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<title>pcre2_compile specification</title>
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<h1>pcre2_compile man page</h1>
<p>
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<p>
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<br>
<br><b>
SYNOPSIS
</b><br>
<P>
<b>#include &#60;pcre2.h&#62;</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR <i>pattern</i>, PCRE2_SIZE <i>length</i>,</b>
<b>  uint32_t <i>options</i>, int *<i>errorcode</i>, PCRE2_SIZE *<i>erroroffset,</i></b>
<b>  pcre2_compile_context *<i>ccontext</i>);</b>
</P>
<br><b>
DESCRIPTION
</b><br>
<P>
This function compiles a regular expression pattern into an internal form. Its
arguments are:
<pre>
  <i>pattern</i>       A string containing expression to be compiled
  <i>length</i>        The length of the string or PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED
  <i>options</i>       Option bits
  <i>errorcode</i>     Where to put an error code
  <i>erroffset</i>     Where to put an error offset
  <i>ccontext</i>      Pointer to a compile context or NULL
</pre>
The length of the string and any error offset that is returned are in code
units, not characters. A compile context is needed only if you want to change
<pre>
  What \R matches (Unicode newlines or CR, LF, CRLF only)
  PCRE2's character tables
  The newline character sequence
  The compile time nested parentheses limit
</pre>
or provide an external function for stack size checking. The option bits are:
<pre>
  PCRE2_ANCHORED           Force pattern anchoring
  PCRE2_ALT_BSUX           Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x
  PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX     Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode
  PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT       Compile automatic callouts
  PCRE2_CASELESS           Do caseless matching
  PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY     $ not to match newline at end
  PCRE2_DOTALL             . matches anything including NL
  PCRE2_DUPNAMES           Allow duplicate names for subpatterns
  PCRE2_EXTENDED           Ignore white space and # comments
  PCRE2_FIRSTLINE          Force matching to be before newline
  PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF  Match unset back references
  PCRE2_MULTILINE          ^ and $ match newlines within data
  PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C  Lock out the use of \C in patterns
  PCRE2_NEVER_UCP          Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP)
  PCRE2_NEVER_UTF          Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF)
  PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE    Disable numbered capturing paren-
                            theses (named ones available)
  PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS    Disable auto-possessification
  PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR  Disable automatic anchoring for .*
  PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE  Disable match-time start optimizations
  PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK       Do not check the pattern for UTF validity
                             (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set)
  PCRE2_UCP                Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc.
  PCRE2_UNGREEDY           Invert greediness of quantifiers
  PCRE2_UTF                Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings
</pre>
PCRE2 must be built with Unicode support in order to use PCRE2_UTF, PCRE2_UCP
and related options.
</P>
<P>
The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that
contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected.
</P>
<P>
There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API in the
<a href="pcre2api.html"><b>pcre2api</b></a>
page and a description of the POSIX API in the
<a href="pcre2posix.html"><b>pcre2posix</b></a>
page.
<p>
Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
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