1 README file for PCRE (Perl-compatible regular expression library)
2 -----------------------------------------------------------------
4 The latest release of PCRE is always available from
6 ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/pcre-xxx.tar.gz
8 Please read the NEWS file if you are upgrading from a previous release.
10 PCRE has its own native API, but a set of "wrapper" functions that are based on
11 the POSIX API are also supplied in the library libpcreposix. Note that this
12 just provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE: the regular expressions
13 themselves still follow Perl syntax and semantics. The header file
14 for the POSIX-style functions is called pcreposix.h. The official POSIX name is
15 regex.h, but I didn't want to risk possible problems with existing files of
16 that name by distributing it that way. To use it with an existing program that
17 uses the POSIX API, it will have to be renamed or pointed at by a link.
19 If you are using the POSIX interface to PCRE and there is already a POSIX regex
20 library installed on your system, you must take care when linking programs to
21 ensure that they link with PCRE's libpcreposix library. Otherwise they may pick
22 up the "real" POSIX functions of the same name.
25 Documentation for PCRE
26 ----------------------
28 If you install PCRE in the normal way, you will end up with an installed set of
29 man pages whose names all start with "pcre". The one that is called "pcre"
30 lists all the others. In addition to these man pages, the PCRE documentation is
31 supplied in two other forms; however, as there is no standard place to install
32 them, they are left in the doc directory of the unpacked source distribution.
35 1. Files called doc/pcre.txt, doc/pcregrep.txt, and doc/pcretest.txt. The
36 first of these is a concatenation of the text forms of all the section 3
37 man pages except those that summarize individual functions. The other two
38 are the text forms of the section 1 man pages for the pcregrep and
39 pcretest commands. Text forms are provided for ease of scanning with text
40 editors or similar tools.
42 2. A subdirectory called doc/html contains all the documentation in HTML
43 form, hyperlinked in various ways, and rooted in a file called
47 Contributions by users of PCRE
48 ------------------------------
50 You can find contributions from PCRE users in the directory
52 ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/Contrib
54 where there is also a README file giving brief descriptions of what they are.
55 Several of them provide support for compiling PCRE on various flavours of
56 Windows systems (I myself do not use Windows). Some are complete in themselves;
57 others are pointers to URLs containing relevant files.
60 Building PCRE on a Unix-like system
61 -----------------------------------
63 To build PCRE on a Unix-like system, first run the "configure" command from the
64 PCRE distribution directory, with your current directory set to the directory
65 where you want the files to be created. This command is a standard GNU
66 "autoconf" configuration script, for which generic instructions are supplied in
69 Most commonly, people build PCRE within its own distribution directory, and in
70 this case, on many systems, just running "./configure" is sufficient, but the
71 usual methods of changing standard defaults are available. For example:
73 CFLAGS='-O2 -Wall' ./configure --prefix=/opt/local
75 specifies that the C compiler should be run with the flags '-O2 -Wall' instead
76 of the default, and that "make install" should install PCRE under /opt/local
77 instead of the default /usr/local.
79 If you want to build in a different directory, just run "configure" with that
80 directory as current. For example, suppose you have unpacked the PCRE source
81 into /source/pcre/pcre-xxx, but you want to build it in /build/pcre/pcre-xxx:
83 cd /build/pcre/pcre-xxx
84 /source/pcre/pcre-xxx/configure
86 There are some optional features that can be included or omitted from the PCRE
87 library. You can read more about them in the pcrebuild man page.
89 . If you want to make use of the support for UTF-8 character strings in PCRE,
90 you must add --enable-utf8 to the "configure" command. Without it, the code
91 for handling UTF-8 is not included in the library. (Even when included, it
92 still has to be enabled by an option at run time.)
94 . If, in addition to support for UTF-8 character strings, you want to include
95 support for the \P, \p, and \X sequences that recognize Unicode character
96 properties, you must add --enable-unicode-properties to the "configure"
97 command. This adds about 90K to the size of the library (in the form of a
98 property table); only the basic two-letter properties such as Lu are
101 . You can build PCRE to recognized CR or NL as the newline character, instead
102 of whatever your compiler uses for "\n", by adding --newline-is-cr or
103 --newline-is-nl to the "configure" command, respectively. Only do this if you
104 really understand what you are doing. On traditional Unix-like systems, the
105 newline character is NL.
107 . When called via the POSIX interface, PCRE uses malloc() to get additional
108 storage for processing capturing parentheses if there are more than 10 of
109 them. You can increase this threshold by setting, for example,
111 --with-posix-malloc-threshold=20
113 on the "configure" command.
115 . PCRE has a counter which can be set to limit the amount of resources it uses.
116 If the limit is exceeded during a match, the match fails. The default is ten
117 million. You can change the default by setting, for example,
119 --with-match-limit=500000
121 on the "configure" command. This is just the default; individual calls to
122 pcre_exec() can supply their own value. There is discussion on the pcreapi
125 . The default maximum compiled pattern size is around 64K. You can increase
126 this by adding --with-link-size=3 to the "configure" command. You can
127 increase it even more by setting --with-link-size=4, but this is unlikely
128 ever to be necessary. If you build PCRE with an increased link size, test 2
129 (and 5 if you are using UTF-8) will fail. Part of the output of these tests
130 is a representation of the compiled pattern, and this changes with the link
133 . You can build PCRE so that its match() function does not call itself
134 recursively. Instead, it uses blocks of data from the heap via special
135 functions pcre_stack_malloc() and pcre_stack_free() to save data that would
136 otherwise be saved on the stack. To build PCRE like this, use
138 --disable-stack-for-recursion
140 on the "configure" command. PCRE runs more slowly in this mode, but it may be
141 necessary in environments with limited stack sizes.
143 The "configure" script builds seven files:
145 . pcre.h is build by copying pcre.in and making substitutions
146 . Makefile is built by copying Makefile.in and making substitutions.
147 . config.h is built by copying config.in and making substitutions.
148 . pcre-config is built by copying pcre-config.in and making substitutions.
149 . libpcre.pc is data for the pkg-config command, built from libpcre.pc.in
150 . libtool is a script that builds shared and/or static libraries
151 . RunTest is a script for running tests
153 Once "configure" has run, you can run "make". It builds two libraries called
154 libpcre and libpcreposix, a test program called pcretest, and the pcregrep
155 command. You can use "make install" to copy these, the public header files
156 pcre.h and pcreposix.h, and the man pages to appropriate live directories on
157 your system, in the normal way.
160 Retrieving configuration information on Unix-like systems
161 ---------------------------------------------------------
163 Running "make install" also installs the command pcre-config, which can be used
164 to recall information about the PCRE configuration and installation. For
167 pcre-config --version
169 prints the version number, and
173 outputs information about where the library is installed. This command can be
174 included in makefiles for programs that use PCRE, saving the programmer from
175 having to remember too many details.
177 The pkg-config command is another system for saving and retrieving information
178 about installed libraries. Instead of separate commands for each library, a
179 single command is used. For example:
181 pkg-config --cflags pcre
183 The data is held in *.pc files that are installed in a directory called
187 Shared libraries on Unix-like systems
188 -------------------------------------
190 The default distribution builds PCRE as two shared libraries and two static
191 libraries, as long as the operating system supports shared libraries. Shared
192 library support relies on the "libtool" script which is built as part of the
195 The libtool script is used to compile and link both shared and static
196 libraries. They are placed in a subdirectory called .libs when they are newly
197 built. The programs pcretest and pcregrep are built to use these uninstalled
198 libraries (by means of wrapper scripts in the case of shared libraries). When
199 you use "make install" to install shared libraries, pcregrep and pcretest are
200 automatically re-built to use the newly installed shared libraries before being
201 installed themselves. However, the versions left in the source directory still
202 use the uninstalled libraries.
204 To build PCRE using static libraries only you must use --disable-shared when
205 configuring it. For example:
207 ./configure --prefix=/usr/gnu --disable-shared
209 Then run "make" in the usual way. Similarly, you can use --disable-static to
210 build only shared libraries.
213 Cross-compiling on a Unix-like system
214 -------------------------------------
216 You can specify CC and CFLAGS in the normal way to the "configure" command, in
217 order to cross-compile PCRE for some other host. However, during the building
218 process, the dftables.c source file is compiled *and run* on the local host, in
219 order to generate the default character tables (the chartables.c file). It
220 therefore needs to be compiled with the local compiler, not the cross compiler.
221 You can do this by specifying CC_FOR_BUILD (and if necessary CFLAGS_FOR_BUILD)
222 when calling the "configure" command. If they are not specified, they default
223 to the values of CC and CFLAGS.
226 Building on non-Unix systems
227 ----------------------------
229 For a non-Unix system, read the comments in the file NON-UNIX-USE, though if
230 the system supports the use of "configure" and "make" you may be able to build
231 PCRE in the same way as for Unix systems.
233 PCRE has been compiled on Windows systems and on Macintoshes, but I don't know
234 the details because I don't use those systems. It should be straightforward to
235 build PCRE on any system that has a Standard C compiler, because it uses only
236 Standard C functions.
242 To test PCRE on a Unix system, run the RunTest script that is created by the
243 configuring process. (This can also be run by "make runtest", "make check", or
244 "make test".) For other systems, see the instructions in NON-UNIX-USE.
246 The script runs the pcretest test program (which is documented in its own man
247 page) on each of the testinput files (in the testdata directory) in turn,
248 and compares the output with the contents of the corresponding testoutput file.
249 A file called testtry is used to hold the main output from pcretest
250 (testsavedregex is also used as a working file). To run pcretest on just one of
251 the test files, give its number as an argument to RunTest, for example:
255 The first file can also be fed directly into the perltest script to check that
256 Perl gives the same results. The only difference you should see is in the first
257 few lines, where the Perl version is given instead of the PCRE version.
259 The second set of tests check pcre_fullinfo(), pcre_info(), pcre_study(),
260 pcre_copy_substring(), pcre_get_substring(), pcre_get_substring_list(), error
261 detection, and run-time flags that are specific to PCRE, as well as the POSIX
262 wrapper API. It also uses the debugging flag to check some of the internals of
265 If you build PCRE with a locale setting that is not the standard C locale, the
266 character tables may be different (see next paragraph). In some cases, this may
267 cause failures in the second set of tests. For example, in a locale where the
268 isprint() function yields TRUE for characters in the range 128-255, the use of
269 [:isascii:] inside a character class defines a different set of characters, and
270 this shows up in this test as a difference in the compiled code, which is being
271 listed for checking. Where the comparison test output contains [\x00-\x7f] the
272 test will contain [\x00-\xff], and similarly in some other cases. This is not a
275 The third set of tests checks pcre_maketables(), the facility for building a
276 set of character tables for a specific locale and using them instead of the
277 default tables. The tests make use of the "fr_FR" (French) locale. Before
278 running the test, the script checks for the presence of this locale by running
279 the "locale" command. If that command fails, or if it doesn't include "fr_FR"
280 in the list of available locales, the third test cannot be run, and a comment
281 is output to say why. If running this test produces instances of the error
283 ** Failed to set locale "fr_FR"
285 in the comparison output, it means that locale is not available on your system,
286 despite being listed by "locale". This does not mean that PCRE is broken.
288 The fourth test checks the UTF-8 support. It is not run automatically unless
289 PCRE is built with UTF-8 support. To do this you must set --enable-utf8 when
290 running "configure". This file can be also fed directly to the perltest script,
291 provided you are running Perl 5.8 or higher. (For Perl 5.6, a small patch,
292 commented in the script, can be be used.)
294 The fifth test checks error handling with UTF-8 encoding, and internal UTF-8
295 features of PCRE that are not relevant to Perl.
297 The sixth and final test checks the support for Unicode character properties.
298 It it not run automatically unless PCRE is built with Unicode property support.
299 To to this you must set --enable-unicode-properties when running "configure".
305 PCRE uses four tables for manipulating and identifying characters whose values
306 are less than 256. The final argument of the pcre_compile() function is a
307 pointer to a block of memory containing the concatenated tables. A call to
308 pcre_maketables() can be used to generate a set of tables in the current
309 locale. If the final argument for pcre_compile() is passed as NULL, a set of
310 default tables that is built into the binary is used.
312 The source file called chartables.c contains the default set of tables. This is
313 not supplied in the distribution, but is built by the program dftables
314 (compiled from dftables.c), which uses the ANSI C character handling functions
315 such as isalnum(), isalpha(), isupper(), islower(), etc. to build the table
316 sources. This means that the default C locale which is set for your system will
317 control the contents of these default tables. You can change the default tables
318 by editing chartables.c and then re-building PCRE. If you do this, you should
319 probably also edit Makefile to ensure that the file doesn't ever get
322 The first two 256-byte tables provide lower casing and case flipping functions,
323 respectively. The next table consists of three 32-byte bit maps which identify
324 digits, "word" characters, and white space, respectively. These are used when
325 building 32-byte bit maps that represent character classes.
327 The final 256-byte table has bits indicating various character types, as
330 1 white space character
334 16 alphanumeric or '_'
335 128 regular expression metacharacter or binary zero
337 You should not alter the set of characters that contain the 128 bit, as that
338 will cause PCRE to malfunction.
344 The distribution should contain the following files:
346 (A) The actual source files of the PCRE library functions and their
349 dftables.c auxiliary program for building chartables.c
353 study.c ) source of the functions
354 pcre.c ) in the library
359 ucp.h ) source for the code that is used for
360 ucpinternal.h ) Unicode property handling
364 pcre.in "source" for the header for the external API; pcre.h
365 is built from this by "configure"
366 pcreposix.h header for the external POSIX wrapper API
367 internal.h header for internal use
368 config.in template for config.h, which is built by configure
372 AUTHORS information about the author of PCRE
373 ChangeLog log of changes to the code
374 INSTALL generic installation instructions
375 LICENCE conditions for the use of PCRE
376 COPYING the same, using GNU's standard name
377 Makefile.in template for Unix Makefile, which is built by configure
378 NEWS important changes in this release
379 NON-UNIX-USE notes on building PCRE on non-Unix systems
381 RunTest.in template for a Unix shell script for running tests
382 config.guess ) files used by libtool,
383 config.sub ) used only when building a shared library
384 configure a configuring shell script (built by autoconf)
385 configure.in the autoconf input used to build configure
386 doc/Tech.Notes notes on the encoding
387 doc/*.3 man page sources for the PCRE functions
388 doc/*.1 man page sources for pcregrep and pcretest
389 doc/html/* HTML documentation
390 doc/pcre.txt plain text version of the man pages
391 doc/pcretest.txt plain text documentation of test program
392 doc/perltest.txt plain text documentation of Perl test program
393 install-sh a shell script for installing files
394 libpcre.pc.in "source" for libpcre.pc for pkg-config
395 ltmain.sh file used to build a libtool script
396 mkinstalldirs script for making install directories
397 pcretest.c comprehensive test program
398 pcredemo.c simple demonstration of coding calls to PCRE
399 perltest Perl test program
400 pcregrep.c source of a grep utility that uses PCRE
401 pcre-config.in source of script which retains PCRE information
402 testdata/testinput1 test data, compatible with Perl
403 testdata/testinput2 test data for error messages and non-Perl things
404 testdata/testinput3 test data for locale-specific tests
405 testdata/testinput4 test data for UTF-8 tests compatible with Perl
406 testdata/testinput5 test data for other UTF-8 tests
407 testdata/testinput6 test data for Unicode property support tests
408 testdata/testoutput1 test results corresponding to testinput1
409 testdata/testoutput2 test results corresponding to testinput2
410 testdata/testoutput3 test results corresponding to testinput3
411 testdata/testoutput4 test results corresponding to testinput4
412 testdata/testoutput5 test results corresponding to testinput5
413 testdata/testoutput6 test results corresponding to testinput6
415 (C) Auxiliary files for Win32 DLL
422 (D) Auxiliary file for VPASCAL
426 Philip Hazel <ph10@cam.ac.uk>