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>
35 This function matches a compiled regular expression against a given subject
36 string, using a matching algorithm that is similar to Perl's. It returns
37 offsets to captured substrings. Its arguments are:
39 <i>code</i> Points to the compiled pattern
40 <i>extra</i> Points to an associated <b>pcre[16]_extra</b> structure,
42 <i>subject</i> Points to the subject string
43 <i>length</i> Length of the subject string, in bytes
44 <i>startoffset</i> Offset in bytes in the subject at which to
46 <i>options</i> Option bits
47 <i>ovector</i> Points to a vector of ints for result offsets
48 <i>ovecsize</i> Number of elements in the vector (a multiple of 3)
52 PCRE_ANCHORED Match only at the first position
53 PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF
54 PCRE_BSR_UNICODE \R matches all Unicode line endings
55 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY Recognize any Unicode newline sequence
56 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF Recognize CR, LF, & CRLF as newline sequences
57 PCRE_NEWLINE_CR Recognize CR as the only newline sequence
58 PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF Recognize CRLF as the only newline sequence
59 PCRE_NEWLINE_LF Recognize LF as the only newline sequence
60 PCRE_NOTBOL Subject string is not the beginning of a line
61 PCRE_NOTEOL Subject string is not the end of a line
62 PCRE_NOTEMPTY An empty string is not a valid match
63 PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART An empty string at the start of the subject
65 PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Do not do "start-match" optimizations
66 PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-16
67 validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF16
68 was set at compile time)
69 PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-8
70 validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF8
71 was set at compile time)
72 PCRE_PARTIAL ) Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial
73 PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT ) match if no full matches are found
74 PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial match
75 if that is found before a full match
77 For details of partial matching, see the
78 <a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a>
79 page. A <b>pcre_extra</b> structure contains the following fields:
81 <i>flags</i> Bits indicating which fields are set
82 <i>study_data</i> Opaque data from <b>pcre[16]_study()</b>
83 <i>match_limit</i> Limit on internal resource use
84 <i>match_limit_recursion</i> Limit on internal recursion depth
85 <i>callout_data</i> Opaque data passed back to callouts
86 <i>tables</i> Points to character tables or is NULL
87 <i>mark</i> For passing back a *MARK pointer
88 <i>executable_jit</i> Opaque data from JIT compilation
90 The flag bits are PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA, PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT,
91 PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION, PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA,
92 PCRE_EXTRA_TABLES, PCRE_EXTRA_MARK and PCRE_EXTRA_EXECUTABLE_JIT.
95 There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the
96 <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
97 page and a description of the POSIX API in the
98 <a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>
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