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<title>pcre_compile specification</title>
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<h1>pcre_compile man page</h1>
<p>
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<p>
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<br>
<br><b>
SYNOPSIS
</b><br>
<P>
<b>#include &#60;pcre.h&#62;</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre *pcre_compile(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre16 *pcre16_compile(PCRE_SPTR16 <i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre32 *pcre32_compile(PCRE_SPTR32 <i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<br><b>
DESCRIPTION
</b><br>
<P>
This function compiles a regular expression into an internal form. It is the
same as <b>pcre[16|32]_compile2()</b>, except for the absence of the
<i>errorcodeptr</i> argument. Its arguments are:
<pre>
  <i>pattern</i>       A zero-terminated string containing the
                  regular expression to be compiled
  <i>options</i>       Zero or more option bits
  <i>errptr</i>        Where to put an error message
  <i>erroffset</i>     Offset in pattern where error was found
  <i>tableptr</i>      Pointer to character tables, or NULL to
                  use the built-in default
</pre>
The option bits are:
<pre>
  PCRE_ANCHORED           Force pattern anchoring
  PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT       Compile automatic callouts
  PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF        \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF
  PCRE_BSR_UNICODE        \R matches all Unicode line endings
  PCRE_CASELESS           Do caseless matching
  PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY     $ not to match newline at end
  PCRE_DOTALL             . matches anything including NL
  PCRE_DUPNAMES           Allow duplicate names for subpatterns
  PCRE_EXTENDED           Ignore white space and # comments
  PCRE_EXTRA              PCRE extra features
                            (not much use currently)
  PCRE_FIRSTLINE          Force matching to be before newline
  PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT  JavaScript compatibility
  PCRE_MULTILINE          ^ and $ match newlines within data
  PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY        Recognize any Unicode newline sequence
  PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF    Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline
                            sequences
  PCRE_NEWLINE_CR         Set CR as the newline sequence
  PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF       Set CRLF as the newline sequence
  PCRE_NEWLINE_LF         Set LF as the newline sequence
  PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE    Disable numbered capturing paren-
                            theses (named ones available)
  PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK     Do not check the pattern for UTF-16
                            validity (only relevant if
                            PCRE_UTF16 is set)
  PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK     Do not check the pattern for UTF-32
                            validity (only relevant if
                            PCRE_UTF32 is set)
  PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK      Do not check the pattern for UTF-8
                            validity (only relevant if
                            PCRE_UTF8 is set)
  PCRE_UCP                Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc.
  PCRE_UNGREEDY           Invert greediness of quantifiers
  PCRE_UTF16              Run in <b>pcre16_compile()</b> UTF-16 mode
  PCRE_UTF32              Run in <b>pcre32_compile()</b> UTF-32 mode
  PCRE_UTF8               Run in <b>pcre_compile()</b> UTF-8 mode
</pre>
PCRE must be built with UTF support in order to use PCRE_UTF8/16/32 and
PCRE_NO_UTF8/16/32_CHECK, and with UCP support if PCRE_UCP is used.
</P>
<P>
The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that
contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected. Note that
compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different
version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes.
</P>
<P>
There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the
<a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
page and a description of the POSIX API in the
<a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>
page.
<p>
Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
</p>