# Contents of /code/trunk/doc/html/pcre_compile.html
    
    
    Tidies and final updates for 7.1.
    
    

1 | <html>  
---|---  
2 | <head>  
3 | <title>pcre_compile specification</title>  
4 | </head>  
5 | <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">  
6 | <h1>pcre_compile man page</h1>  
7 | <p>  
8 | Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.   
9 | </p>  
10 | <p>  
11 | This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically   
12 | from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the   
13 | man page, in case the conversion went wrong.   
14 | <br>  
15 | <br><b>  
16 | SYNOPSIS   
17 | </b><br>  
18 | <P>  
19 | <b>#include &#60;pcre.h&#62;</b>  
20 | </P>  
21 | <P>  
22 | <b>pcre *pcre_compile(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>  
23 | <b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>  
24 | <b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>  
25 | </P>  
26 | <br><b>  
27 | DESCRIPTION   
28 | </b><br>  
29 | <P>  
30 | This function compiles a regular expression into an internal form. It is the   
31 | same as <b>pcre_compile2()</b>, except for the absence of the <i>errorcodeptr</i>  
32 | argument. Its arguments are:   
33 | <pre>  
34 |  <i>pattern</i> A zero-terminated string containing the   
35 |  regular expression to be compiled   
36 |  <i>options</i> Zero or more option bits   
37 |  <i>errptr</i> Where to put an error message   
38 |  <i>erroffset</i> Offset in pattern where error was found   
39 |  <i>tableptr</i> Pointer to character tables, or NULL to   
40 |  use the built-in default   
41 | </pre>  
42 | The option bits are:   
43 | <pre>  
44 |  PCRE_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring   
45 |  PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts   
46 |  PCRE_CASELESS Do caseless matching   
47 |  PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end   
48 |  PCRE_DOTALL . matches anything including NL   
49 |  PCRE_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns   
50 |  PCRE_EXTENDED Ignore whitespace and # comments   
51 |  PCRE_EXTRA PCRE extra features   
52 |  (not much use currently)   
53 |  PCRE_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline   
54 |  PCRE_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data   
55 |  PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY Recognize any Unicode newline sequence   
56 |  PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline sequences   
57 |  PCRE_NEWLINE_CR Set CR as the newline sequence   
58 |  PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF Set CRLF as the newline sequence   
59 |  PCRE_NEWLINE_LF Set LF as the newline sequence   
60 |  PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren-   
61 |  theses (named ones available)   
62 |  PCRE_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers   
63 |  PCRE_UTF8 Run in UTF-8 mode   
64 |  PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-8   
65 |  validity (only relevant if   
66 |  PCRE_UTF8 is set)   
67 | </pre>  
68 | PCRE must be built with UTF-8 support in order to use PCRE_UTF8 and   
69 | PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK.   
70 | </P>  
71 | <P>  
72 | The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that   
73 | contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected. Note that   
74 | compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different   
75 | version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes.   
76 | </P>  
77 | <P>  
78 | There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the   
79 | <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>  
80 | page and a description of the POSIX API in the   
81 | <a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>  
82 | page.   
83 | <p>  
84 | Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.   
85 | </p>  
  
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**svn:eol-style** | native   
**svn:keywords** | "Author Date Id Revision Url"