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<title>pcre2unicode specification</title>
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<h1>pcre2unicode man page</h1>
<p>
Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
</p>
<p>
This page is part of the PCRE2 HTML documentation. It was generated
automatically from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it,
please consult the man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
<br>
<br><b>
UNICODE AND UTF SUPPORT
</b><br>
<P>
When PCRE2 is built with Unicode support (which is the default), it has
knowledge of Unicode character properties and can process text strings in
UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-32 format (depending on the code unit width). However, by
default, PCRE2 assumes that one code unit is one character. To process a
pattern as a UTF string, where a character may require more than one code unit,
you must call
<a href="pcre2_compile.html"><b>pcre2_compile()</b></a>
with the PCRE2_UTF option flag, or the pattern must start with the sequence
(*UTF). When either of these is the case, both the pattern and any subject
strings that are matched against it are treated as UTF strings instead of
strings of individual one-code-unit characters.
</P>
<P>
If you do not need Unicode support you can build PCRE2 without it, in which
case the library will be smaller.
</P>
<br><b>
UNICODE PROPERTY SUPPORT
</b><br>
<P>
When PCRE2 is built with Unicode support, the escape sequences \p{..},
\P{..}, and \X can be used. The Unicode properties that can be tested are
limited to the general category properties such as Lu for an upper case letter
or Nd for a decimal number, the Unicode script names such as Arabic or Han, and
the derived properties Any and L&. Full lists are given in the
<a href="pcre2pattern.html"><b>pcre2pattern</b></a>
and
<a href="pcre2syntax.html"><b>pcre2syntax</b></a>
documentation. Only the short names for properties are supported. For example,
\p{L} matches a letter. Its Perl synonym, \p{Letter}, is not supported.
Furthermore, in Perl, many properties may optionally be prefixed by "Is", for
compatibility with Perl 5.6. PCRE does not support this.
</P>
<br><b>
WIDE CHARACTERS AND UTF MODES
</b><br>
<P>
Codepoints less than 256 can be specified in patterns by either braced or
unbraced hexadecimal escape sequences (for example, \x{b3} or \xb3). Larger
values have to use braced sequences. Unbraced octal code points up to \777 are
also recognized; larger ones can be coded using \o{...}.
</P>
<P>
In UTF modes, repeat quantifiers apply to complete UTF characters, not to
individual code units.
</P>
<P>
In UTF modes, the dot metacharacter matches one UTF character instead of a
single code unit.
</P>
<P>
The escape sequence \C can be used to match a single code unit, in a UTF mode,
but its use can lead to some strange effects because it breaks up multi-unit
characters (see the description of \C in the
<a href="pcre2pattern.html"><b>pcre2pattern</b></a>
documentation). The use of \C is not supported by the alternative matching
function <b>pcre2_dfa_match()</b> when in UTF mode. Its use provokes a
match-time error. The JIT optimization also does not support \C in UTF mode.
If JIT optimization is requested for a UTF pattern that contains \C, it will
not succeed, and so the matching will be carried out by the normal interpretive
function.
</P>
<P>
The character escapes \b, \B, \d, \D, \s, \S, \w, and \W correctly test
characters of any code value, but, by default, the characters that PCRE2
recognizes as digits, spaces, or word characters remain the same set as in
non-UTF mode, all with code points less than 256. This remains true even when
PCRE2 is built to include Unicode support, because to do otherwise would slow
down matching in many common cases. Note that this also applies to \b
and \B, because they are defined in terms of \w and \W. If you want
to test for a wider sense of, say, "digit", you can use explicit Unicode
property tests such as \p{Nd}. Alternatively, if you set the PCRE2_UCP option,
the way that the character escapes work is changed so that Unicode properties
are used to determine which characters match. There are more details in the
section on
<a href="pcre2pattern.html#genericchartypes">generic character types</a>
in the
<a href="pcre2pattern.html"><b>pcre2pattern</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
Similarly, characters that match the POSIX named character classes are all
low-valued characters, unless the PCRE2_UCP option is set.
</P>
<P>
However, the special horizontal and vertical white space matching escapes (\h,
\H, \v, and \V) do match all the appropriate Unicode characters, whether or
not PCRE2_UCP is set.
</P>
<P>
Case-insensitive matching in UTF mode makes use of Unicode properties. A few
Unicode characters such as Greek sigma have more than two codepoints that are
case-equivalent, and these are treated as such.
</P>
<br><b>
VALIDITY OF UTF STRINGS
</b><br>
<P>
When the PCRE2_UTF option is set, the strings passed as patterns and subjects
are (by default) checked for validity on entry to the relevant functions.
If an invalid UTF string is passed, an negative error code is returned. The
code unit offset to the offending character can be extracted from the match
data block by calling <b>pcre2_get_startchar()</b>, which is used for this
purpose after a UTF error.
</P>
<P>
UTF-16 and UTF-32 strings can indicate their endianness by special code knows
as a byte-order mark (BOM). The PCRE2 functions do not handle this, expecting
strings to be in host byte order.
</P>
<P>
A UTF string is checked before any other processing takes place. In the case of
<b>pcre2_match()</b> and <b>pcre2_dfa_match()</b> calls with a non-zero starting
offset, the check is applied only to that part of the subject that could be
inspected during matching, and there is a check that the starting offset points
to the first code unit of a character or to the end of the subject. If there
are no lookbehind assertions in the pattern, the check starts at the starting
offset. Otherwise, it starts at the length of the longest lookbehind before the
starting offset, or at the start of the subject if there are not that many
characters before the starting offset. Note that the sequences \b and \B are
one-character lookbehinds.
</P>
<P>
In addition to checking the format of the string, there is a check to ensure
that all code points lie in the range U+0 to U+10FFFF, excluding the surrogate
area. The so-called "non-character" code points are not excluded because
Unicode corrigendum #9 makes it clear that they should not be.
</P>
<P>
Characters in the "Surrogate Area" of Unicode are reserved for use by UTF-16,
where they are used in pairs to encode code points with values greater than
0xFFFF. The code points that are encoded by UTF-16 pairs are available
independently in the UTF-8 and UTF-32 encodings. (In other words, the whole
surrogate thing is a fudge for UTF-16 which unfortunately messes up UTF-8 and
UTF-32.)
</P>
<P>
In some situations, you may already know that your strings are valid, and
therefore want to skip these checks in order to improve performance, for
example in the case of a long subject string that is being scanned repeatedly.
If you set the PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK option at compile time or at match time,
PCRE2 assumes that the pattern or subject it is given (respectively) contains
only valid UTF code unit sequences.
</P>
<P>
Passing PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK to <b>pcre2_compile()</b> just disables the check for
the pattern; it does not also apply to subject strings. If you want to disable
the check for a subject string you must pass this option to <b>pcre2_match()</b>
or <b>pcre2_dfa_match()</b>.
</P>
<P>
If you pass an invalid UTF string when PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK is set, the result
is undefined and your program may crash or loop indefinitely.
<a name="utf8strings"></a></P>
<br><b>
Errors in UTF-8 strings
</b><br>
<P>
The following negative error codes are given for invalid UTF-8 strings:
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR1
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR2
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR3
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR4
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR5
</pre>
The string ends with a truncated UTF-8 character; the code specifies how many
bytes are missing (1 to 5). Although RFC 3629 restricts UTF-8 characters to be
no longer than 4 bytes, the encoding scheme (originally defined by RFC 2279)
allows for up to 6 bytes, and this is checked first; hence the possibility of
4 or 5 missing bytes.
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR6
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR7
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR8
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR9
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR10
</pre>
The two most significant bits of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th byte of the
character do not have the binary value 0b10 (that is, either the most
significant bit is 0, or the next bit is 1).
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR11
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR12
</pre>
A character that is valid by the RFC 2279 rules is either 5 or 6 bytes long;
these code points are excluded by RFC 3629.
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR13
</pre>
A 4-byte character has a value greater than 0x10fff; these code points are
excluded by RFC 3629.
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR14
</pre>
A 3-byte character has a value in the range 0xd800 to 0xdfff; this range of
code points are reserved by RFC 3629 for use with UTF-16, and so are excluded
from UTF-8.
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR15
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR16
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR17
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR18
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR19
</pre>
A 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-byte character is "overlong", that is, it codes for a
value that can be represented by fewer bytes, which is invalid. For example,
the two bytes 0xc0, 0xae give the value 0x2e, whose correct coding uses just
one byte.
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR20
</pre>
The two most significant bits of the first byte of a character have the binary
value 0b10 (that is, the most significant bit is 1 and the second is 0). Such a
byte can only validly occur as the second or subsequent byte of a multi-byte
character.
<pre>
  PCRE2_ERROR_UTF8_ERR21
</pre>
The first byte of a character has the value 0xfe or 0xff. These values can
never occur in a valid UTF-8 string.
<a name="utf16strings"></a></P>
<br><b>
Errors in UTF-16 strings
</b><br>
<P>
The following negative error codes are given for invalid UTF-16 strings:
<pre>
  PCRE_UTF16_ERR1  Missing low surrogate at end of string
  PCRE_UTF16_ERR2  Invalid low surrogate follows high surrogate
  PCRE_UTF16_ERR3  Isolated low surrogate

<a name="utf32strings"></a></PRE>
</P>
<br><b>
Errors in UTF-32 strings
</b><br>
<P>
The following negative error codes are given for invalid UTF-32 strings:
<pre>
  PCRE_UTF32_ERR1  Surrogate character (range from 0xd800 to 0xdfff)
  PCRE_UTF32_ERR2  Code point is greater than 0x10ffff

</PRE>
</P>
<br><b>
AUTHOR
</b><br>
<P>
Philip Hazel
<br>
University Computing Service
<br>
Cambridge, England.
<br>
</P>
<br><b>
REVISION
</b><br>
<P>
Last updated: 16 October 2015
<br>
Copyright &copy; 1997-2015 University of Cambridge.
<br>
<p>
Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
</p>