.\" Copyright (C), 1995, Graeme W. Wilford. (Wilf.)
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.\" Wed Jun 14 16:10:28 BST 1995 Wilf. (G.Wilford@@ee.surrey.ac.uk)
.\"
.TH re_comp 3 "July 14th 1995" Linux "GNU"
.SH NAME
re_comp, re_exec \- BSD regex functions
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <regex.h>
.sp
.BI "char *re_comp(char *" regex );
.br
.BI "int re_exec(char *" string );
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B re_comp
is used to compile the null-terminated regular expression pointed to by
.IR regex .
The compiled pattern occupies a static area, the pattern buffer,
which is overwritten by subsequent use of
.BR re_comp .
If
.I regex
is
.BR NULL ,
no operation is performed and the pattern buffer's contents are not
altered.

.B re_exec
is used to assess whether the null-terminated string pointed to by
.I string
matches the previously compiled
.IR regex .
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
.B re_comp
returns
.B NULL
on successful compilation of
.I regex
otherwise it returns a pointer to an appropriate error message.

.B re_exec
returns 1 for a successful match, zero for failure.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
BSD 4.3
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR regex (7),
.B "GNU regex manual"