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);

       int pcre16_exec(const pcre16 *code, const pcre16_extra *extra,
	    PCRE_SPTR16 subject, int length, int startoffset,
	    int options, int *ovector, int ovecsize);

       int pcre32_exec(const pcre32 *code, const pcre32_extra *extra,
	    PCRE_SPTR32 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[16|32]_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, & CRLF as newline sequences
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_CR	Recognize CR as the only newline sequence
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF	Recognize CRLF as the only newline sequence
	 PCRE_NEWLINE_LF	Recognize LF as the only newline sequence
	 PCRE_NOTBOL		Subject string is not the beginning of a line
	 PCRE_NOTEOL		Subject string is not the end of a line
	 PCRE_NOTEMPTY		An empty string is not a valid match
	 PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART	An empty string at the start of the subject
				  is not a valid match
	 PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Do not do "start-match" optimizations
	 PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK	Do not check the subject for UTF-16
				  validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF16
				  was set at compile time)
	 PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK	Do not check the subject for UTF-32
				  validity (only relevant if PCRE_UTF32
				  was set at compile time)
	 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
	 PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT	)   match if no full matches are found
	 PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD	Return PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial match
				  if that is found before a full match

       For details of partial matching, 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[16|32]_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
	 mark		  For passing back a *MARK pointer
	 executable_jit   Opaque data from JIT compilation

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

       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.

PCRE 8.30							   24 June 2012 						      PCRE_EXEC(3)