NAME¶

SYNOPSIS¶

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

DESCRIPTION¶

pattern A string containing expression to be compiled length The length of the string or PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED options Option bits errorcode Where to put an error code erroffset Where to put an error offset ccontext Pointer to a compile context or NULL

The length of the pattern and any error offset that is returned are in code units, not characters. A compile context is needed only if you want to provide custom memory allocation functions, or to provide an external function for system stack size checking, or to change one or more of these 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; The maximum pattern length (in code units) that is allowed. The additional options bits (see pcre2_set_compile_extra_options())

The option bits are:

PCRE2_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS Allow empty classes PCRE2_ALT_BSUX Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode PCRE2_ALT_VERBNAMES Process backslashes in verb names PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts PCRE2_CASELESS Do caseless matching PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end PCRE2_DOTALL . matches anything including NL PCRE2_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns PCRE2_ENDANCHORED Pattern can match only at end of subject PCRE2_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments PCRE2_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline PCRE2_LITERAL Pattern characters are all literal PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF Match unset backreferences PCRE2_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C Lock out the use of \C in patterns PCRE2_NEVER_UCP Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP) PCRE2_NEVER_UTF Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF) PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren- theses (named ones available) PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR Disable automatic anchoring for .* PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF validity (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set) PCRE2_UCP Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc. PCRE2_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers PCRE2_USE_OFFSET_LIMIT Enable offset limit for unanchored matching PCRE2_UTF Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings

PCRE2 must be built with Unicode support (the default) in order to use PCRE2_UTF, PCRE2_UCP and related options.

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.

There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API, with more detail on each option, in the pcre2api page, and a description of the POSIX API in the pcre2posix page.