NAME¶
re - Perl pragma to alter regular expression behaviour
SYNOPSIS¶
use re 'taint';
($x) = ($^X =~ /^(.*)$/s); # $x is tainted here
$pat = '(?{ $foo = 1 })';
use re 'eval';
/foo${pat}bar/; # won't fail (when not under -T
# switch)
{
no re 'taint'; # the default
($x) = ($^X =~ /^(.*)$/s); # $x is not tainted here
no re 'eval'; # the default
/foo${pat}bar/; # disallowed (with or without -T
# switch)
}
use re '/ix';
"FOO" =~ / foo /; # /ix implied
no re '/x';
"FOO" =~ /foo/; # just /i implied
use re 'debug'; # output debugging info during
/^(.*)$/s; # compile and run time
use re 'debugcolor'; # same as 'debug', but with colored
# output
...
use re qw(Debug All); # Same as "use re 'debug'", but you
# can use "Debug" with things other
# than 'All'
use re qw(Debug More); # 'All' plus output more details
no re qw(Debug ALL); # Turn on (almost) all re debugging
# in this scope
use re qw(is_regexp regexp_pattern); # import utility functions
my ($pat,$mods)=regexp_pattern(qr/foo/i);
if (is_regexp($obj)) {
print "Got regexp: ",
scalar regexp_pattern($obj); # just as perl would stringify
} # it but no hassle with blessed
# re's.
(We use $^X in these examples because it's tainted by default.)
DESCRIPTION¶
'taint' mode¶
When "use re 'taint'" is in effect, and a tainted string is the target
of a regexp, the regexp memories (or values returned by the m// operator in
list context) are tainted. This feature is useful when regexp operations on
tainted data aren't meant to extract safe substrings, but to perform other
transformations.
'eval' mode¶
When "use re 'eval'" is in effect, a regexp is allowed to contain
"(?{ ... })" zero-width assertions and "(??{ ... })"
postponed subexpressions that are derived from variable interpolation, rather
than appearing literally within the regexp. That is normally disallowed, since
it is a potential security risk. Note that this pragma is ignored when the
regular expression is obtained from tainted data, i.e. evaluation is always
disallowed with tainted regular expressions. See "(?{ code })" in
perlre and "(??{ code })" in perlre.
For the purpose of this pragma, interpolation of precompiled regular expressions
(i.e., the result of "qr//") is
not considered variable
interpolation. Thus:
/foo${pat}bar/
is allowed if $pat is a precompiled regular expression, even if $pat
contains "(?{ ... })" assertions or "(??{ ... })"
subexpressions.
'/flags' mode¶
When "use re '/flags'" is specified, the given flags are automatically
added to every regular expression till the end of the lexical scope.
"no re '/flags'" will turn off the effect of "use re
'/flags'" for the given flags.
For example, if you want all your regular expressions to have /msx on by
default, simply put
use re '/msx';
at the top of your code.
The character set /adul flags cancel each other out. So, in this example,
use re "/u";
"ss" =~ /\xdf/;
use re "/d";
"ss" =~ /\xdf/;
the second "use re" does an implicit "no re '/u'".
Turning on one of the character set flags with "use re" takes
precedence over the "locale" pragma and the 'unicode_strings'
"feature", for regular expressions. Turning off one of these flags
when it is active reverts to the behaviour specified by whatever other
pragmata are in scope. For example:
use feature "unicode_strings";
no re "/u"; # does nothing
use re "/l";
no re "/l"; # reverts to unicode_strings behaviour
'debug' mode¶
When "use re 'debug'" is in effect, perl emits debugging messages when
compiling and using regular expressions. The output is the same as that
obtained by running a "-DDEBUGGING"-enabled perl interpreter with
the
-Dr switch. It may be quite voluminous depending on the complexity
of the match. Using "debugcolor" instead of "debug"
enables a form of output that can be used to get a colorful display on
terminals that understand termcap color sequences. Set $ENV{PERL_RE_TC} to a
comma-separated list of "termcap" properties to use for highlighting
strings on/off, pre-point part on/off. See "Debugging Regular
Expressions" in perldebug for additional info.
As of 5.9.5 the directive "use re 'debug'" and its equivalents are
lexically scoped, as the other directives are. However they have both
compile-time and run-time effects.
See "Pragmatic Modules" in perlmodlib.
'Debug' mode¶
Similarly "use re 'Debug'" produces debugging output, the difference
being that it allows the fine tuning of what debugging output will be emitted.
Options are divided into three groups, those related to compilation, those
related to execution and those related to special purposes. The options are as
follows:
- Compile related options
- COMPILE
- Turns on all compile related debug options.
- PARSE
- Turns on debug output related to the process of parsing the pattern.
- OPTIMISE
- Enables output related to the optimisation phase of compilation.
- TRIEC
- Detailed info about trie compilation.
- DUMP
- Dump the final program out after it is compiled and optimised.
- Execute related options
- EXECUTE
- Turns on all execute related debug options.
- MATCH
- Turns on debugging of the main matching loop.
- TRIEE
- Extra debugging of how tries execute.
- INTUIT
- Enable debugging of start-point optimisations.
- Extra debugging options
- EXTRA
- Turns on all "extra" debugging options.
- BUFFERS
- Enable debugging the capture group storage during match. Warning, this can
potentially produce extremely large output.
- TRIEM
- Enable enhanced TRIE debugging. Enhances both TRIEE and TRIEC.
- STATE
- Enable debugging of states in the engine.
- STACK
- Enable debugging of the recursion stack in the engine. Enabling or
disabling this option automatically does the same for debugging states as
well. This output from this can be quite large.
- OPTIMISEM
- Enable enhanced optimisation debugging and start-point optimisations.
Probably not useful except when debugging the regexp engine itself.
- OFFSETS
- Dump offset information. This can be used to see how regops correlate to
the pattern. Output format is
NODENUM:POSITION[LENGTH]
Where 1 is the position of the first char in the string. Note that position
can be 0, or larger than the actual length of the pattern, likewise length
can be zero.
- OFFSETSDBG
- Enable debugging of offsets information. This emits copious amounts of
trace information and doesn't mesh well with other debug options.
Almost definitely only useful to people hacking on the offsets part of the
debug engine.
- Other useful flags
- These are useful shortcuts to save on the typing.
- ALL
- Enable all options at once except OFFSETS, OFFSETSDBG and BUFFERS. (To get
every single option without exception, use both ALL and EXTRA.)
- All
- Enable DUMP and all execute options. Equivalent to:
use re 'debug';
- MORE
- More
- Enable the options enabled by "All", plus STATE, TRIEC, and
TRIEM.
As of 5.9.5 the directive "use re 'debug'" and its equivalents are
lexically scoped, as are the other directives. However they have both
compile-time and run-time effects.
Exportable Functions¶
As of perl 5.9.5 're' debug contains a number of utility functions that may be
optionally exported into the caller's namespace. They are listed below.
- is_regexp($ref)
- Returns true if the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned
by "qr//", false if it is not.
This function will not be confused by overloading or blessing. In internals
terms, this extracts the regexp pointer out of the PERL_MAGIC_qr structure
so it cannot be fooled.
- regexp_pattern($ref)
- If the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned by
"qr//", then this function returns the pattern.
In list context it returns a two element list, the first element containing
the pattern and the second containing the modifiers used when the pattern
was compiled.
my ($pat, $mods) = regexp_pattern($ref);
In scalar context it returns the same as perl would when stringifying a raw
"qr//" with the same pattern inside. If the argument is not a
compiled reference then this routine returns false but defined in scalar
context, and the empty list in list context. Thus the following
if (regexp_pattern($ref) eq '(?^i:foo)')
will be warning free regardless of what $ref actually is.
Like "is_regexp" this function will not be confused by overloading
or blessing of the object.
- regmust($ref)
- If the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned by
"qr//", then this function returns what the optimiser considers
to be the longest anchored fixed string and longest floating fixed string
in the pattern.
A fixed string is defined as being a substring that must appear for
the pattern to match. An anchored fixed string is a fixed string
that must appear at a particular offset from the beginning of the match. A
floating fixed string is defined as a fixed string that can
appear at any point in a range of positions relative to the start of the
match. For example,
my $qr = qr/here .* there/x;
my ($anchored, $floating) = regmust($qr);
print "anchored:'$anchored'\nfloating:'$floating'\n";
results in
anchored:'here'
floating:'there'
Because the "here" is before the ".*" in the pattern,
its position can be determined exactly. That's not true, however, for the
"there"; it could appear at any point after where the anchored
string appeared. Perl uses both for its optimisations, preferring the
longer, or, if they are equal, the floating.
NOTE: This may not necessarily be the definitive longest anchored
and floating string. This will be what the optimiser of the Perl that you
are using thinks is the longest. If you believe that the result is wrong
please report it via the perlbug utility.
- regname($name,$all)
- Returns the contents of a named buffer of the last successful match. If
$all is true, then returns an array ref containing one entry per buffer,
otherwise returns the first defined buffer.
- regnames($all)
- Returns a list of all of the named buffers defined in the last successful
match. If $all is true, then it returns all names defined, if not it
returns only names which were involved in the match.
- regnames_count()
- Returns the number of distinct names defined in the pattern used for the
last successful match.
Note: this result is always the actual number of distinct named
buffers defined, it may not actually match that which is returned by
"regnames()" and related routines when those routines have not
been called with the $all parameter set.
SEE ALSO¶
"Pragmatic Modules" in perlmodlib.