pcre2(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | INTRODUCTION | SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS | USER DOCUMENTATION | AUTHOR | REVISION | COLOPHON

PCRE2(3)                Library Functions Manual                PCRE2(3)

NAME         top

       PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

INTRODUCTION         top


       PCRE2 is the name used for a revised API for the PCRE library,
       which is a set of functions, written in C, that implement regular
       expression pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics
       as Perl, with just a few differences. After nearly two decades,
       the limitations of the original API were making development
       increasingly difficult. The new API is more extensible, and it
       was simplified by abolishing the separate "study" optimizing
       function; in PCRE2, patterns are automatically optimized where
       possible. Since forking from PCRE1, the code has been extensively
       refactored and new features introduced. The old library is now
       obsolete and is no longer maintained.

       As well as Perl-style regular expression patterns, some features
       that appeared in Python and the original PCRE before they
       appeared in Perl are available using the Python syntax. There is
       also some support for one or two .NET and Oniguruma syntax items,
       and there are options for requesting some minor changes that give
       better ECMAScript (aka JavaScript) compatibility.

       The source code for PCRE2 can be compiled to support strings of
       8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit code units, which means that up to three
       separate libraries may be installed, one for each code unit size.
       The size of code unit is not related to the bit size of the
       underlying hardware. In a 64-bit environment that also supports
       32-bit applications, versions of PCRE2 that are compiled in both
       64-bit and 32-bit modes may be needed.

       The original work to extend PCRE to 16-bit and 32-bit code units
       was done by Zoltan Herczeg and Christian Persch, respectively. In
       all three cases, strings can be interpreted either as one
       character per code unit, or as UTF-encoded Unicode, with support
       for Unicode general category properties. Unicode support is
       optional at build time (but is the default). However, processing
       strings as UTF code units must be enabled explicitly at run time.
       The version of Unicode in use can be discovered by running

         pcre2test -C

       The three libraries contain identical sets of functions, with
       names ending in _8, _16, or _32, respectively (for example,
       pcre2_compile_8()). However, by defining PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH to
       be 8, 16, or 32, a program that uses just one code unit width can
       be written using generic names such as pcre2_compile(), and the
       documentation is written assuming that this is the case.

       In addition to the Perl-compatible matching function, PCRE2
       contains an alternative function that matches the same compiled
       patterns in a different way. In certain circumstances, the
       alternative function has some advantages.  For a discussion of
       the two matching algorithms, see the pcre2matching page.

       Details of exactly which Perl regular expression features are and
       are not supported by PCRE2 are given in separate documents. See
       the pcre2pattern and pcre2compat pages. There is a syntax summary
       in the pcre2syntax page.

       Some features of PCRE2 can be included, excluded, or changed when
       the library is built. The pcre2_config() function makes it
       possible for a client to discover which features are available.
       The features themselves are described in the pcre2build page.
       Documentation about building PCRE2 for various operating systems
       can be found in the README and NON-AUTOTOOLS_BUILD files in the
       source distribution.

       The libraries contains a number of undocumented internal
       functions and data tables that are used by more than one of the
       exported external functions, but which are not intended for use
       by external callers. Their names all begin with "_pcre2", which
       hopefully will not provoke any name clashes. In some
       environments, it is possible to control which external symbols
       are exported when a shared library is built, and in these cases
       the undocumented symbols are not exported.

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS         top


       If you are using PCRE2 in a non-UTF application that permits
       users to supply arbitrary patterns for compilation, you should be
       aware of a feature that allows users to turn on UTF support from
       within a pattern. For example, an 8-bit pattern that begins with
       "(*UTF)" turns on UTF-8 mode, which interprets patterns and
       subjects as strings of UTF-8 code units instead of individual
       8-bit characters. This causes both the pattern and any data
       against which it is matched to be checked for UTF-8 validity. If
       the data string is very long, such a check might use sufficiently
       many resources as to cause your application to lose performance.

       One way of guarding against this possibility is to use the
       pcre2_pattern_info() function to check the compiled pattern's
       options for PCRE2_UTF. Alternatively, you can set the
       PCRE2_NEVER_UTF option when calling pcre2_compile(). This causes
       a compile time error if the pattern contains a UTF-setting
       sequence.

       The use of Unicode properties for character types such as \d can
       also be enabled from within the pattern, by specifying "(*UCP)".
       This feature can be disallowed by setting the PCRE2_NEVER_UCP
       option.

       If your application is one that supports UTF, be aware that
       validity checking can take time. If the same data string is to be
       matched many times, you can use the PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK option for
       the second and subsequent matches to avoid running redundant
       checks.

       The use of the \C escape sequence in a UTF-8 or UTF-16 pattern
       can lead to problems, because it may leave the current matching
       point in the middle of a multi-code-unit character. The
       PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C option can be used by an application to
       lock out the use of \C, causing a compile-time error if it is
       encountered. It is also possible to build PCRE2 with the use of
       \C permanently disabled.

       Another way that performance can be hit is by running a pattern
       that has a very large search tree against a string that will
       never match. Nested unlimited repeats in a pattern are a common
       example. PCRE2 provides some protection against this: see the
       pcre2_set_match_limit() function in the pcre2api page. There is a
       similar function called pcre2_set_depth_limit() that can be used
       to restrict the amount of memory that is used.

USER DOCUMENTATION         top


       The user documentation for PCRE2 comprises a number of different
       sections. In the "man" format, each of these is a separate "man
       page". In the HTML format, each is a separate page, linked from
       the index page. In the plain text format, the descriptions of the
       pcre2grep and pcre2test programs are in files called
       pcre2grep.txt and pcre2test.txt, respectively. The remaining
       sections, except for the pcre2demo section (which is a program
       listing), and the short pages for individual functions, are
       concatenated in pcre2.txt, for ease of searching. The sections
       are as follows:

         pcre2              this document
         pcre2-config       show PCRE2 installation configuration
       information
         pcre2api           details of PCRE2's native C API
         pcre2build         building PCRE2
         pcre2callout       details of the pattern callout feature
         pcre2compat        discussion of Perl compatibility
         pcre2convert       details of pattern conversion functions
         pcre2demo          a demonstration C program that uses PCRE2
         pcre2grep          description of the pcre2grep command (8-bit
       only)
         pcre2jit           discussion of just-in-time optimization
       support
         pcre2limits        details of size and other limits
         pcre2matching      discussion of the two matching algorithms
         pcre2partial       details of the partial matching facility
         pcre2pattern       syntax and semantics of supported regular
                              expression patterns
         pcre2perform       discussion of performance issues
         pcre2posix         the POSIX-compatible C API for the 8-bit
       library
         pcre2sample        discussion of the pcre2demo program
         pcre2serialize     details of pattern serialization
         pcre2syntax        quick syntax reference
         pcre2test          description of the pcre2test command
         pcre2unicode       discussion of Unicode and UTF support

       In the "man" and HTML formats, there is also a short page for
       each C library function, listing its arguments and results.

AUTHOR         top


       Philip Hazel
       Retired from University Computing Service
       Cambridge, England.

       Putting an actual email address here is a spam magnet. If you
       want to email me, use my two names separated by a dot at
       gmail.com.

REVISION         top


       Last updated: 27 August 2021
       Copyright (c) 1997-2021 University of Cambridge.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular
       Expressions) project.  Information about the project can be found
       at ⟨http://www.pcre.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.exim.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=PCRE⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the tarball fetched from
       ⟨https://github.com/PhilipHazel/pcre2.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
       manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

PCRE2 10.38                  27 August 2021                     PCRE2(3)

Pages that refer to this page: grep(1)pcre2-config(1)pcre2test(1)pcre2pattern(3)pcre2syntax(3)