre2_jit_compile(pcre2_code *code, uint32_t options);

int pcre2_jit_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

void pcre2_jit_free_unused_memory(pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_jit_stack *pcre2_jit_stack_create(PCRE2_SIZE startsize, PCRE2_SIZE maxsize, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

void pcre2_jit_stack_assign(pcre2_match_context *mcontext, pcre2_jit_callback callback_function, void *callback_data);

void pcre2_jit_stack_free(pcre2_jit_stack *jit_stack);

These functions provide support for JIT compilation, which, if the just-in-time compiler is available, further processes a compiled pattern into machine code that executes much faster than the pcre2_match() interpretive matching function. Full details are given in the pcre2jit documentation.

JIT compilation is a heavyweight optimization. It can take some time for patterns to be analyzed, and for one-off matches and simple patterns the benefit of faster execution might be offset by a much slower compilation time. Most, but not all patterns can be optimized by the JIT compiler.

PCRE2 handles caseless matching, and determines whether characters are letters, digits, or whatever, by reference to a set of tables, indexed by character code point. This applies only to characters whose code points are less than 256. By default, higher-valued code points never match escapes such as \w or \d. However, if PCRE2 is built with UTF support, all characters can be tested with \p and \P, or, alternatively, the PCRE2_UCP option can be set when a pattern is compiled; this causes \w and friends to use Unicode property support instead of the built-in tables.

The use of locales with Unicode is discouraged. If you are handling characters with code points greater than 128, you should either use Unicode support, or use locales, but not try to mix the two.

PCRE2 contains an internal set of character tables that are used by default. These are sufficient for many applications. Normally, the internal tables recognize only ASCII characters. However, when PCRE2 is built, it is possible to cause the internal tables to be rebuilt in the default "C" locale of the local system, which may cause them to be different.

The internal tables can be overridden by tables supplied by the application that calls PCRE2. These may be created in a different locale from the default. As more and more applications change to using Unicode, the need for this locale support is expected to die away.

External tables are built by calling the pcre2_maketables() function, in the relevant locale. The result can be passed to pcre2_compile() as often as necessary, by creating a compile context and calling pcre2_set_character_tables() to set the tables pointer therein. For example, to build and use tables that are appropriate for the French locale (where accented characters with values greater than 128 are treated as letters), the following code could be used:

  setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "fr_FR");
  tables = pcre2_maketables(NULL);
  ccontext = pcre2_compile_context_create(NULL);
  pcre2_set_character_tables(ccontext, tables);
  re = pcre2_compile(..., ccontext);

The pointer that is passed (via the compile context) to pcre2_compile() is saved with the compiled pattern, and the same tables are used by pcre2_match() and pcre_dfa_match(). Thus, for any single pattern, compilation, and matching all happen in the same locale, but different patterns can be processed in different locales.

int pcre2_pattern_info(const pcre2 *code, uint32_t what, void *where);

The pcre2_pattern_info() function returns information about a compiled pattern. The first argument is a pointer to the compiled pattern. The second argument specifies which piece of information is required, and the third argument is a pointer to a variable to receive the data. If the third argument is NULL, the first argument is ignored, and the function returns the size in bytes of the variable that is required for the information requested. Otherwise, The yield of the function is zero for success, or one of the following negative numbers:

  PCRE2_ERROR_NULL           the argument code was NULL
  PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC       the "magic number" was not found
  PCRE2_ERROR_BADOPTION      the value of what was invalid
  PCRE2_ERROR_UNSET          the requested field is not set

  int rc;
  size_t length;
  rc = pcre2_pattern_info(
    re,               /* result of pcre2_compile() */
    PCRE2_INFO_SIZE,  /* what is required */
    &length);         /* where to put the data */

  PCRE2_INFO_ALLOPTIONS
  PCRE2_INFO_ARGOPTIONS

A pattern is automatically anchored by PCRE2 if all of its top-level alternatives begin with one of the following:

  ^     unless PCRE2_MULTILINE is set
  \A    always
  \G    always
  .*    if PCRE2_DOTALL is set and there are no back references to the subpattern in which .* appears

  PCRE2_INFO_BACKREFMAX

  PCRE2_INFO_BSR

  PCRE2_INFO_CAPTURECOUNT

  PCRE2_INFO_FIRSTCODETYPE

If there is a fixed first value, for example, the letter "c" from a pattern such as (cat|cow|coyote), 1 is returned, and the character value can be retrieved using PCRE2_INFO_FIRSTCODEUNIT. If there is no fixed first value, and if either

(a) the pattern was compiled with the PCRE2_MULTILINE option, and every branch starts with "^", or

(b) every branch of the pattern starts with ".*" and PCRE2_DOTALL is not set (if it were set, the pattern would be anchored),

2 is returned, indicating that the pattern matches only at the start of a subject string or after any newline within the string. Otherwise 0 is returned. For anchored patterns, 0 is returned.

  PCRE2_INFO_FIRSTCODEUNIT

  PCRE2_INFO_FIRSTBITMAP

  PCRE2_INFO_HASCRORLF

  PCRE2_INFO_JCHANGED

  PCRE2_INFO_JITSIZE

  PCRE2_INFO_LASTCODETYPE

For anchored patterns, a last literal value is recorded only if it follows something of variable length. For example, for the pattern /^a\d+z\d+/ the returned value is 1 (with "z" returned from PCRE2_INFO_LASTCODEUNIT), but for /^a\dz\d/ the returned value is 0.

  PCRE2_INFO_LASTCODEUNIT

  PCRE2_INFO_MATCHEMPTY

  PCRE2_INFO_MATCHLIMIT

  PCRE2_INFO_MAXLOOKBEHIND

  PCRE2_INFO_MINLENGTH

  PCRE2_INFO_NAMECOUNT
  PCRE2_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE
  PCRE2_INFO_NAMETABLE

The map consists of a number of fixed-size entries. PCRE2_INFO_NAMECOUNT gives the number of entries, and PCRE2_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE gives the size of each entry in code units; both of these return a uint32_t value. The entry size depends on the length of the longest name.

PCRE2_INFO_NAMETABLE returns a pointer to the first entry of the table. This is a PCRE2_SPTR pointer to a block of code units. In the 8-bit library, the first two bytes of each entry are the number of the capturing parenthesis, most significant byte first. In the 16-bit library, the pointer points to 16-bit code units, the first of which contains the parenthesis number. In the 32-bit library, the pointer points to 32-bit code units, the first of which contains the parenthesis number. The rest of the entry is the corresponding name, zero terminated.

The names are in alphabetical order. If (?| is used to create multiple groups with the same number, as described in the section on duplicate subpattern numbers in the pcre2pattern page, the groups may be given the same name, but there is only one entry in the table. Different names for groups of the same number are not permitted.

Duplicate names for subpatterns with different numbers are permitted, but only if PCRE2_DUPNAMES is set. They appear in the table in the order in which they were found in the pattern. In the absence of (?| this is the order of increasing number; when (?| is used this is not necessarily the case because later subpatterns may have lower numbers.

As a simple example of the name/number table, consider the following pattern after compilation by the 8-bit library (assume PCRE2_EXTENDED is set, so white space - including newlines - is ignored):

  (?<date> (?<year>(\d\d)?\d\d) - (?<month>\d\d) - (?<day>\d\d) )

  00 01 d  a  t  e  00 ??
  00 05 d  a  y  00 ?? ??
  00 04 m  o  n  t  h  00
  00 02 y  e  a  r  00 ??

  PCRE2_INFO_NEWLINE

  PCRE2_NEWLINE_CR       Carriage return (CR)
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_LF       Linefeed (LF)
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_CRLF     Carriage return, linefeed (CRLF)
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANY      Any Unicode line ending
  PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF  Any of CR, LF, or CRLF

  PCRE2_INFO_RECURSIONLIMIT

  PCRE2_INFO_SIZE

pcre2_match_data_create(uint32_t ovecsize, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

pcre2_match_data_create_from_pattern(const pcre2_code *code, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

void pcre2_match_data_free(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

Information about a successful or unsuccessful match is placed in a match data block, which is an opaque structure that is accessed by function calls. In particular, the match data block contains a vector of offsets into the subject string that define the matched part of the subject and any substrings that were captured. This is know as the ovector.

Before calling pcre2_match(), pcre2_dfa_match(), or pcre2_jit_match() you must create a match data block by calling one of the creation functions above. For pcre2_match_data_create(), the first argument is the number of pairs of offsets in the ovector. One pair of offsets is required to identify the string that matched the whole pattern, with another pair for each captured substring. For example, a value of 4 creates enough space to record the matched portion of the subject plus three captured substrings. A minimum of at least 1 pair is imposed by pcre2_match_data_create(), so it is always possible to return the overall matched string.

The second argument of pcre2_match_data_create() is a pointer to a general context, which can specify custom memory management for obtaining the memory for the match data block. If you are not using custom memory management, pass NULL, which causes malloc() to be used.

For pcre2_match_data_create_from_pattern(), the first argument is a pointer to a compiled pattern. The ovector is created to be exactly the right size to hold all the substrings a pattern might capture. The second argument is again a pointer to a general context, but in this case if NULL is passed, the memory is obtained using the same allocator that was used for the compiled pattern (custom or default).

A match data block can be used many times, with the same or different compiled patterns. You can extract information from a match data block after a match operation has finished, using functions that are described in the sections on matched strings and other match data below.

When one of the matching functions is called, pointers to the compiled pattern and the subject string are set in the match data block so that they can be referenced by the extraction functions. After running a match, you must not free a compiled pattern or a subject string until after all operations on the match data block (for that match) have taken place.

When a match data block itself is no longer needed, it should be freed by calling pcre2_match_data_free().

int pcre2_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

The function pcre2_match() is called to match a subject string against a compiled pattern, which is passed in the code argument. You can call pcre2_match() with the same code argument as many times as you like, in order to find multiple matches in the subject string or to match different subject strings with the same pattern.

This function is the main matching facility of the library, and it operates in a Perl-like manner. For specialist use there is also an alternative matching function, which is described below in the section about the pcre2_dfa_match() function.

Here is an example of a simple call to pcre2_match():

  pcre2_match_data *md = pcre2_match_data_create(4, NULL);
  int rc = pcre2_match(
    re,             /* result of pcre2_compile() */
    "some string",  /* the subject string */
    11,             /* the length of the subject string */
    0,              /* start at offset 0 in the subject */
    0,              /* default options */
    match_data,     /* the match data block */
    NULL);          /* a match context; NULL means use defaults */

The subject string is passed to pcre2_match() as a pointer in subject, a length in length, and a starting offset in startoffset. The length and offset are in code units, not characters. That is, they are in bytes for the 8-bit library, 16-bit code units for the 16-bit library, and 32-bit code units for the 32-bit library, whether or not UTF processing is enabled.

If startoffset is greater than the length of the subject, pcre2_match() returns PCRE2_ERROR_BADOFFSET. When the starting offset is zero, the search for a match starts at the beginning of the subject, and this is by far the most common case. In UTF-8 or UTF-16 mode, the starting offset must point to the start of a character, or to the end of the subject (in UTF-32 mode, one code unit equals one character, so all offsets are valid). Like the pattern string, the subject may contain binary zeroes.

A non-zero starting offset is useful when searching for another match in the same subject by calling pcre2_match() again after a previous success. Setting startoffset differs from passing over a shortened string and setting PCRE2_NOTBOL in the case of a pattern that begins with any kind of lookbehind. For example, consider the pattern

  \Biss\B

Finding all the matches in a subject is tricky when the pattern can match an empty string. It is possible to emulate Perl's /g behaviour by first trying the match again at the same offset, with the PCRE2_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART and PCRE2_ANCHORED options, and then if that fails, advancing the starting offset and trying an ordinary match again. There is some code that demonstrates how to do this in the pcre2demo sample program. In the most general case, you have to check to see if the newline convention recognizes CRLF as a newline, and if so, and the current character is CR followed by LF, advance the starting offset by two characters instead of one.

If a non-zero starting offset is passed when the pattern is anchored, one attempt to match at the given offset is made. This can only succeed if the pattern does not require the match to be at the start of the subject.

The unused bits of the options argument for pcre2_match() must be zero. The only bits that may be set are PCRE2_ANCHORED, PCRE2_NOTBOL, PCRE2_NOTEOL, PCRE2_NOTEMPTY, PCRE2_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART, PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK, PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD, and PCRE2_PARTIAL_SOFT. Their action is described below.

Setting PCRE2_ANCHORED at match time is not supported by the just-in-time (JIT) compiler. If it is set, JIT matching is disabled and the normal interpretive code in pcre2_match() is run. The remaining options are supported for JIT matching.

  PCRE2_ANCHORED

  PCRE2_NOTBOL

  PCRE2_NOTEOL

  PCRE2_NOTEMPTY

  a?b?

  PCRE2_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART

  PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK

If you know that your subject is valid, and you want to skip these checks for performance reasons, you can set the PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK option when calling pcre2_match(). You might want to do this for the second and subsequent calls to pcre2_match() if you are making repeated calls to find all the matches in a single subject string.

NOTE: When PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK is set, the effect of passing an invalid string as a subject, or an invalid value of startoffset, is undefined. Your program may crash or loop indefinitely.

  PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD
  PCRE2_PARTIAL_SOFT

If PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD is set, it overrides PCRE2_PARTIAL_SOFT. In this case, if a partial match is found, pcre2_match() immediately returns PCRE2_ERROR_PARTIAL, without considering any other alternatives. In other words, when PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD is set, a partial match is considered to be more important that an alternative complete match.

There is a more detailed discussion of partial and multi-segment matching, with examples, in the pcre2partial documentation.

When PCRE2 is built, a default newline convention is set; this is usually the standard convention for the operating system. The default can be overridden in a compile context. During matching, the newline choice affects the behaviour of the dot, circumflex, and dollar metacharacters. It may also alter the way the match starting position is advanced after a match failure for an unanchored pattern.

When PCRE2_NEWLINE_CRLF, PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF, or PCRE2_NEWLINE_ANY is set as the newline convention, and a match attempt for an unanchored pattern fails when the current starting position is at a CRLF sequence, and the pattern contains no explicit matches for CR or LF characters, the match position is advanced by two characters instead of one, in other words, to after the CRLF.

The above rule is a compromise that makes the most common cases work as expected. For example, if the pattern is .+A (and the PCRE2_DOTALL option is not set), it does not match the string "\r\nA" because, after failing at the start, it skips both the CR and the LF before retrying. However, the pattern [\r\n]A does match that string, because it contains an explicit CR or LF reference, and so advances only by one character after the first failure.

An explicit match for CR of LF is either a literal appearance of one of those characters in the pattern, or one of the \r or \n escape sequences. Implicit matches such as [^X] do not count, nor does \s, even though it includes CR and LF in the characters that it matches.

Notwithstanding the above, anomalous effects may still occur when CRLF is a valid newline sequence and explicit \r or \n escapes appear in the pattern.

uint32_t pcre2_get_ovector_count(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

PCRE2_SIZE *pcre2_get_ovector_pointer(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

In general, a pattern matches a certain portion of the subject, and in addition, further substrings from the subject may be picked out by parenthesized parts of the pattern. Following the usage in Jeffrey Friedl's book, this is called "capturing" in what follows, and the phrase "capturing subpattern" or "capturing group" is used for a fragment of a pattern that picks out a substring. PCRE2 supports several other kinds of parenthesized subpattern that do not cause substrings to be captured. The pcre2_pattern_info() function can be used to find out how many capturing subpatterns there are in a compiled pattern.

The overall matched string and any captured substrings are returned to the caller via a vector of PCRE2_SIZE values. This is called the ovector, and is contained within the match data block. You can obtain direct access to the ovector by calling pcre2_get_ovector_pointer() to find its address, and pcre2_get_ovector_count() to find the number of pairs of values it contains. Alternatively, you can use the auxiliary functions for accessing captured substrings by number or by name (see below).

Within the ovector, the first in each pair of values is set to the offset of the first code unit of a substring, and the second is set to the offset of the first code unit after the end of a substring. These values are always code unit offsets, not character offsets. That is, they are byte offsets in the 8-bit library, 16-bit offsets in the 16-bit library, and 32-bit offsets in the 32-bit library.

The first pair of offsets (that is, ovector[0] and ovector[1]) identifies the portion of the subject string that was matched by the entire pattern. The next pair is used for the first capturing subpattern, and so on. The value returned by pcre2_match() is one more than the highest numbered pair that has been set. For example, if two substrings have been captured, the returned value is 3. If there are no capturing subpatterns, the return value from a successful match is 1, indicating that just the first pair of offsets has been set.

If a pattern uses the \K escape sequence within a positive assertion, the reported start of the match can be greater than the end of the match. For example, if the pattern (?=ab\K) is matched against "ab", the start and end offset values for the match are 2 and 0.

If a capturing subpattern group is matched repeatedly within a single match operation, it is the last portion of the subject that it matched that is returned.

If the ovector is too small to hold all the captured substring offsets, as much as possible is filled in, and the function returns a value of zero. If captured substrings are not of interest, pcre2_match() may be called with a match data block whose ovector is of minimum length (that is, one pair). However, if the pattern contains back references and the ovector is not big enough to remember the related substrings, PCRE2 has to get additional memory for use during matching. Thus it is usually advisable to set up a match data block containing an ovector of reasonable size.

It is possible for capturing subpattern number n+1 to match some part of the subject when subpattern n has not been used at all. For example, if the string "abc" is matched against the pattern (a|(z))(bc) the return from the function is 4, and subpatterns 1 and 3 are matched, but 2 is not. When this happens, both values in the offset pairs corresponding to unused subpatterns are set to PCRE2_UNSET.

Offset values that correspond to unused subpatterns at the end of the expression are also set to PCRE2_UNSET. For example, if the string "abc" is matched against the pattern (abc)(x(yz)?)? subpatterns 2 and 3 are not matched. The return from the function is 2, because the highest used capturing subpattern number is 1. The offsets for for the second and third capturing subpatterns (assuming the vector is large enough, of course) are set to PCRE2_UNSET.

Elements in the ovector that do not correspond to capturing parentheses in the pattern are never changed. That is, if a pattern contains n capturing parentheses, no more than ovector[0] to ovector[2n+1] are set by pcre2_match(). The other elements retain whatever values they previously had.

PCRE2_SPTR pcre2_get_mark(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

PCRE2_SIZE pcre2_get_startchar(pcre2_match_data *match_data);

As well as the offsets in the ovector, other information about a match is retained in the match data block and can be retrieved by the above functions.

When a (*MARK) name is to be passed back, pcre2_get_mark() returns a pointer to the zero-terminated name, which is within the compiled pattern. Otherwise NULL is returned. A (*MARK) name may be available after a failed match or a partial match, as well as after a successful one.

The code unit offset of the character at which a successful match started is returned by pcre2_get_startchar(). For a non-partial match, this can be different to the value of ovector[0] if the pattern contains the \K escape sequence. After a partial match, however, this value is always the same as ovector[0] because \K does not affect the result of a partial match.

The startchar field is also used to return the offset of an invalid UTF character when UTF checking fails. Details are given in the pcre2unicode page.

If pcre2_match() fails, it returns a negative number. This can be converted to a text string by calling pcre2_get_error_message(). Negative error codes are also returned by other functions, and are documented with them. The codes are given names in the header file. If UTF checking is in force and an invalid UTF subject string is detected, one of a number of UTF-specific negative error codes is returned. Details are given in the pcre2unicode page. The following are the other errors that may be returned by pcre2_match():

  PCRE2_ERROR_NOMATCH

  PCRE2_ERROR_PARTIAL

  PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC

  PCRE2_ERROR_BADMODE

  PCRE2_ERROR_BADOFFSET

  PCRE2_ERROR_BADOPTION

  PCRE2_ERROR_BADUTFOFFSET

  PCRE2_ERROR_CALLOUT

  PCRE2_ERROR_INTERNAL

  PCRE2_ERROR_JIT_BADOPTION

  PCRE2_ERROR_JIT_STACKLIMIT

  PCRE2_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT

  PCRE2_ERROR_NOMEMORY

  PCRE2_ERROR_NULL

  PCRE2_ERROR_RECURSELOOP

  PCRE2_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT

int pcre2_substring_length_bynumber(pcre2_match_data *match_data, uint32_t number, PCRE2_SIZE *length);

int pcre2_substring_copy_bynumber(pcre2_match_data *match_data, uint32_t number, PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

int pcre2_substring_get_bynumber(pcre2_match_data *match_data, uint32_t number, PCRE2_UCHAR **bufferptr, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

void pcre2_substring_free(PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer);

Captured substrings can be accessed directly by using the ovector as described above. For convenience, auxiliary functions are provided for extracting captured substrings as new, separate, zero-terminated strings. The functions in this section identify substrings by number. The number zero refers to the entire matched substring, with higher numbers referring to substrings captured by parenthesized groups. The next section describes similar functions for extracting captured substrings by name. A substring that contains a binary zero is correctly extracted and has a further zero added on the end, but the result is not, of course, a C string.

If a pattern uses the \K escape sequence within a positive assertion, the reported start of the match can be greater than the end of the match. For example, if the pattern (?=ab\K) is matched against "ab", the start and end offset values for the match are 2 and 0. In this situation, calling these functions with a zero substring number extracts a zero-length empty string.

You can find the length in code units of a captured substring without extracting it by calling pcre2_substring_length_bynumber(). The first argument is a pointer to the match data block, the second is the group number, and the third is a pointer to a variable into which the length is placed. If you just want to know whether or not the substring has been captured, you can pass the third argument as NULL.

The pcre2_substring_copy_bynumber() function copies a captured substring into a supplied buffer, whereas pcre2_substring_get_bynumber() copies it into new memory, obtained using the same memory allocation function that was used for the match data block. The first two arguments of these functions are a pointer to the match data block and a capturing group number.

The final arguments of pcre2_substring_copy_bynumber() are a pointer to the buffer and a pointer to a variable that contains its length in code units. This is updated to contain the actual number of code units used for the extracted substring, excluding the terminating zero.

For pcre2_substring_get_bynumber() the third and fourth arguments point to variables that are updated with a pointer to the new memory and the number of code units that comprise the substring, again excluding the terminating zero. When the substring is no longer needed, the memory should be freed by calling pcre2_substring_free().

The return value from all these functions is zero for success, or a negative error code. If the pattern match failed, the match failure code is returned. Other possible error codes are:

  PCRE2_ERROR_NOMEMORY

  PCRE2_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING

  PCRE2_ERROR_UNAVAILABLE

  PCRE2_ERROR_UNSET

int pcre2_substring_list_get(pcre2_match_data *match_data, " PCRE2_UCHAR ***listptr, PCRE2_SIZE **lengthsptr);

void pcre2_substring_list_free(PCRE2_SPTR *list);

The pcre2_substring_list_get() function extracts all available substrings and builds a list of pointers to them. It also (optionally) builds a second list that contains their lengths (in code units), excluding a terminating zero that is added to each of them. All this is done in a single block of memory that is obtained using the same memory allocation function that was used to get the match data block.

The address of the memory block is returned via listptr, which is also the start of the list of string pointers. The end of the list is marked by a NULL pointer. The address of the list of lengths is returned via lengthsptr. If your strings do not contain binary zeros and you do not therefore need the lengths, you may supply NULL as the lengthsptr argument to disable the creation of a list of lengths. The yield of the function is zero if all went well, or PCRE2_ERROR_NOMEMORY if the memory block could not be obtained. When the list is no longer needed, it should be freed by calling pcre2_substring_list_free().

If this function encounters a substring that is unset, which can happen when capturing subpattern number n+1 matches some part of the subject, but subpattern n has not been used at all, it returns an empty string. This can be distinguished from a genuine zero-length substring by inspecting the appropriate offset in the ovector, which contain PCRE2_UNSET for unset substrings, or by calling pcre2_substring_length_bynumber().

int pcre2_substring_number_from_name(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR name);

int pcre2_substring_length_byname(pcre2_match_data *match_data, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_SIZE *length);

int pcre2_substring_copy_byname(pcre2_match_data *match_data, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

int pcre2_substring_get_byname(pcre2_match_data *match_data, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_UCHAR **bufferptr, PCRE2_SIZE *bufflen);

void pcre2_substring_free(PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer);

To extract a substring by name, you first have to find associated number. For example, for this pattern:

  (a+)b(?<xxx>\d+)...

For convenience, there are also "byname" functions that correspond to the "bynumber" functions, the only difference being that the second argument is a name instead of a number. If PCRE2_DUPNAMES is set and there are duplicate names, these functions scan all the groups with the given name, and return the first named string that is set.

If there are no groups with the given name, PCRE2_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING is returned. If all groups with the name have numbers that are greater than the number of slots in the ovector, PCRE2_ERROR_UNAVAILABLE is returned. If there is at least one group with a slot in the ovector, but no group is found to be set, PCRE2_ERROR_UNSET is returned.

Warning: If the pattern uses the (?| feature to set up multiple subpatterns with the same number, as described in the section on duplicate subpattern numbers in the pcre2pattern page, you cannot use names to distinguish the different subpatterns, because names are not included in the compiled code. The matching process uses only numbers. For this reason, the use of different names for subpatterns of the same number causes an error at compile time.

int pcre2_substitute(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext, PCRE2_SPTR \fIreplacementzfP, PCRE2_SIZE rlength, PCRE2_UCHAR *\fIoutputbuffer\zfP, PCRE2_SIZE *outlengthptr); This function calls pcre2_match() and then makes a copy of the subject string in outputbuffer, replacing the part that was matched with the replacement string, whose length is supplied in rlength. This can be given as PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED for a zero-terminated string.

In the replacement string, which is interpreted as a UTF string in UTF mode, and is checked for UTF validity unless the PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK option is set, a dollar character is an escape character that can specify the insertion of characters from capturing groups in the pattern. The following forms are recognized:

  $$      insert a dollar character
  $<n>    insert the contents of group <n>
  ${<n>}  insert the contents of group <n>

The first seven arguments of pcre2_substitute() are the same as for pcre2_match(), except that the partial matching options are not permitted, and match_data may be passed as NULL, in which case a match data block is obtained and freed within this function, using memory management functions from the match context, if provided, or else those that were used to allocate memory for the compiled code.

There is one additional option, PCRE2_SUBSTITUTE_GLOBAL, which causes the function to iterate over the subject string, replacing every matching substring. If this is not set, only the first matching substring is replaced.

The outlengthptr argument must point to a variable that contains the length, in code units, of the output buffer. It is updated to contain the length of the new string, excluding the trailing zero that is automatically added.

The function returns the number of replacements that were made. This may be zero if no matches were found, and is never greater than 1 unless PCRE2_SUBSTITUTE_GLOBAL is set. In the event of an error, a negative error code is returned. Except for PCRE2_ERROR_NOMATCH (which is never returned), any errors from pcre2_match() or the substring copying functions are passed straight back. PCRE2_ERROR_BADREPLACEMENT is returned for an invalid replacement string (unrecognized sequence following a dollar sign), and PCRE2_ERROR_NOMEMORY is returned if the output buffer is not big enough.

int pcre2_substring_nametable_scan(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR name, PCRE2_SPTR *first, PCRE2_SPTR *last);

When a pattern is compiled with the PCRE2_DUPNAMES option, names for subpatterns are not required to be unique. Duplicate names are always allowed for subpatterns with the same number, created by using the (?| feature. Indeed, if such subpatterns are named, they are required to use the same names.

Normally, patterns with duplicate names are such that in any one match, only one of the named subpatterns participates. An example is shown in the pcre2pattern documentation.

When duplicates are present, pcre2_substring_copy_byname() and pcre2_substring_get_byname() return the first substring corresponding to the given name that is set. Only if none are set is PCRE2_ERROR_UNSET is returned. The pcre2_substring_number_from_name() function returns the error PCRE2_ERROR_NOUNIQUESUBSTRING when there are duplicate names.

If you want to get full details of all captured substrings for a given name, you must use the pcre2_substring_nametable_scan() function. The first argument is the compiled pattern, and the second is the name. If the third and fourth arguments are NULL, the function returns a group number for a unique name, or PCRE2_ERROR_NOUNIQUESUBSTRING otherwise.

When the third and fourth arguments are not NULL, they must be pointers to variables that are updated by the function. After it has run, they point to the first and last entries in the name-to-number table for the given name, and the function returns the length of each entry in code units. In both cases, PCRE2_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING is returned if there are no entries for the given name.

The format of the name table is described above in the section entitled Information about a pattern above. Given all the relevant entries for the name, you can extract each of their numbers, and hence the captured data.

The traditional matching function uses a similar algorithm to Perl, which stops when it finds the first match at a given point in the subject. If you want to find all possible matches, or the longest possible match at a given position, consider using the alternative matching function (see below) instead. If you cannot use the alternative function, you can kludge it up by making use of the callout facility, which is described in the pcre2callout documentation.

What you have to do is to insert a callout right at the end of the pattern. When your callout function is called, extract and save the current matched substring. Then return 1, which forces pcre2_match() to backtrack and try other alternatives. Ultimately, when it runs out of matches, pcre2_match() will yield PCRE2_ERROR_NOMATCH.

int pcre2_dfa_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject, PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset, uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data, pcre2_match_context *mcontext, int *workspace, PCRE2_SIZE wscount);

The function pcre2_dfa_match() is called to match a subject string against a compiled pattern, using a matching algorithm that scans the subject string just once, and does not backtrack. This has different characteristics to the normal algorithm, and is not compatible with Perl. Some of the features of PCRE2 patterns are not supported. Nevertheless, there are times when this kind of matching can be useful. For a discussion of the two matching algorithms, and a list of features that pcre2_dfa_match() does not support, see the pcre2matching documentation.

The arguments for the pcre2_dfa_match() function are the same as for pcre2_match(), plus two extras. The ovector within the match data block is used in a different way, and this is described below. The other common arguments are used in the same way as for pcre2_match(), so their description is not repeated here.

The two additional arguments provide workspace for the function. The workspace vector should contain at least 20 elements. It is used for keeping track of multiple paths through the pattern tree. More workspace is needed for patterns and subjects where there are a lot of potential matches.

Here is an example of a simple call to pcre2_dfa_match():

  int wspace[20];
  pcre2_match_data *md = pcre2_match_data_create(4, NULL);
  int rc = pcre2_dfa_match(
    re,             /* result of pcre2_compile() */
    "some string",  /* the subject string */
    11,             /* the length of the subject string */
    0,              /* start at offset 0 in the subject */
    0,              /* default options */
    match_data,     /* the match data block */
    NULL,           /* a match context; NULL means use defaults */
    wspace,         /* working space vector */
    20);            /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */

The unused bits of the options argument for pcre2_dfa_match() must be zero. The only bits that may be set are PCRE2_ANCHORED, PCRE2_NOTBOL, PCRE2_NOTEOL, PCRE2_NOTEMPTY, PCRE2_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART, PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK, PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD, PCRE2_PARTIAL_SOFT, PCRE2_DFA_SHORTEST, and PCRE2_DFA_RESTART. All but the last four of these are exactly the same as for pcre2_match(), so their description is not repeated here.

  PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD
  PCRE2_PARTIAL_SOFT

  PCRE2_DFA_SHORTEST

  PCRE2_DFA_RESTART

When pcre2_dfa_match() succeeds, it may have matched more than one substring in the subject. Note, however, that all the matches from one run of the function start at the same point in the subject. The shorter matches are all initial substrings of the longer matches. For example, if the pattern

  <.*>

  This is <something> <something else> <something further> no more

  <something> <something else> <something further>
  <something> <something else>
  <something>

Calls to the convenience functions that extract substrings by name return the error PCRE2_ERROR_DFA_UFUNC (unsupported function) if used after a DFA match. The convenience functions that extract substrings by number never return PCRE2_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING, and the meanings of some other errors are slightly different:

  PCRE2_ERROR_UNAVAILABLE

  PCRE2_ERROR_UNSET

The matched strings are stored in the ovector in reverse order of length; that is, the longest matching string is first. If there were too many matches to fit into the ovector, the yield of the function is zero, and the vector is filled with the longest matches.

NOTE: PCRE2's "auto-possessification" optimization usually applies to character repeats at the end of a pattern (as well as internally). For example, the pattern "a\d+" is compiled as if it were "a\d++". For DFA matching, this means that only one possible match is found. If you really do want multiple matches in such cases, either use an ungreedy repeat auch as "a\d+?" or set the PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS option when compiling.

The pcre2_dfa_match() function returns a negative number when it fails. Many of the errors are the same as for pcre2_match(), as described above. There are in addition the following errors that are specific to pcre2_dfa_match():

  PCRE2_ERROR_DFA_UITEM

  PCRE2_ERROR_DFA_UCOND

  PCRE2_ERROR_DFA_WSSIZE

  PCRE2_ERROR_DFA_RECURSE

  PCRE2_ERROR_DFA_BADRESTART

pcre2build(3), pcre2callout(3), pcre2demo(3), pcre2matching(3), pcre2partial(3), pcre2posix(3), pcre2sample(3), pcre2stack(3), pcre2unicode(3).

Philip Hazel
University Computing Service
Cambridge, England.

Last updated: 14 December 2014
Copyright © 1997-2014 University of Cambridge.

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