path: root/doc/pcretest.txt

PCRETEST(1)                                                        PCRETEST(1)


NAME
       pcretest - a program for testing Perl-compatible regular expressions.


SYNOPSIS

       pcretest [options] [source] [destination]

       pcretest  was written as a test program for the PCRE regular expression
       library itself, but it can also be used for experimenting with  regular
       expressions.  This document describes the features of the test program;
       for details of the regular expressions themselves, see the  pcrepattern
       documentation. For details of the PCRE library function calls and their
       options, see the pcreapi documentation.


OPTIONS

       -b        Behave as if each regex has the /B (show bytecode)  modifier;
                 the internal form is output after compilation.

       -C        Output the version number of the PCRE library, and all avail-
                 able  information  about  the  optional  features  that   are
                 included, and then exit.

       -d        Behave  as  if  each  regex  has the /D (debug) modifier; the
                 internal form and information about the compiled  pattern  is
                 output after compilation; -d is equivalent to -b -i.

       -dfa      Behave  as if each data line contains the \D escape sequence;
                 this    causes    the    alternative    matching    function,
                 pcre_dfa_exec(),   to   be   used  instead  of  the  standard
                 pcre_exec() function (more detail is given below).

       -help     Output a brief summary these options and then exit.

       -i        Behave as if each regex  has  the  /I  modifier;  information
                 about the compiled pattern is given after compilation.

       -M        Behave  as if each data line contains the \M escape sequence;
                 this causes PCRE to  discover  the  minimum  MATCH_LIMIT  and
                 MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION settings by calling pcre_exec() repeat-
                 edly with different limits.

       -m        Output the size of each compiled pattern after  it  has  been
                 compiled.  This  is  equivalent  to adding /M to each regular
                 expression.  For  compatibility  with  earlier  versions   of
                 pcretest, -s is a synonym for -m.

       -o osize  Set  the number of elements in the output vector that is used
                 when calling pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec() to be osize.  The
                 default  value is 45, which is enough for 14 capturing subex-
                 pressions  for  pcre_exec()  or  22  different  matches   for
                 pcre_dfa_exec().  The vector size can be changed for individ-
                 ual matching calls by including \O  in  the  data  line  (see
                 below).

       -p        Behave  as if each regex has the /P modifier; the POSIX wrap-
                 per API is used to call PCRE. None of the other  options  has
                 any effect when -p is set.

       -q        Do  not output the version number of pcretest at the start of
                 execution.

       -S size   On Unix-like systems, set the size of the  runtime  stack  to
                 size megabytes.

       -t        Run  each  compile, study, and match many times with a timer,
                 and output resulting time per compile or match (in  millisec-
                 onds).  Do  not set -m with -t, because you will then get the
                 size output a zillion times, and  the  timing  will  be  dis-
                 torted.  You  can  control  the number of iterations that are
                 used for timing by following -t with a number (as a  separate
                 item on the command line). For example, "-t 1000" would iter-
                 ate 1000 times. The default is to iterate 500000 times.

       -tm       This is like -t except that it times only the matching phase,
                 not the compile or study phases.


DESCRIPTION

       If  pcretest  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,  using
       "re>" to prompt for regular expressions, and "data>" to prompt for data
       lines.

       When pcretest is built, a configuration  option  can  specify  that  it
       should  be  linked  with the libreadline library. When this is done, if
       the input is from a terminal, it is read using the readline() function.
       This  provides line-editing and history facilities. The output from the
       -help option states whether or not readline() will be used.

       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 num-
       ber of data lines to be matched against the pattern.

       Each data line is matched separately and independently. If you want  to
       do multi-line matches, you have to use the \n escape sequence (or \r or
       \r\n, etc., depending on the newline setting) in a single line of input
       to  encode  the  newline  sequences. There is no limit on the length of
       data lines; the input buffer is automatically extended  if  it  is  too
       small.

       An  empty  line signals the end of the data lines, at which point a new
       regular expression is read. The regular expressions are given  enclosed
       in any non-alphanumeric delimiters other than backslash, for example:

         /(a|bc)x+yz/

       White  space before the initial delimiter is ignored. A regular expres-
       sion may be continued over several input lines, in which case the  new-
       line  characters  are included within it. 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-alphanumeric, this does not affect
       its interpretation.  If the terminating delimiter is  immediately  fol-
       lowed by a backslash, for example,

         /abc/\

       then  a  backslash  is added to the end of the pattern. This is done to
       provide 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.


PATTERN MODIFIERS

       A  pattern may be followed by any number of modifiers, which are mostly
       single characters. Following Perl usage, these are  referred  to  below
       as,  for  example,  "the /i modifier", even though the delimiter of the
       pattern need not always be a slash, and no slash is used  when  writing
       modifiers.  Whitespace  may  appear between the final pattern delimiter
       and the first modifier, and between the modifiers themselves.

       The /i, /m, /s, and /x modifiers set the PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE,
       PCRE_DOTALL,  or  PCRE_EXTENDED  options,  respectively, when pcre_com-
       pile() is called. These four modifier letters have the same  effect  as
       they do in Perl. For example:

         /caseless/i

       The  following  table  shows additional modifiers for setting PCRE com-
       pile-time options that do not correspond to anything in Perl:

         /8              PCRE_UTF8
         /?              PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK
         /A              PCRE_ANCHORED
         /C              PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT
         /E              PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY
         /f              PCRE_FIRSTLINE
         /J              PCRE_DUPNAMES
         /N              PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE
         /U              PCRE_UNGREEDY
         /W              PCRE_UCP
         /X              PCRE_EXTRA
         /<JS>           PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT
         /<cr>           PCRE_NEWLINE_CR
         /<lf>           PCRE_NEWLINE_LF
         /<crlf>         PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF
         /<anycrlf>      PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF
         /<any>          PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY
         /<bsr_anycrlf>  PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
         /<bsr_unicode>  PCRE_BSR_UNICODE

       The modifiers that are enclosed in angle brackets are  literal  strings
       as  shown,  including  the  angle  brackets,  but the letters can be in
       either case. This example sets multiline matching with CRLF as the line
       ending sequence:

         /^abc/m<crlf>

       As well as turning on the PCRE_UTF8 option, the /8 modifier also causes
       any non-printing characters in output strings to be printed  using  the
       \x{hh...}  notation  if they are valid UTF-8 sequences. Full details of
       the PCRE options are given in the pcreapi documentation.

   Finding all matches in a string

       Searching for all possible matches within each subject  string  can  be
       requested  by  the  /g  or  /G modifier. After finding a match, PCRE is
       called again to search the remainder of the subject string. The differ-
       ence between /g and /G is that the former uses the startoffset argument
       to pcre_exec() to start searching at a  new  point  within  the  entire
       string  (which  is in effect what Perl does), whereas the latter passes
       over a shortened substring. This makes a  difference  to  the  matching
       process if the pattern begins with a lookbehind assertion (including \b
       or \B).

       If any call to pcre_exec() in a /g or  /G  sequence  matches  an  empty
       string,  the  next  call  is  done  with  the PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART and
       PCRE_ANCHORED flags set in order  to  search  for  another,  non-empty,
       match  at  the same point. If this second match fails, the start offset
       is advanced by one character, and the normal  match  is  retried.  This
       imitates  the way Perl handles such cases when using the /g modifier or
       the split() function.

   Other modifiers

       There are yet more modifiers for controlling the way pcretest operates.

       The /+ modifier requests that as well as outputting the substring  that
       matched  the  entire  pattern,  pcretest  should in addition output the
       remainder of the subject string. This is useful  for  tests  where  the
       subject contains multiple copies of the same substring.

       The  /B modifier is a debugging feature. It requests that pcretest out-
       put a representation of the compiled byte code after compilation.  Nor-
       mally  this  information contains length and offset values; however, if
       /Z is also present, this data is replaced by spaces. This is a  special
       feature for use in the automatic test scripts; it ensures that the same
       output is generated for different internal link sizes.

       The /D modifier is a PCRE debugging feature, and is equivalent to  /BI,
       that is, both the /B and the /I modifiers.

       The /F modifier causes pcretest to flip the byte order of the fields in
       the compiled pattern that  contain  2-byte  and  4-byte  numbers.  This
       facility  is  for testing the feature in PCRE that allows it to execute
       patterns that were compiled on a host with a different endianness. This
       feature  is  not  available  when  the POSIX interface to PCRE is being
       used, that is, when the /P pattern modifier is specified. See also  the
       section about saving and reloading compiled patterns below.

       The  /I  modifier  requests  that pcretest output information about the
       compiled pattern (whether it is anchored, has a fixed first  character,
       and  so  on). It does this by calling pcre_fullinfo() after compiling a
       pattern. If the pattern is studied, the results of that are  also  out-
       put.

       The  /K modifier requests pcretest to show names from backtracking con-
       trol verbs that are returned  from  calls  to  pcre_exec().  It  causes
       pcretest  to create a pcre_extra block if one has not already been cre-
       ated by a call to pcre_study(), and to set the PCRE_EXTRA_MARK flag and
       the mark field within it, every time that pcre_exec() is called. If the
       variable that the mark field points to is non-NULL for  a  match,  non-
       match, or partial match, pcretest prints the string to which it points.
       For a match, this is shown on a line by itself, tagged with "MK:".  For
       a non-match it is added to the message.

       The  /L modifier must be followed directly by the name of a locale, for
       example,

         /pattern/Lfr_FR

       For this reason, it must be the last modifier. 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 (or /T) modifier, NULL is passed as
       the tables pointer; that is, /L applies only to the expression on which
       it appears.

       The  /M  modifier causes the size of memory block used to hold the com-
       piled pattern to be output.

       The /S modifier causes pcre_study() to be called after  the  expression
       has been compiled, and the results used when the expression is matched.

       The  /T  modifier  must be followed by a single digit. It causes a spe-
       cific set of built-in character tables to be passed to  pcre_compile().
       It is used in the standard PCRE tests to check behaviour with different
       character tables. The digit specifies the tables as follows:

         0   the default ASCII tables, as distributed in
               pcre_chartables.c.dist
         1   a set of tables defining ISO 8859 characters

       In table 1, some characters whose codes are greater than 128 are  iden-
       tified as letters, digits, spaces, etc.

   Using the POSIX wrapper API

       The  /P modifier causes pcretest to call PCRE via the POSIX wrapper API
       rather than its native API. When /P is set, the following modifiers set
       options for the regcomp() function:

         /i    REG_ICASE
         /m    REG_NEWLINE
         /N    REG_NOSUB
         /s    REG_DOTALL     )
         /U    REG_UNGREEDY   ) These options are not part of
         /W    REG_UCP        )   the POSIX standard
         /8    REG_UTF8       )

       The  /+  modifier  works  as  described  above. All other modifiers are
       ignored.


DATA LINES

       Before each data line is passed to pcre_exec(),  leading  and  trailing
       whitespace  is  removed,  and it is then scanned for \ escapes. Some of
       these are pretty esoteric features, intended for checking out  some  of
       the  more  complicated features of PCRE. If you are just testing "ordi-
       nary" regular expressions, you probably don't need any  of  these.  The
       following escapes are recognized:

         \a         alarm (BEL, \x07)
         \b         backspace (\x08)
         \e         escape (\x27)
         \f         formfeed (\x0c)
         \n         newline (\x0a)
         \qdd       set the PCRE_MATCH_LIMIT limit to dd
                      (any number of digits)
         \r         carriage return (\x0d)
         \t         tab (\x09)
         \v         vertical tab (\x0b)
         \nnn       octal character (up to 3 octal digits)
         \xhh       hexadecimal character (up to 2 hex digits)
         \x{hh...}  hexadecimal character, any number of digits
                      in UTF-8 mode
         \A         pass the PCRE_ANCHORED option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \B         pass the PCRE_NOTBOL option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \Cdd       call pcre_copy_substring() for substring dd
                      after a successful match (number less than 32)
         \Cname     call pcre_copy_named_substring() for substring
                      "name" after a successful match (name termin-
                      ated by next non alphanumeric character)
         \C+        show the current captured substrings at callout
                      time
         \C-        do not supply a callout function
         \C!n       return 1 instead of 0 when callout number n is
                      reached
         \C!n!m     return 1 instead of 0 when callout number n is
                      reached for the nth time
         \C*n       pass the number n (may be negative) as callout
                      data; this is used as the callout return value
         \D         use the pcre_dfa_exec() match function
         \F         only shortest match for pcre_dfa_exec()
         \Gdd       call pcre_get_substring() for substring dd
                      after a successful match (number less than 32)
         \Gname     call pcre_get_named_substring() for substring
                      "name" after a successful match (name termin-
                      ated by next non-alphanumeric character)
         \L         call pcre_get_substringlist() after a
                      successful match
         \M         discover the minimum MATCH_LIMIT and
                      MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION settings
         \N         pass the PCRE_NOTEMPTY option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec(); if used twice, pass the
                      PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART option
         \Odd       set the size of the output vector passed to
                      pcre_exec() to dd (any number of digits)
         \P         pass the PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec(); if used twice, pass the
                      PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD option
         \Qdd       set the PCRE_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION limit to dd
                      (any number of digits)
         \R         pass the PCRE_DFA_RESTART option to pcre_dfa_exec()
         \S         output details of memory get/free calls during matching
         \Y         pass the PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \Z         pass the PCRE_NOTEOL option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \?         pass the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option to
                      pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \>dd       start the match at offset dd (any number of digits);
                      this sets the startoffset argument for pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \<cr>      pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_CR option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \<lf>      pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_LF option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \<crlf>    pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \<anycrlf> pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()
         \<any>     pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY option to pcre_exec()
                      or pcre_dfa_exec()

       The  escapes  that  specify  line ending sequences are literal strings,
       exactly as shown. No more than one newline setting should be present in
       any data line.

       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 termi-
       nates the data input.

       If \M is present, pcretest calls pcre_exec() several times,  with  dif-
       ferent  values  in  the match_limit and match_limit_recursion fields of
       the pcre_extra data structure, until it finds the minimum  numbers  for
       each parameter that allow pcre_exec() to complete. The match_limit num-
       ber is a measure of the amount of backtracking that  takes  place,  and
       checking it out can be instructive. For most simple matches, the number
       is quite small, but for patterns with very large  numbers  of  matching
       possibilities,  it can become large very quickly with increasing length
       of subject string. The match_limit_recursion number is a measure of how
       much  stack  (or,  if  PCRE is compiled with NO_RECURSE, how much heap)
       memory is needed to complete the match attempt.

       When \O is used, the value specified may be higher or  lower  than  the
       size set by the -O command line option (or defaulted to 45); \O applies
       only to the call of pcre_exec() for the line in which it appears.

       If the /P modifier was present on the pattern, causing the POSIX  wrap-
       per  API  to  be  used, the only option-setting sequences that have any
       effect are \B,  \N,  and  \Z,  causing  REG_NOTBOL,  REG_NOTEMPTY,  and
       REG_NOTEOL, respectively, to be passed to regexec().

       The  use of \x{hh...} to represent UTF-8 characters is not dependent on
       the use of the /8 modifier on the pattern.  It  is  recognized  always.
       There  may  be  any number of hexadecimal digits inside the braces. The
       result is from one to six bytes,  encoded  according  to  the  original
       UTF-8  rules  of  RFC  2279.  This  allows for values in the range 0 to
       0x7FFFFFFF. Note that not all of those are valid Unicode  code  points,
       or  indeed  valid  UTF-8 characters according to the later rules in RFC
       3629.


THE ALTERNATIVE MATCHING FUNCTION

       By  default,  pcretest  uses  the  standard  PCRE  matching   function,
       pcre_exec() to match each data line. From release 6.0, PCRE supports an
       alternative matching function, pcre_dfa_test(),  which  operates  in  a
       different  way,  and has some restrictions. The differences between the
       two functions are described in the pcrematching documentation.

       If a data line contains the \D escape sequence, or if the command  line
       contains  the -dfa option, the alternative matching function is called.
       This function finds all possible matches at a given point. If, however,
       the  \F escape sequence is present in the data line, it stops after the
       first match is found. This is always the shortest possible match.


DEFAULT OUTPUT FROM PCRETEST

       This section describes the output when the  normal  matching  function,
       pcre_exec(), is being used.

       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. Otherwise, it outputs "No match" when the
       return is PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH, and "Partial match:" followed by the par-
       tially  matching substring when pcre_exec() returns PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL.
       For any other returns, it outputs the PCRE negative error number.  Here
       is an example of an interactive pcretest run.

         $ pcretest
         PCRE version 7.0 30-Nov-2006

           re> /^abc(\d+)/
         data> abc123
          0: abc123
          1: 123
         data> xyz
         No match

       Note  that unset capturing substrings that are not followed by one that
       is set are not returned by pcre_exec(), and are not shown by  pcretest.
       In  the following example, there are two capturing substrings, but when
       the first data line is matched, the  second,  unset  substring  is  not
       shown.  An "internal" unset substring is shown as "<unset>", as for the
       second data line.

           re> /(a)|(b)/
         data> a
          0: a
          1: a
         data> b
          0: b
          1: <unset>
          2: b

       If the strings contain any non-printing characters, they are output  as
       \0x  escapes,  or  as \x{...} escapes if the /8 modifier was present on
       the pattern. See below for the definition of  non-printing  characters.
       If  the pattern has the /+ modifier, the output for substring 0 is fol-
       lowed by the the rest of the subject string, identified  by  "0+"  like
       this:

           re> /cat/+
         data> cataract
          0: cat
          0+ aract

       If  the  pattern  has  the /g or /G modifier, the results of successive
       matching attempts are output in sequence, like this:

           re> /\Bi(\w\w)/g
         data> Mississippi
          0: iss
          1: ss
          0: iss
          1: ss
          0: ipp
          1: pp

       "No match" is output only if the first match attempt fails.

       If any of the sequences \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  paren-
       theses after each string for \C and \G.

       Note that whereas patterns can be continued over several lines (a plain
       ">" prompt is used for continuations), data lines may not. However new-
       lines  can  be included in data by means of the \n escape (or \r, \r\n,
       etc., depending on the newline sequence setting).


OUTPUT FROM THE ALTERNATIVE MATCHING FUNCTION

       When the alternative matching function, pcre_dfa_exec(),  is  used  (by
       means  of  the \D escape sequence or the -dfa command line option), the
       output consists of a list of all the matches that start  at  the  first
       point in the subject where there is at least one match. For example:

           re> /(tang|tangerine|tan)/
         data> yellow tangerine\D
          0: tangerine
          1: tang
          2: tan

       (Using  the  normal  matching function on this data finds only "tang".)
       The longest matching string is always given first (and numbered  zero).
       After a PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL return, the output is "Partial match:", fol-
       lowed by the partially matching substring.

       If /g is present on the pattern, the search for further matches resumes
       at the end of the longest match. For example:

           re> /(tang|tangerine|tan)/g
         data> yellow tangerine and tangy sultana\D
          0: tangerine
          1: tang
          2: tan
          0: tang
          1: tan
          0: tan

       Since  the  matching  function  does not support substring capture, the
       escape sequences that are concerned with captured  substrings  are  not
       relevant.


RESTARTING AFTER A PARTIAL MATCH

       When the alternative matching function has given the PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL
       return, indicating that the subject partially matched the pattern,  you
       can  restart  the match with additional subject data by means of the \R
       escape sequence. For example:

           re> /^\d?\d(jan|feb|mar|apr|may|jun|jul|aug|sep|oct|nov|dec)\d\d$/
         data> 23ja\P\D
         Partial match: 23ja
         data> n05\R\D
          0: n05

       For further information about partial  matching,  see  the  pcrepartial
       documentation.


CALLOUTS

       If  the pattern contains any callout requests, pcretest's callout func-
       tion is called during matching. This works  with  both  matching  func-
       tions. By default, the called function displays the callout number, the
       start and current positions in the text at the callout  time,  and  the
       next pattern item to be tested. For example, the output

         --->pqrabcdef
           0    ^  ^     \d

       indicates  that  callout number 0 occurred for a match attempt starting
       at the fourth character of the subject string, when the pointer was  at
       the  seventh  character of the data, and when the next pattern item was
       \d. Just one circumflex is output if the start  and  current  positions
       are the same.

       Callouts numbered 255 are assumed to be automatic callouts, inserted as
       a result of the /C pattern modifier. In this case, instead  of  showing
       the  callout  number, the offset in the pattern, preceded by a plus, is
       output. For example:

           re> /\d?[A-E]\*/C
         data> E*
         --->E*
          +0 ^      \d?
          +3 ^      [A-E]
          +8 ^^     \*
         +10 ^ ^
          0: E*

       The callout function in pcretest returns zero (carry  on  matching)  by
       default,  but you can use a \C item in a data line (as described above)
       to change this.

       Inserting callouts can be helpful when using pcretest to check  compli-
       cated  regular expressions. For further information about callouts, see
       the pcrecallout documentation.


NON-PRINTING CHARACTERS

       When pcretest is outputting text in the compiled version of a  pattern,
       bytes  other  than 32-126 are always treated as non-printing characters
       are are therefore shown as hex escapes.

       When pcretest is outputting text that is a matched part  of  a  subject
       string,  it behaves in the same way, unless a different locale has been
       set for the  pattern  (using  the  /L  modifier).  In  this  case,  the
       isprint() function to distinguish printing and non-printing characters.


SAVING AND RELOADING COMPILED PATTERNS

       The  facilities  described  in  this section are not available when the
       POSIX inteface to PCRE is being used, that is, when the /P pattern mod-
       ifier is specified.

       When the POSIX interface is not in use, you can cause pcretest to write
       a compiled pattern to a file, by following the modifiers with >  and  a
       file name.  For example:

         /pattern/im >/some/file

       See  the pcreprecompile documentation for a discussion about saving and
       re-using compiled patterns.

       The data that is written is binary.  The  first  eight  bytes  are  the
       length  of  the  compiled  pattern  data  followed by the length of the
       optional study data, each written as four  bytes  in  big-endian  order
       (most  significant  byte  first). If there is no study data (either the
       pattern was not studied, or studying did not return any data), the sec-
       ond  length  is  zero. The lengths are followed by an exact copy of the
       compiled pattern. If there is additional study data, this follows imme-
       diately  after  the  compiled pattern. After writing the file, pcretest
       expects to read a new pattern.

       A saved pattern can be reloaded into pcretest by specifing < and a file
       name  instead  of  a pattern. The name of the file must not contain a <
       character, as otherwise pcretest will interpret the line as  a  pattern
       delimited by < characters.  For example:

          re> </some/file
         Compiled regex loaded from /some/file
         No study data

       When  the pattern has been loaded, pcretest proceeds to read data lines
       in the usual way.

       You can copy a file written by pcretest to a different host and  reload
       it  there,  even  if the new host has opposite endianness to the one on
       which the pattern was compiled. For example, you can compile on an  i86
       machine and run on a SPARC machine.

       File  names  for  saving and reloading can be absolute or relative, but
       note that the shell facility of expanding a file name that starts  with
       a tilde (~) is not available.

       The  ability to save and reload files in pcretest is intended for test-
       ing and experimentation. It is not intended for production use  because
       only  a  single pattern can be written to a file. Furthermore, there is
       no facility for supplying  custom  character  tables  for  use  with  a
       reloaded  pattern.  If  the  original  pattern was compiled with custom
       tables, an attempt to match a subject string using a  reloaded  pattern
       is  likely to cause pcretest to crash.  Finally, if you attempt to load
       a file that is not in the correct format, the result is undefined.


SEE ALSO

       pcre(3), pcreapi(3), pcrecallout(3),  pcrematching(3),  pcrepartial(d),
       pcrepattern(3), pcreprecompile(3).


AUTHOR

       Philip Hazel
       University Computing Service
       Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.


REVISION

       Last updated: 14 June 2010
       Copyright (c) 1997-2010 University of Cambridge.