README file for PCRE (Perl-compatible regular expressions) ---------------------------------------------------------- ******************************************************************************* * IMPORTANT FOR THOSE UPGRADING FROM VERSIONS BEFORE 2.00 * * * * Please note that there has been a change in the API such that a larger * * ovector is required at matching time, to provide some additional workspace. * * The new man page has details. This change was necessary in order to support * * some of the new functionality in Perl 5.005. * * * * IMPORTANT FOR THOSE UPGRADING FROM VERSION 2.00 * * * * Another (I hope this is the last!) change has been made to the API for the * * pcre_compile() function. An additional argument has been added to make it * * possible to pass over a pointer to character tables built in the current * * locale by pcre_maketables(). To use the default tables, this new arguement * * should be passed as NULL. * ******************************************************************************* The distribution should contain the following files: ChangeLog log of changes to the code LICENCE conditions for the use of PCRE Makefile for building PCRE README this file RunTest a shell script for running tests Tech.Notes notes on the encoding pcre.3 man page for the functions pcreposix.3 man page for the POSIX wrapper API dftables.c auxiliary program for building chartables.c get.c ) maketables.c ) study.c ) source of pcre.c ) the functions pcreposix.c ) pcre.h header for the external API pcreposix.h header for the external POSIX wrapper API internal.h header for internal use pcretest.c test program pgrep.1 man page for pgrep pgrep.c source of a grep utility that uses PCRE perltest Perl test program testinput1 test data, compatible with Perl 5.004 and 5.005 testinput2 test data for error messages and non-Perl things testinput3 test data, compatible with Perl 5.005 testinput4 test data for locale-specific tests testoutput1 test results corresponding to testinput testoutput2 test results corresponding to testinput2 testoutput3 test results corresponding to testinput3 testoutput4 test results corresponding to testinput4 To build PCRE, edit Makefile for your system (it is a fairly simple make file, and there are some comments at the top) and then run it. It builds two libraries called libpcre.a and libpcreposix.a, a test program called pcretest, and the pgrep command. To test PCRE, run the RunTest script in the pcre directory. This runs pcretest on each of the testinput files in turn, and compares the output with the contents of the corresponding testoutput file. A file called testtry is used to hold the output from pcretest (which is documented below). To run pcretest on just one of the test files, give its number as an argument to RunTest, for example: RunTest 3 The first and third test files can also be fed directly into the perltest program to check that Perl gives the same results. The third file requires the additional features of release 5.005, which is why it is kept separate from the main test input, which needs only Perl 5.004. In the long run, when 5.005 is widespread, these two test files may get amalgamated. The second set of tests check pcre_info(), pcre_study(), pcre_copy_substring(), pcre_get_substring(), pcre_get_substring_list(), error detection and run-time flags that are specific to PCRE, as well as the POSIX wrapper API. The fourth set of tests checks pcre_maketables(), the facility for building a set of character tables for a specific locale and using them instead of the default tables. The tests make use of the "fr" (French) locale. Before running the test, the script checks for the presence of this locale by running the "locale" command. If that command fails, or if it doesn't include "fr" in the list of available locales, the fourth test cannot be run, and a comment is output to say why. If running this test produces instances of the error ** Failed to set locale "fr" in the comparison output, it means that locale is not available on your system, despite being listed by "locale". This does not mean that PCRE is broken. To install PCRE, copy libpcre.a to any suitable library directory (e.g. /usr/local/lib), pcre.h to any suitable include directory (e.g. /usr/local/include), and pcre.3 to any suitable man directory (e.g. /usr/local/man/man3). To install the pgrep command, copy it to any suitable binary directory, (e.g. /usr/local/bin) and pgrep.1 to any suitable man directory (e.g. /usr/local/man/man1). PCRE has its own native API, but a set of "wrapper" functions that are based on the POSIX API are also supplied in the library libpcreposix.a. Note that this just provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE: the regular expressions themselves still follow Perl syntax and semantics. The header file for the POSIX-style functions is called pcreposix.h. The official POSIX name is regex.h, but I didn't want to risk possible problems with existing files of that name by distributing it that way. To use it with an existing program that uses the POSIX API, it will have to be renamed or pointed at by a link. Character tables ---------------- PCRE uses four tables for manipulating and identifying characters. The final argument of the pcre_compile() function is a pointer to a block of memory containing the concatenated tables. A call to pcre_maketables() is used to generate a set of tables in the current locale. However, if the final argument is passed as NULL, a set of default tables that is built into the binary is used. The source file called chartables.c contains the default set of tables. This is not supplied in the distribution, but is built by the program dftables (compiled from dftables.c), which uses the ANSI C character handling functions such as isalnum(), isalpha(), isupper(), islower(), etc. to build the table sources. This means that the default C locale set your system will control the contents of the tables. You can change the default tables by editing chartables.c and then re-building PCRE. If you do this, you should probably also edit Makefile to ensure that the file doesn't ever get re-generated. The first two 256-byte tables provide lower casing and case flipping functions, respectively. The next table consists of three 32-byte bit maps which identify digits, "word" characters, and white space, respectively. These are used when building 32-byte bit maps that represent character classes. The final 256-byte table has bits indicating various character types, as follows: 1 white space character 2 letter 4 decimal digit 8 hexadecimal digit 16 alphanumeric or '_' 128 regular expression metacharacter or binary zero You should not alter the set of characters that contain the 128 bit, as that will cause PCRE to malfunction. The pcretest program -------------------- This program is intended for testing PCRE, but it can also be used for experimenting with regular expressions. If it is given two filename arguments, it reads from the first and writes to the second. If it is given only one filename argument, it reads from that file and writes to stdout. Otherwise, it reads from stdin and writes to stdout, and prompts for each line of input. The program handles any number of sets of input on a single input file. Each set starts with a regular expression, and continues with any number of data lines to be matched against the pattern. An empty line signals the end of the set. The regular expressions are given enclosed in any non-alphameric delimiters other than backslash, for example /(a|bc)x+yz/ White space before the initial delimiter is ignored. A regular expression may be continued over several input lines, in which case the newline characters are included within it. See the testinput files for many examples. It is possible to include the delimiter within the pattern by escaping it, for example /abc\/def/ If you do so, the escape and the delimiter form part of the pattern, but since delimiters are always non-alphameric, this does not affect its interpretation. If the terminating delimiter is immediately followed by a backslash, for example, /abc/\ then a backslash is added to the end of the pattern. This provides a way of testing the error condition that arises if a pattern finishes with a backslash, because /abc\/ is interpreted as the first line of a pattern that starts with "abc/", causing pcretest to read the next line as a continuation of the regular expression. The pattern may be followed by i, m, s, or x to set the PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE, PCRE_DOTALL, or PCRE_EXTENDED options, respectively. These options have the same effect as they do in Perl. There are also some upper case options that do not match Perl options: /A, /E, and /X set PCRE_ANCHORED, PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY, and PCRE_EXTRA respectively. The /L option must be followed directly by the name of a locale, for example, /pattern/Lfr For this reason, it must be the last option letter. The given locale is set, pcre_maketables() is called to build a set of character tables for the locale, and this is then passed to pcre_compile() when compiling the regular expression. Without an /L option, NULL is passed as the tables pointer; that is, /L applies only to the expression on which it appears. The /I option requests that pcretest output information about the compiled expression (whether it is anchored, has a fixed first character, and so on). It does this by calling pcre_info() after compiling an expression, and outputting the information it gets back. If the pattern is studied, the results of that are also output. The /D option is a PCRE debugging feature, which also assumes /I. It causes the internal form of compiled regular expressions to be output after compilation. The /S option causes pcre_study() to be called after the expression has been compiled, and the results used when the expression is matched. The /M option causes information about the size of memory block used to hold the compile pattern to be output. Finally, the /P option causes pcretest to call PCRE via the POSIX wrapper API rather than its native API. When this is done, all other options except /i and /m are ignored. REG_ICASE is set if /i is present, and REG_NEWLINE is set if /m is present. The wrapper functions force PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY always, and PCRE_DOTALL unless REG_NEWLINE is set. Before each data line is passed to pcre_exec(), leading and trailing whitespace is removed, and it is then scanned for \ escapes. The following are recognized: \a alarm (= BEL) \b backspace \e escape \f formfeed \n newline \r carriage return \t tab \v vertical tab \nnn octal character (up to 3 octal digits) \xhh hexadecimal character (up to 2 hex digits) \A pass the PCRE_ANCHORED option to pcre_exec() \B pass the PCRE_NOTBOL option to pcre_exec() \Cdd call pcre_copy_substring() for substring dd after a successful match (any decimal number less than 32) \Gdd call pcre_get_substring() for substring dd after a successful match (any decimal number less than 32) \L call pcre_get_substringlist() after a successful match \Odd set the size of the output vector passed to pcre_exec() to dd (any number of decimal digits) \Z pass the PCRE_NOTEOL option to pcre_exec() A backslash followed by anything else just escapes the anything else. If the very last character is a backslash, it is ignored. This gives a way of passing an empty line as data, since a real empty line terminates the data input. If /P was present on the regex, causing the POSIX wrapper API to be used, only \B, and \Z have any effect, causing REG_NOTBOL and REG_NOTEOL to be passed to regexec() respectively. When a match succeeds, pcretest outputs the list of captured substrings that pcre_exec() returns, starting with number 0 for the string that matched the whole pattern. Here is an example of an interactive pcretest run. $ pcretest Testing Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions PCRE version 0.90 08-Sep-1997 re> /^abc(\d+)/ data> abc123 0: abc123 1: 123 data> xyz No match If any of \C, \G, or \L are present in a data line that is successfully matched, the substrings extracted by the convenience functions are output with C, G, or L after the string number instead of a colon. This is in addition to the normal full list. The string length (that is, the return from the extraction function) is given in parentheses after each string for \C and \G. Note that while patterns can be continued over several lines (a plain ">" prompt is used for continuations), data lines may not. However newlines can be included in data by means of the \n escape. If the -p option is given to pcretest, it is equivalent to adding /P to each regular expression: the POSIX wrapper API is used to call PCRE. None of the following flags has any effect in this case. If the option -d is given to pcretest, it is equivalent to adding /D to each regular expression: the internal form is output after compilation. If the option -i is given to pcretest, it is equivalent to adding /I to each regular expression: information about the compiled pattern is given after compilation. If the option -m is given to pcretest, it outputs the size of each compiled pattern after it has been compiled. It is equivalent to adding /M to each regular expression. For compatibility with earlier versions of pcretest, -s is a synonym for -m. If the -t option is given, each compile, study, and match is run 20000 times while being timed, and the resulting time per compile or match is output in milliseconds. Do not set -t with -s, because you will then get the size output 20000 times and the timing will be distorted. If you want to change the number of repetitions used for timing, edit the definition of LOOPREPEAT at the top of pcretest.c The perltest program -------------------- The perltest program tests Perl's regular expressions; it has the same specification as pcretest, and so can be given identical input, except that input patterns can be followed only by Perl's lower case options. The contents of testinput1 and testinput3 meet this condition. The data lines are processed as Perl strings, so if they contain $ or @ characters, these have to be escaped. For this reason, all such characters in the testinput file are escaped so that it can be used for perltest as well as for pcretest, and the special upper case options such as /A that pcretest recognizes are not used in this file. The output should be identical, apart from the initial identifying banner. The testinput2 and testinput4 files are not suitable for feeding to Perltest, since they do make use of the special upper case options and escapes that pcretest uses to test some features of PCRE. The first of these files also contains malformed regular expressions, in order to check that PCRE diagnoses them correctly. Philip Hazel April 1999