1<html> 2<head> 3<title>pcre_exec specification</title> 4</head> 5<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB"> 6<h1>pcre_exec man page</h1> 7<p> 8Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>. 9</p> 10<p> 11This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically 12from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the 13man page, in case the conversion went wrong. 14<br> 15<br><b> 16SYNOPSIS 17</b><br> 18<P> 19<b>#include <pcre.h></b> 20</P> 21<P> 22<b>int pcre_exec(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b> 23<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b> 24<b>int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>);</b> 25</P> 26<br><b> 27DESCRIPTION 28</b><br> 29<P> 30This function matches a compiled regular expression against a given subject 31string, using a matching algorithm that is similar to Perl's. It returns 32offsets to captured substrings. Its arguments are: 33<pre> 34 <i>code</i> Points to the compiled pattern 35 <i>extra</i> Points to an associated <b>pcre_extra</b> structure, 36 or is NULL 37 <i>subject</i> Points to the subject string 38 <i>length</i> Length of the subject string, in bytes 39 <i>startoffset</i> Offset in bytes in the subject at which to 40 start matching 41 <i>options</i> Option bits 42 <i>ovector</i> Points to a vector of ints for result offsets 43 <i>ovecsize</i> Number of elements in the vector (a multiple of 3) 44</pre> 45The options are: 46<pre> 47 PCRE_ANCHORED Match only at the first position 48 PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF 49 PCRE_BSR_UNICODE \R matches all Unicode line endings 50 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY Recognize any Unicode newline sequence 51 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF Recognize CR, LF, & CRLF as newline sequences 52 PCRE_NEWLINE_CR Recognize CR as the only newline sequence 53 PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF Recognize CRLF as the only newline sequence 54 PCRE_NEWLINE_LF Recognize LF as the only newline sequence 55 PCRE_NOTBOL Subject string is not the beginning of a line 56 PCRE_NOTEOL Subject string is not the end of a line 57 PCRE_NOTEMPTY An empty string is not a valid match 58 PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART An empty string at the start of the subject 59 is not a valid match 60 PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Do not do "start-match" optimizations 61 PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-8 62 validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF8 63 was set at compile time) 64 PCRE_PARTIAL ) Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial 65 PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT ) match if no full matches are found 66 PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial match 67 even if there is a full match as well 68</pre> 69For details of partial matching, see the 70<a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a> 71page. A <b>pcre_extra</b> structure contains the following fields: 72<pre> 73 <i>flags</i> Bits indicating which fields are set 74 <i>study_data</i> Opaque data from <b>pcre_study()</b> 75 <i>match_limit</i> Limit on internal resource use 76 <i>match_limit_recursion</i> Limit on internal recursion depth 77 <i>callout_data</i> Opaque data passed back to callouts 78 <i>tables</i> Points to character tables or is NULL 79</pre> 80The flag bits are PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA, PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT, 81PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION, PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA, and 82PCRE_EXTRA_TABLES. 83</P> 84<P> 85There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the 86<a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a> 87page and a description of the POSIX API in the 88<a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a> 89page. 90<p> 91Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>. 92</p> 93