PCRE_EXEC(3)						     Library Functions Manual						      PCRE_EXEC(3)

NAME

       PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

SYNOPSIS


       #include <pcre.h>

       int pcre_exec(const pcre *code, const pcre_extra *extra,
	    const char *subject, int length, int startoffset,
	    int options, int *ovector, int ovecsize);

DESCRIPTION


       This  function  matches a compiled regular expression against a given subject string, using a matching algorithm that is similar to Perl's.
       It returns offsets to captured substrings. Its arguments are:

	 code	      Points to the compiled pattern
	 extra	      Points to an associated pcre_extra structure,
			or is NULL
	 subject      Points to the subject string
	 length       Length of the subject string, in bytes
	 startoffset  Offset in bytes in the subject at which to
			start matching
	 options      Option bits
	 ovector      Points to a vector of ints for result offsets
	 ovecsize     Number of elements in the vector (a multiple of 3)

       The options are:

	 PCRE_ANCHORED	    Match only at the first position
	 PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF   R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF
	 PCRE_BSR_UNICODE   R matches all Unicode line endings
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY   Recognize any Unicode newline sequence
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF  Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline sequences
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_CR    Set CR as the newline sequence
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF  Set CRLF as the newline sequence
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_LF    Set LF as the newline sequence
	 PCRE_NOTBOL	    Subject is not the beginning of a line
	 PCRE_NOTEOL	    Subject is not the end of a line
	 PCRE_NOTEMPTY	    An empty string is not a valid match
	 PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF-8
			      validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF8
			      was set at compile time)
	 PCRE_PARTIAL	    Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial match

       There are restrictions on what may appear in a pattern when partial matching is requested. For details, see the pcrepartial page.

       A pcre_extra structure contains the following fields:

	 flags	      Bits indicating which fields are set
	 study_data   Opaque data from pcre_study()
	 match_limit  Limit on internal resource use
	 match_limit_recursion	Limit on internal recursion depth
	 callout_data Opaque data passed back to callouts
	 tables       Points to character tables or is NULL

       The  flag  bits	are  PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA,   PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT,	PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION,   PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA,   and
       PCRE_EXTRA_TABLES.

       There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the pcreapi page and a description of the POSIX API in the pcreposix page.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +--------------------+-----------------+
       |  ATTRIBUTE TYPE    | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
       +--------------------+-----------------+
       |Availability	    | SUNWpcre	      |
       +--------------------+-----------------+
       |Interface Stability | Uncommitted     |
       +--------------------+-----------------+
NOTES

       Source for PCRE is available on http://opensolaris.org.

																      PCRE_EXEC(3)