3 <title>pcre_exec specification</title>
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6 <h1>pcre_exec man page</h1>
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19 <b>#include <pcre.h></b>
22 <b>int pcre_exec(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
23 <b> const char *<i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
24 <b> int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>);</b>
27 <b>int pcre16_exec(const pcre16 *<i>code</i>, const pcre16_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
28 <b> PCRE_SPTR16 <i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
29 <b> int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>);</b>
32 <b>int pcre32_exec(const pcre32 *<i>code</i>, const pcre32_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
33 <b> PCRE_SPTR32 <i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
34 <b> int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>);</b>
40 This function matches a compiled regular expression against a given subject
41 string, using a matching algorithm that is similar to Perl's. It returns
42 offsets to captured substrings. Its arguments are:
44 <i>code</i> Points to the compiled pattern
45 <i>extra</i> Points to an associated <b>pcre[16|32]_extra</b> structure,
47 <i>subject</i> Points to the subject string
48 <i>length</i> Length of the subject string
49 <i>startoffset</i> Offset in the subject at which to start matching
50 <i>options</i> Option bits
51 <i>ovector</i> Points to a vector of ints for result offsets
52 <i>ovecsize</i> Number of elements in the vector (a multiple of 3)
54 The units for <i>length</i> and <i>startoffset</i> are bytes for
55 <b>pcre_exec()</b>, 16-bit data items for <b>pcre16_exec()</b>, and 32-bit items
56 for <b>pcre32_exec()</b>. The options are:
58 PCRE_ANCHORED Match only at the first position
59 PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF
60 PCRE_BSR_UNICODE \R matches all Unicode line endings
61 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY Recognize any Unicode newline sequence
62 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF Recognize CR, LF, & CRLF as newline sequences
63 PCRE_NEWLINE_CR Recognize CR as the only newline sequence
64 PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF Recognize CRLF as the only newline sequence
65 PCRE_NEWLINE_LF Recognize LF as the only newline sequence
66 PCRE_NOTBOL Subject string is not the beginning of a line
67 PCRE_NOTEOL Subject string is not the end of a line
68 PCRE_NOTEMPTY An empty string is not a valid match
69 PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART An empty string at the start of the subject
71 PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Do not do "start-match" optimizations
72 PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-16
73 validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF16
74 was set at compile time)
75 PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-32
76 validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF32
77 was set at compile time)
78 PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-8
79 validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF8
80 was set at compile time)
81 PCRE_PARTIAL ) Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial
82 PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT ) match if no full matches are found
83 PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial match
84 if that is found before a full match
86 For details of partial matching, see the
87 <a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a>
88 page. A <b>pcre_extra</b> structure contains the following fields:
90 <i>flags</i> Bits indicating which fields are set
91 <i>study_data</i> Opaque data from <b>pcre[16|32]_study()</b>
92 <i>match_limit</i> Limit on internal resource use
93 <i>match_limit_recursion</i> Limit on internal recursion depth
94 <i>callout_data</i> Opaque data passed back to callouts
95 <i>tables</i> Points to character tables or is NULL
96 <i>mark</i> For passing back a *MARK pointer
97 <i>executable_jit</i> Opaque data from JIT compilation
99 The flag bits are PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA, PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT,
100 PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION, PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA,
101 PCRE_EXTRA_TABLES, PCRE_EXTRA_MARK and PCRE_EXTRA_EXECUTABLE_JIT.
104 There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the
105 <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
106 page and a description of the POSIX API in the
107 <a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>
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