PCREBUILD(3) Library Functions Manual PCREBUILD(3)
PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
PCRE is distributed with a configure script that can be used to build
the library in Unix-like environments using the applications known as
Autotools. Also in the distribution are files to support building
using CMake instead of configure. The text file README contains
general information about building with Autotools (some of which is
repeated below), and also has some comments about building on various
operating systems. There is a lot more information about building
PCRE without using Autotools (including information about using CMake
and building "by hand") in the text file called NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.
You should consult this file as well as the README file if you are
building in a non-Unix-like environment.
The rest of this document describes the optional features of PCRE
that can be selected when the library is compiled. It assumes use of
the configure script, where the optional features are selected or
deselected by providing options to configure before running the make
command. However, the same options can be selected in both Unix-like
and non-Unix-like environments using the GUI facility of cmake-gui if
you are using CMake instead of configure to build PCRE.
If you are not using Autotools or CMake, option selection can be done
by editing the config.h file, or by passing parameter settings to the
compiler, as described in NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.
The complete list of options for configure (which includes the
standard ones such as the selection of the installation directory)
can be obtained by running
./configure --help
The following sections include descriptions of options whose names
begin with --enable or --disable. These settings specify changes to
the defaults for the configure command. Because of the way that
configure works, --enable and --disable always come in pairs, so the
complementary option always exists as well, but as it specifies the
default, it is not described.
By default, a library called libpcre is built, containing functions
that take string arguments contained in vectors of bytes, either as
single-byte characters, or interpreted as UTF-8 strings. You can also
build a separate library, called libpcre16, in which strings are
contained in vectors of 16-bit data units and interpreted either as
single-unit characters or UTF-16 strings, by adding
--enable-pcre16
to the configure command. You can also build yet another separate
library, called libpcre32, in which strings are contained in vectors
of 32-bit data units and interpreted either as single-unit characters
or UTF-32 strings, by adding
--enable-pcre32
to the configure command. If you do not want the 8-bit library, add
--disable-pcre8
as well. At least one of the three libraries must be built. Note that
the C++ and POSIX wrappers are for the 8-bit library only, and that
pcregrep is an 8-bit program. None of these are built if you select
only the 16-bit or 32-bit libraries.
The Autotools PCRE building process uses libtool to build both shared
and static libraries by default. You can suppress one of these by
adding one of
--disable-shared
--disable-static
to the configure command, as required.
By default, if the 8-bit library is being built, the configure script
will search for a C++ compiler and C++ header files. If it finds
them, it automatically builds the C++ wrapper library (which supports
only 8-bit strings). You can disable this by adding
--disable-cpp
to the configure command.
To build PCRE with support for UTF Unicode character strings, add
--enable-utf
to the configure command. This setting applies to all three
libraries, adding support for UTF-8 to the 8-bit library, support for
UTF-16 to the 16-bit library, and support for UTF-32 to the to the
32-bit library. There are no separate options for enabling UTF-8,
UTF-16 and UTF-32 independently because that would allow ridiculous
settings such as requesting UTF-16 support while building only the
8-bit library. It is not possible to build one library with UTF
support and another without in the same configuration. (For backwards
compatibility, --enable-utf8 is a synonym of --enable-utf.)
Of itself, this setting does not make PCRE treat strings as UTF-8,
UTF-16 or UTF-32. As well as compiling PCRE with this option, you
also have have to set the PCRE_UTF8, PCRE_UTF16 or PCRE_UTF32 option
(as appropriate) when you call one of the pattern compiling
functions.
If you set --enable-utf when compiling in an EBCDIC environment, PCRE
expects its input to be either ASCII or UTF-8 (depending on the run-
time option). It is not possible to support both EBCDIC and UTF-8
codes in the same version of the library. Consequently, --enable-utf
and --enable-ebcdic are mutually exclusive.
UTF support allows the libraries to process character codepoints up
to 0x10ffff in the strings that they handle. On its own, however, it
does not provide any facilities for accessing the properties of such
characters. If you want to be able to use the pattern escapes \P, \p,
and \X, which refer to Unicode character properties, you must add
--enable-unicode-properties
to the configure command. This implies UTF support, even if you have
not explicitly requested it.
Including Unicode property support adds around 30K of tables to the
PCRE library. Only the general category properties such as Lu and Nd
are supported. Details are given in the pcrepattern documentation.
Just-in-time compiler support is included in the build by specifying
--enable-jit
This support is available only for certain hardware architectures. If
this option is set for an unsupported architecture, a compile time
error occurs. See the pcrejit documentation for a discussion of JIT
usage. When JIT support is enabled, pcregrep automatically makes use
of it, unless you add
--disable-pcregrep-jit
to the "configure" command.
By default, PCRE interprets the linefeed (LF) character as indicating
the end of a line. This is the normal newline character on Unix-like
systems. You can compile PCRE to use carriage return (CR) instead, by
adding
--enable-newline-is-cr
to the configure command. There is also a --enable-newline-is-lf
option, which explicitly specifies linefeed as the newline character.
Alternatively, you can specify that line endings are to be indicated
by the two character sequence CRLF. If you want this, add
--enable-newline-is-crlf
to the configure command. There is a fourth option, specified by
--enable-newline-is-anycrlf
which causes PCRE to recognize any of the three sequences CR, LF, or
CRLF as indicating a line ending. Finally, a fifth option, specified
by
--enable-newline-is-any
causes PCRE to recognize any Unicode newline sequence.
Whatever line ending convention is selected when PCRE is built can be
overridden when the library functions are called. At build time it is
conventional to use the standard for your operating system.
By default, the sequence \R in a pattern matches any Unicode newline
sequence, whatever has been selected as the line ending sequence. If
you specify
--enable-bsr-anycrlf
the default is changed so that \R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF.
Whatever is selected when PCRE is built can be overridden when the
library functions are called.
When the 8-bit library is called through the POSIX interface (see the
pcreposix documentation), additional working storage is required for
holding the pointers to capturing substrings, because PCRE requires
three integers per substring, whereas the POSIX interface provides
only two. If the number of expected substrings is small, the wrapper
function uses space on the stack, because this is faster than using
malloc() for each call. The default threshold above which the stack
is no longer used is 10; it can be changed by adding a setting such
as
--with-posix-malloc-threshold=20
to the configure command.
Within a compiled pattern, offset values are used to point from one
part to another (for example, from an opening parenthesis to an
alternation metacharacter). By default, in the 8-bit and 16-bit
libraries, two-byte values are used for these offsets, leading to a
maximum size for a compiled pattern of around 64K. This is sufficient
to handle all but the most gigantic patterns. Nevertheless, some
people do want to process truly enormous patterns, so it is possible
to compile PCRE to use three-byte or four-byte offsets by adding a
setting such as
--with-link-size=3
to the configure command. The value given must be 2, 3, or 4. For the
16-bit library, a value of 3 is rounded up to 4. In these libraries,
using longer offsets slows down the operation of PCRE because it has
to load additional data when handling them. For the 32-bit library
the value is always 4 and cannot be overridden; the value of --with-
link-size is ignored.
When matching with the pcre_exec() function, PCRE implements
backtracking by making recursive calls to an internal function called
match(). In environments where the size of the stack is limited, this
can severely limit PCRE's operation. (The Unix environment does not
usually suffer from this problem, but it may sometimes be necessary
to increase the maximum stack size. There is a discussion in the
pcrestack documentation.) An alternative approach to recursion that
uses memory from the heap to remember data, instead of using
recursive function calls, has been implemented to work round the
problem of limited stack size. If you want to build a version of PCRE
that works this way, add
--disable-stack-for-recursion
to the configure command. With this configuration, PCRE will use the
pcre_stack_malloc and pcre_stack_free variables to call memory
management functions. By default these point to malloc() and free(),
but you can replace the pointers so that your own functions are used
instead.
Separate functions are provided rather than using pcre_malloc and
pcre_free because the usage is very predictable: the block sizes
requested are always the same, and the blocks are always freed in
reverse order. A calling program might be able to implement optimized
functions that perform better than malloc() and free(). PCRE runs
noticeably more slowly when built in this way. This option affects
only the pcre_exec() function; it is not relevant for
pcre_dfa_exec().
Internally, PCRE has a function called match(), which it calls
repeatedly (sometimes recursively) when matching a pattern with the
pcre_exec() function. By controlling the maximum number of times this
function may be called during a single matching operation, a limit
can be placed on the resources used by a single call to pcre_exec().
The limit can be changed at run time, as described in the pcreapi
documentation. The default is 10 million, but this can be changed by
adding a setting such as
--with-match-limit=500000
to the configure command. This setting has no effect on the
pcre_dfa_exec() matching function.
In some environments it is desirable to limit the depth of recursive
calls of match() more strictly than the total number of calls, in
order to restrict the maximum amount of stack (or heap, if --disable-
stack-for-recursion is specified) that is used. A second limit
controls this; it defaults to the value that is set for --with-match-
limit, which imposes no additional constraints. However, you can set
a lower limit by adding, for example,
--with-match-limit-recursion=10000
to the configure command. This value can also be overridden at run
time.
PCRE uses fixed tables for processing characters whose code values
are less than 256. By default, PCRE is built with a set of tables
that are distributed in the file pcre_chartables.c.dist. These tables
are for ASCII codes only. If you add
--enable-rebuild-chartables
to the configure command, the distributed tables are no longer used.
Instead, a program called dftables is compiled and run. This outputs
the source for new set of tables, created in the default locale of
your C run-time system. (This method of replacing the tables does not
work if you are cross compiling, because dftables is run on the local
host. If you need to create alternative tables when cross compiling,
you will have to do so "by hand".)
PCRE assumes by default that it will run in an environment where the
character code is ASCII (or Unicode, which is a superset of ASCII).
This is the case for most computer operating systems. PCRE can,
however, be compiled to run in an EBCDIC environment by adding
--enable-ebcdic
to the configure command. This setting implies --enable-rebuild-
chartables. You should only use it if you know that you are in an
EBCDIC environment (for example, an IBM mainframe operating system).
The --enable-ebcdic option is incompatible with --enable-utf.
The EBCDIC character that corresponds to an ASCII LF is assumed to
have the value 0x15 by default. However, in some EBCDIC environments,
0x25 is used. In such an environment you should use
--enable-ebcdic-nl25
as well as, or instead of, --enable-ebcdic. The EBCDIC character for
CR has the same value as in ASCII, namely, 0x0d. Whichever of 0x15
and 0x25 is not chosen as LF is made to correspond to the Unicode NEL
character (which, in Unicode, is 0x85).
The options that select newline behaviour, such as --enable-newline-
is-cr, and equivalent run-time options, refer to these character
values in an EBCDIC environment.
By default, pcregrep reads all files as plain text. You can build it
so that it recognizes files whose names end in .gz or .bz2, and reads
them with libz or libbz2, respectively, by adding one or both of
--enable-pcregrep-libz
--enable-pcregrep-libbz2
to the configure command. These options naturally require that the
relevant libraries are installed on your system. Configuration will
fail if they are not.
pcregrep uses an internal buffer to hold a "window" on the file it is
scanning, in order to be able to output "before" and "after" lines
when it finds a match. The size of the buffer is controlled by a
parameter whose default value is 20K. The buffer itself is three
times this size, but because of the way it is used for holding
"before" lines, the longest line that is guaranteed to be processable
is the parameter size. You can change the default parameter value by
adding, for example,
--with-pcregrep-bufsize=50K
to the configure command. The caller of pcregrep can, however,
override this value by specifying a run-time option.
If you add
--enable-pcretest-libreadline
to the configure command, pcretest is linked with the libreadline
library, and when its input is from a terminal, it reads it using the
readline() function. This provides line-editing and history
facilities. Note that libreadline is GPL-licensed, so if you
distribute a binary of pcretest linked in this way, there may be
licensing issues.
Setting this option causes the -lreadline option to be added to the
pcretest build. In many operating environments with a sytem-installed
libreadline this is sufficient. However, in some environments (e.g.
if an unmodified distribution version of readline is in use), some
extra configuration may be necessary. The INSTALL file for
libreadline says this:
"Readline uses the termcap functions, but does not link with the
termcap or curses library itself, allowing applications which link
with readline the to choose an appropriate library."
If your environment has not been set up so that an appropriate
library is automatically included, you may need to add something like
LIBS="-ncurses"
immediately before the configure command.
By adding the
--enable-valgrind
option to to the configure command, PCRE will use valgrind
annotations to mark certain memory regions as unaddressable. This
allows it to detect invalid memory accesses, and is mostly useful for
debugging PCRE itself.
If your C compiler is gcc, you can build a version of PCRE that can
generate a code coverage report for its test suite. To enable this,
you must install lcov version 1.6 or above. Then specify
--enable-coverage
to the configure command and build PCRE in the usual way.
Note that using ccache (a caching C compiler) is incompatible with
code coverage reporting. If you have configured ccache to run
automatically on your system, you must set the environment variable
CCACHE_DISABLE=1
before running make to build PCRE, so that ccache is not used.
When --enable-coverage is used, the following addition targets are
added to the Makefile:
make coverage
This creates a fresh coverage report for the PCRE test suite. It is
equivalent to running "make coverage-reset", "make coverage-
baseline", "make check", and then "make coverage-report".
make coverage-reset
This zeroes the coverage counters, but does nothing else.
make coverage-baseline
This captures baseline coverage information.
make coverage-report
This creates the coverage report.
make coverage-clean-report
This removes the generated coverage report without cleaning the
coverage data itself.
make coverage-clean-data
This removes the captured coverage data without removing the coverage
files created at compile time (*.gcno).
make coverage-clean
This cleans all coverage data including the generated coverage
report. For more information about code coverage, see the gcov and
lcov documentation.
pcreapi(3), pcre16, pcre32, pcre_config(3).
Philip Hazel
University Computing Service
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Last updated: 12 May 2013
Copyright (c) 1997-2013 University of Cambridge.
This page is part of the PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions)
project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.pcre.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://bugs.exim.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=PCRE⟩. This
page was obtained from the tarball pcre-8.40.tar.gz fetched from
⟨ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/⟩ on
2017-07-05. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML ver‐
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PCRE 8.33 12 May 2013 PCREBUILD(3)
Pages that refer to this page: pcreapi(3)