netbsd man page for re_comp

RE_COMP(3)						   BSD Library Functions Manual 						RE_COMP(3)

NAME
     re_comp, re_exec -- regular expression handler

LIBRARY
     Compatibility Library (libcompat, -lcompat)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <re_comp.h>

     char *
     re_comp(const char *s);

     int
     re_exec(const char *s);

DESCRIPTION
     This interface is made obsolete by regex(3).  It is available from the compatibility library, libcompat.

     The re_comp() function compiles a string into an internal form suitable for pattern matching.  The re_exec() function checks the argument
     string against the last string passed to re_comp().

     The re_comp() function returns 0 if the string s was compiled successfully; otherwise a string containing an error message is returned.  If
     re_comp() is passed 0 or a null string, it returns without changing the currently compiled regular expression.

     The re_exec() function returns 1 if the string s matches the last compiled regular expression, 0 if the string s failed to match the last
     compiled regular expression, and -1 if the compiled regular expression was invalid (indicating an internal error).

     The strings passed to both re_comp() and re_exec() may have trailing or embedded newline characters; they are terminated by NULs.	The regu-
     lar expressions recognized are described in the manual entry for ed(1), given the above difference.

DIAGNOSTICS
     The re_exec() function returns -1 for an internal error.

     The re_comp() function returns one of the following strings if an error occurs:

	   No previous regular expression,
	   Regular expression too long,
	   unmatched (,
	   missing ],
	   too many () pairs,
	   unmatched ).

SEE ALSO
     ed(1), egrep(1), ex(1), fgrep(1), grep(1), regex(3)

HISTORY
     The re_comp() and re_exec() functions appeared in 4.0BSD.

BSD
								   June 4, 1993 							       BSD