1Building PCRE without using autotools
2-------------------------------------
3
4This document contains the following sections:
5
6  General
7  Generic instructions for the PCRE C library
8  The C++ wrapper functions
9  Building for virtual Pascal
10  Stack size in Windows environments
11  Linking programs in Windows environments
12  Comments about Win32 builds
13  Building PCRE on Windows with CMake
14  Use of relative paths with CMake on Windows
15  Testing with RunTest.bat
16  Building under Windows with BCC5.5
17  Building PCRE on OpenVMS
18  Building PCRE on Stratus OpenVOS
19
20
21GENERAL
22
23I (Philip Hazel) have no experience of Windows or VMS sytems and how their
24libraries work. The items in the PCRE distribution and Makefile that relate to
25anything other than Linux systems are untested by me.
26
27There are some other comments and files (including some documentation in CHM
28format) in the Contrib directory on the FTP site:
29
30  ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/Contrib
31
32The basic PCRE library consists entirely of code written in Standard C, and so
33should compile successfully on any system that has a Standard C compiler and
34library. The C++ wrapper functions are a separate issue (see below).
35
36The PCRE distribution includes a "configure" file for use by the configure/make
37(autotools) build system, as found in many Unix-like environments. The README
38file contains information about the options for "configure".
39
40There is also support for CMake, which some users prefer, especially in Windows
41environments, though it can also be run in Unix-like environments. See the
42section entitled "Building PCRE on Windows with CMake" below.
43
44Versions of config.h and pcre.h are distributed in the PCRE tarballs under the
45names config.h.generic and pcre.h.generic. These are provided for those who
46build PCRE without using "configure" or CMake. If you use "configure" or CMake,
47the .generic versions are not used.
48
49
50GENERIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PCRE C LIBRARY
51
52The following are generic instructions for building the PCRE C library "by
53hand":
54
55 (1) Copy or rename the file config.h.generic as config.h, and edit the macro
56     settings that it contains to whatever is appropriate for your environment.
57     In particular, if you want to force a specific value for newline, you can
58     define the NEWLINE macro. When you compile any of the PCRE modules, you
59     must specify -DHAVE_CONFIG_H to your compiler so that config.h is included
60     in the sources.
61
62     An alternative approach is not to edit config.h, but to use -D on the
63     compiler command line to make any changes that you need to the
64     configuration options. In this case -DHAVE_CONFIG_H must not be set.
65
66     NOTE: There have been occasions when the way in which certain parameters
67     in config.h are used has changed between releases. (In the configure/make
68     world, this is handled automatically.) When upgrading to a new release,
69     you are strongly advised to review config.h.generic before re-using what
70     you had previously.
71
72 (2) Copy or rename the file pcre.h.generic as pcre.h.
73
74 (3) EITHER:
75       Copy or rename file pcre_chartables.c.dist as pcre_chartables.c.
76
77     OR:
78       Compile dftables.c as a stand-alone program (using -DHAVE_CONFIG_H if
79       you have set up config.h), and then run it with the single argument
80       "pcre_chartables.c". This generates a set of standard character tables
81       and writes them to that file. The tables are generated using the default
82       C locale for your system. If you want to use a locale that is specified
83       by LC_xxx environment variables, add the -L option to the dftables
84       command. You must use this method if you are building on a system that
85       uses EBCDIC code.
86
87     The tables in pcre_chartables.c are defaults. The caller of PCRE can
88     specify alternative tables at run time.
89
90 (4) Ensure that you have the following header files:
91
92       pcre_internal.h
93       ucp.h
94
95 (5) For an 8-bit library, compile the following source files, setting
96     -DHAVE_CONFIG_H as a compiler option if you have set up config.h with your
97     configuration, or else use other -D settings to change the configuration
98     as required.
99
100       pcre_byte_order.c
101       pcre_chartables.c
102       pcre_compile.c
103       pcre_config.c
104       pcre_dfa_exec.c
105       pcre_exec.c
106       pcre_fullinfo.c
107       pcre_get.c
108       pcre_globals.c
109       pcre_maketables.c
110       pcre_newline.c
111       pcre_ord2utf8.c
112       pcre_refcount.c
113       pcre_string_utils.c
114       pcre_study.c
115       pcre_tables.c
116       pcre_ucd.c
117       pcre_valid_utf8.c
118       pcre_version.c
119       pcre_xclass.c
120
121     Make sure that you include -I. in the compiler command (or equivalent for
122     an unusual compiler) so that all included PCRE header files are first
123     sought in the current directory. Otherwise you run the risk of picking up
124     a previously-installed file from somewhere else.
125
126 (6) If you have defined SUPPORT_JIT in config.h, you must also compile
127
128       pcre_jit_compile.c
129
130     This file #includes sources from the sljit subdirectory, where there
131     should be 16 files, all of whose names begin with "sljit".
132
133 (7) Now link all the compiled code into an object library in whichever form
134     your system keeps such libraries. This is the basic PCRE C 8-bit library.
135     If your system has static and shared libraries, you may have to do this
136     once for each type.
137
138 (8) If you want to build a 16-bit library (as well as, or instead of the 8-bit
139     library) repeat steps 5-7 with the following files:
140
141       pcre16_byte_order.c
142       pcre16_chartables.c
143       pcre16_compile.c
144       pcre16_config.c
145       pcre16_dfa_exec.c
146       pcre16_exec.c
147       pcre16_fullinfo.c
148       pcre16_get.c
149       pcre16_globals.c
150       pcre16_jit_compile.c (if SUPPORT_JIT is defined)
151       pcre16_maketables.c
152       pcre16_newline.c
153       pcre16_ord2utf16.c
154       pcre16_refcount.c
155       pcre16_string_utils.c
156       pcre16_study.c
157       pcre16_tables.c
158       pcre16_ucd.c
159       pcre16_utf16_utils.c
160       pcre16_valid_utf16.c
161       pcre16_version.c
162       pcre16_xclass.c
163
164 (9) If you want to build the POSIX wrapper functions (which apply only to the
165     8-bit library), ensure that you have the pcreposix.h file and then compile
166     pcreposix.c (remembering -DHAVE_CONFIG_H if necessary). Link the result
167     (on its own) as the pcreposix library.
168
169(10) The pcretest program can be linked with either or both of the 8-bit and
170     16-bit libraries (depending on what you selected in config.h). Compile
171     pcretest.c and pcre_printint.c (again, don't forget -DHAVE_CONFIG_H) and
172     link them together with the appropriate library/ies. If you compiled an
173     8-bit library, pcretest also needs the pcreposix wrapper library unless
174     you compiled it with -DNOPOSIX.
175
176(11) Run pcretest on the testinput files in the testdata directory, and check
177     that the output matches the corresponding testoutput files. There are
178     comments about what each test does in the section entitled "Testing PCRE"
179     in the README file. If you compiled both an 8-bit and a 16-bit library,
180     you need to run pcretest with the -16 option to do 16-bit tests.
181
182     Some tests are relevant only when certain build-time options are selected.
183     For example, test 4 is for UTF-8 or UTF-16 support, and will not run if
184     you have built PCRE without it. See the comments at the start of each
185     testinput file. If you have a suitable Unix-like shell, the RunTest script
186     will run the appropriate tests for you.
187
188     Note that the supplied files are in Unix format, with just LF characters
189     as line terminators. You may need to edit them to change this if your
190     system uses a different convention. If you are using Windows, you probably
191     should use the wintestinput3 file instead of testinput3 (and the
192     corresponding output file). This is a locale test; wintestinput3 sets the
193     locale to "french" rather than "fr_FR", and there some minor output
194     differences.
195
196(12) If you have built PCRE with SUPPORT_JIT, the JIT features will be tested
197     by the testdata files. However, you might also like to build and run
198     the JIT test program, pcre_jit_test.c.
199
200(13) If you want to use the pcregrep command, compile and link pcregrep.c; it
201     uses only the basic 8-bit PCRE library (it does not need the pcreposix
202     library).
203
204
205THE C++ WRAPPER FUNCTIONS
206
207The PCRE distribution also contains some C++ wrapper functions and tests,
208applicable to the 8-bit library, which were contributed by Google Inc. On a
209system that can use "configure" and "make", the functions are automatically
210built into a library called pcrecpp. It should be straightforward to compile
211the .cc files manually on other systems. The files called xxx_unittest.cc are
212test programs for each of the corresponding xxx.cc files.
213
214
215BUILDING FOR VIRTUAL PASCAL
216
217A script for building PCRE using Borland's C++ compiler for use with VPASCAL
218was contributed by Alexander Tokarev. Stefan Weber updated the script and added
219additional files. The following files in the distribution are for building PCRE
220for use with VP/Borland: makevp_c.txt, makevp_l.txt, makevp.bat, pcregexp.pas.
221
222
223STACK SIZE IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
224
225The default processor stack size of 1Mb in some Windows environments is too
226small for matching patterns that need much recursion. In particular, test 2 may
227fail because of this. Normally, running out of stack causes a crash, but there
228have been cases where the test program has just died silently. See your linker
229documentation for how to increase stack size if you experience problems. The
230Linux default of 8Mb is a reasonable choice for the stack, though even that can
231be too small for some pattern/subject combinations.
232
233PCRE has a compile configuration option to disable the use of stack for
234recursion so that heap is used instead. However, pattern matching is
235significantly slower when this is done. There is more about stack usage in the
236"pcrestack" documentation.
237
238
239LINKING PROGRAMS IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
240
241If you want to statically link a program against a PCRE library in the form of
242a non-dll .a file, you must define PCRE_STATIC before including pcre.h or
243pcrecpp.h, otherwise the pcre_malloc() and pcre_free() exported functions will
244be declared __declspec(dllimport), with unwanted results.
245
246
247CALLING CONVENTIONS IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
248
249It is possible to compile programs to use different calling conventions using
250MSVC. Search the web for "calling conventions" for more information. To make it
251easier to change the calling convention for the exported functions in the
252PCRE library, the macro PCRE_CALL_CONVENTION is present in all the external
253definitions. It can be set externally when compiling (e.g. in CFLAGS). If it is
254not set, it defaults to empty; the default calling convention is then used
255(which is what is wanted most of the time).
256
257
258COMMENTS ABOUT WIN32 BUILDS (see also "BUILDING PCRE ON WINDOWS WITH CMAKE")
259
260There are two ways of building PCRE using the "configure, make, make install"
261paradigm on Windows systems: using MinGW or using Cygwin. These are not at all
262the same thing; they are completely different from each other. There is also
263support for building using CMake, which some users find a more straightforward
264way of building PCRE under Windows.
265
266The MinGW home page (http://www.mingw.org/) says this:
267
268  MinGW: A collection of freely available and freely distributable Windows
269  specific header files and import libraries combined with GNU toolsets that
270  allow one to produce native Windows programs that do not rely on any
271  3rd-party C runtime DLLs.
272
273The Cygwin home page (http://www.cygwin.com/) says this:
274
275  Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
276
277  . A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing
278    substantial Linux API functionality
279
280  . A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.
281
282  The Cygwin DLL currently works with all recent, commercially released x86 32
283  bit and 64 bit versions of Windows, with the exception of Windows CE.
284
285On both MinGW and Cygwin, PCRE should build correctly using:
286
287  ./configure && make && make install
288
289This should create two libraries called libpcre and libpcreposix, and, if you
290have enabled building the C++ wrapper, a third one called libpcrecpp. These are
291independent libraries: when you link with libpcreposix or libpcrecpp you must
292also link with libpcre, which contains the basic functions. (Some earlier
293releases of PCRE included the basic libpcre functions in libpcreposix. This no
294longer happens.)
295
296A user submitted a special-purpose patch that makes it easy to create
297"pcre.dll" under mingw32 using the "msys" environment. It provides "pcre.dll"
298as a special target. If you use this target, no other files are built, and in
299particular, the pcretest and pcregrep programs are not built. An example of how
300this might be used is:
301
302  ./configure --enable-utf --disable-cpp CFLAGS="-03 -s"; make pcre.dll
303
304Using Cygwin's compiler generates libraries and executables that depend on
305cygwin1.dll. If a library that is generated this way is distributed,
306cygwin1.dll has to be distributed as well. Since cygwin1.dll is under the GPL
307licence, this forces not only PCRE to be under the GPL, but also the entire
308application. A distributor who wants to keep their own code proprietary must
309purchase an appropriate Cygwin licence.
310
311MinGW has no such restrictions. The MinGW compiler generates a library or
312executable that can run standalone on Windows without any third party dll or
313licensing issues.
314
315But there is more complication:
316
317If a Cygwin user uses the -mno-cygwin Cygwin gcc flag, what that really does is
318to tell Cygwin's gcc to use the MinGW gcc. Cygwin's gcc is only acting as a
319front end to MinGW's gcc (if you install Cygwin's gcc, you get both Cygwin's
320gcc and MinGW's gcc). So, a user can:
321
322. Build native binaries by using MinGW or by getting Cygwin and using
323  -mno-cygwin.
324
325. Build binaries that depend on cygwin1.dll by using Cygwin with the normal
326  compiler flags.
327
328The test files that are supplied with PCRE are in UNIX format, with LF
329characters as line terminators. Unless your PCRE library uses a default newline
330option that includes LF as a valid newline, it may be necessary to change the
331line terminators in the test files to get some of the tests to work.
332
333
334BUILDING PCRE ON WINDOWS WITH CMAKE
335
336CMake is an alternative configuration facility that can be used instead of
337"configure". CMake creates project files (make files, solution files, etc.)
338tailored to numerous development environments, including Visual Studio,
339Borland, Msys, MinGW, NMake, and Unix.  If possible, use short paths with no
340spaces in the names for your CMake installation and your PCRE source and build
341directories.
342
343The following instructions were contributed by a PCRE user.
344
3451.  Install the latest CMake version available from http://www.cmake.org/, and
346    ensure that cmake\bin is on your path.
347
3482.  Unzip (retaining folder structure) the PCRE source tree into a source
349    directory such as C:\pcre. You should ensure your local date and time
350    is not earlier than the file dates in your source dir if the release is
351    very new.
352
3533.  Create a new, empty build directory, preferably a subdirectory of the
354    source dir. For example, C:\pcre\pcre-xx\build.
355
3564.  Run cmake-gui from the Shell envirornment of your build tool, for example,
357    Msys for Msys/MinGW or Visual Studio Command Prompt for VC/VC++.
358
3595.  Enter C:\pcre\pcre-xx and C:\pcre\pcre-xx\build for the source and build
360    directories, respectively.
361
3626.  Hit the "Configure" button.
363
3647.  Select the particular IDE / build tool that you are using (Visual
365    Studio, MSYS makefiles, MinGW makefiles, etc.)
366
3678.  The GUI will then list several configuration options. This is where
368    you can enable UTF-8 support or other PCRE optional features.
369
3709.  Hit "Configure" again. The adjacent "Generate" button should now be
371    active.
372
37310. Hit "Generate".
374
37511. The build directory should now contain a usable build system, be it a
376    solution file for Visual Studio, makefiles for MinGW, etc. Exit from
377    cmake-gui and use the generated build system with your compiler or IDE.
378    E.g., for MinGW you can run "make", or for Visual Studio, open the PCRE
379    solution, select the desired configuration (Debug, or Release, etc.) and
380    build the ALL_BUILD project.
381
38212. If during configuration with cmake-gui you've elected to build the test
383    programs, you can execute them by building the test project. E.g., for
384    MinGW: "make test"; for Visual Studio build the RUN_TESTS project. The
385    most recent build configuration is targeted by the tests. A summary of
386    test results is presented. Complete test output is subsequently
387    available for review in Testing\Temporary under your build dir.
388
389
390USE OF RELATIVE PATHS WITH CMAKE ON WINDOWS
391
392A PCRE user comments as follows:
393
394I thought that others may want to know the current state of
395CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS support on Windows.
396
397Here it is:
398-- AdditionalIncludeDirectories is only partially modified (only the
399first path - see below)
400-- Only some of the contained file paths are modified - shown below for
401pcre.vcproj
402-- It properly modifies
403
404I am sure CMake people can fix that if they want to. Until then one will
405need to replace existing absolute paths in project files with relative
406paths manually (e.g. from VS) - relative to project file location. I did
407just that before being told to try CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS. Not a big
408deal.
409
410AdditionalIncludeDirectories="E:\builds\pcre\build;E:\builds\pcre\pcre-7.5;"
411AdditionalIncludeDirectories=".;E:\builds\pcre\pcre-7.5;"
412
413RelativePath="pcre.h">
414RelativePath="pcre_chartables.c">
415RelativePath="pcre_chartables.c.rule">
416
417
418TESTING WITH RUNTEST.BAT
419
420If configured with CMake, building the test project ("make test" or building
421ALL_TESTS in Visual Studio) creates (and runs) pcre_test.bat (and depending
422on your configuration options, possibly other test programs) in the build
423directory. Pcre_test.bat runs RunTest.Bat with correct source and exe paths.
424
425For manual testing with RunTest.bat, provided the build dir is a subdirectory
426of the source directory: Open command shell window. Chdir to the location
427of your pcretest.exe and pcregrep.exe programs. Call RunTest.bat with
428"..\RunTest.Bat" or "..\..\RunTest.bat" as appropriate.
429
430To run only a particular test with RunTest.Bat provide a test number argument.
431
432Otherwise:
433
4341. Copy RunTest.bat into the directory where pcretest.exe and pcregrep.exe
435   have been created.
436
4372. Edit RunTest.bat to indentify the full or relative location of
438   the pcre source (wherein which the testdata folder resides), e.g.:
439
440   set srcdir=C:\pcre\pcre-8.20
441
4423. In a Windows command environment, chdir to the location of your bat and
443   exe programs.
444
4454. Run RunTest.bat. Test outputs will automatically be compared to expected
446   results, and discrepancies will be identified in the console output.
447
448To independently test the just-in-time compiler, run pcre_jit_test.exe.
449To test pcrecpp, run pcrecpp_unittest.exe, pcre_stringpiece_unittest.exe and
450pcre_scanner_unittest.exe.
451
452
453BUILDING UNDER WINDOWS WITH BCC5.5
454
455Michael Roy sent these comments about building PCRE under Windows with BCC5.5:
456
457  Some of the core BCC libraries have a version of PCRE from 1998 built in,
458  which can lead to pcre_exec() giving an erroneous PCRE_ERROR_NULL from a
459  version mismatch. I'm including an easy workaround below, if you'd like to
460  include it in the non-unix instructions:
461
462  When linking a project with BCC5.5, pcre.lib must be included before any of
463  the libraries cw32.lib, cw32i.lib, cw32mt.lib, and cw32mti.lib on the command
464  line.
465
466
467BUILDING UNDER WINDOWS CE WITH VISUAL STUDIO 200x
468
469Vincent Richomme sent a zip archive of files to help with this process. They
470can be found in the file "pcre-vsbuild.zip" in the Contrib directory of the FTP
471site.
472
473
474BUILDING PCRE ON OPENVMS
475
476Dan Mooney sent the following comments about building PCRE on OpenVMS. They
477relate to an older version of PCRE that used fewer source files, so the exact
478commands will need changing. See the current list of source files above.
479
480"It was quite easy to compile and link the library. I don't have a formal
481make file but the attached file [reproduced below] contains the OpenVMS DCL
482commands I used to build the library. I had to add #define
483POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD 10 to pcre.h since it was not defined anywhere.
484
485The library was built on:
486O/S: HP OpenVMS v7.3-1
487Compiler: Compaq C v6.5-001-48BCD
488Linker: vA13-01
489
490The test results did not match 100% due to the issues you mention in your
491documentation regarding isprint(), iscntrl(), isgraph() and ispunct(). I
492modified some of the character tables temporarily and was able to get the
493results to match. Tests using the fr locale did not match since I don't have
494that locale loaded. The study size was always reported to be 3 less than the
495value in the standard test output files."
496
497=========================
498$! This DCL procedure builds PCRE on OpenVMS
499$!
500$! I followed the instructions in the non-unix-use file in the distribution.
501$!
502$ COMPILE == "CC/LIST/NOMEMBER_ALIGNMENT/PREFIX_LIBRARY_ENTRIES=ALL_ENTRIES
503$ COMPILE DFTABLES.C
504$ LINK/EXE=DFTABLES.EXE DFTABLES.OBJ
505$ RUN DFTABLES.EXE/OUTPUT=CHARTABLES.C
506$ COMPILE MAKETABLES.C
507$ COMPILE GET.C
508$ COMPILE STUDY.C
509$! I had to set POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD to 10 in PCRE.H since the symbol
510$! did not seem to be defined anywhere.
511$! I edited pcre.h and added #DEFINE SUPPORT_UTF8 to enable UTF8 support.
512$ COMPILE PCRE.C
513$ LIB/CREATE PCRE MAKETABLES.OBJ, GET.OBJ, STUDY.OBJ, PCRE.OBJ
514$! I had to set POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD to 10 in PCRE.H since the symbol
515$! did not seem to be defined anywhere.
516$ COMPILE PCREPOSIX.C
517$ LIB/CREATE PCREPOSIX PCREPOSIX.OBJ
518$ COMPILE PCRETEST.C
519$ LINK/EXE=PCRETEST.EXE PCRETEST.OBJ, PCRE/LIB, PCREPOSIX/LIB
520$! C programs that want access to command line arguments must be
521$! defined as a symbol
522$ PCRETEST :== "$ SYS$ROADSUSERS:[DMOONEY.REGEXP]PCRETEST.EXE"
523$! Arguments must be enclosed in quotes.
524$ PCRETEST "-C"
525$! Test results:
526$!
527$!   The test results did not match 100%. The functions isprint(), iscntrl(),
528$!   isgraph() and ispunct() on OpenVMS must not produce the same results
529$!   as the system that built the test output files provided with the
530$!   distribution.
531$!
532$!   The study size did not match and was always 3 less on OpenVMS.
533$!
534$!   Locale could not be set to fr
535$!
536=========================
537
538
539BUILDING PCRE ON STRATUS OPENVOS
540
541These notes on the port of PCRE to VOS (lightly edited) were supplied by
542Ashutosh Warikoo, whose email address has the local part awarikoo and the
543domain nse.co.in. The port was for version 7.9 in August 2009.
544
5451.   Building PCRE
546
547I built pcre on OpenVOS Release 17.0.1at using GNU Tools 3.4a without any
548problems. I used the following packages to build PCRE:
549
550  ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/posix/ga/posix.save.evf.gz
551
552Please read and follow the instructions that come with these packages. To start
553the build of pcre, from the root of the package type:
554
555  ./build.sh
556
5572. Installing PCRE
558
559Once you have successfully built PCRE, login to the SysAdmin group, switch to
560the root user, and type
561
562  [ !create_dir (master_disk)>usr   --if needed ]
563  [ !create_dir (master_disk)>usr>local   --if needed ]
564    !gmake install
565
566This installs PCRE and its man pages into /usr/local. You can add
567(master_disk)>usr>local>bin to your command search paths, or if you are in
568BASH, add /usr/local/bin to the PATH environment variable.
569
5704. Restrictions
571
572This port requires readline library optionally. However during the build I
573faced some yet unexplored errors while linking with readline. As it was an
574optional component I chose to disable it.
575
5765. Known Problems
577
578I ran the test suite, but you will have to be your own judge of whether this
579command, and this port, suits your purposes. If you find any problems that
580appear to be related to the port itself, please let me know. Please see the
581build.log file in the root of the package also.
582
583
584==========================
585Last Updated: 18 June 2012
586