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Branches: pcre, MAIN
CVS tags: v8_34, HEAD
pcre 8.34

    1: README file for PCRE (Perl-compatible regular expression library)
    2: -----------------------------------------------------------------
    3: 
    4: The latest release of PCRE is always available in three alternative formats
    5: from:
    6: 
    7:   ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/pcre-xxx.tar.gz
    8:   ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/pcre-xxx.tar.bz2
    9:   ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/pcre-xxx.zip
   10: 
   11: There is a mailing list for discussion about the development of PCRE at
   12: pcre-dev@exim.org. You can access the archives and subscribe or manage your
   13: subscription here:
   14: 
   15:    https://lists.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/pcre-dev
   16: 
   17: Please read the NEWS file if you are upgrading from a previous release.
   18: The contents of this README file are:
   19: 
   20:   The PCRE APIs
   21:   Documentation for PCRE
   22:   Contributions by users of PCRE
   23:   Building PCRE on non-Unix-like systems
   24:   Building PCRE without using autotools
   25:   Building PCRE using autotools
   26:   Retrieving configuration information
   27:   Shared libraries
   28:   Cross-compiling using autotools
   29:   Using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC)
   30:   Compiling in Tru64 using native compilers
   31:   Using Sun's compilers for Solaris
   32:   Using PCRE from MySQL
   33:   Making new tarballs
   34:   Testing PCRE
   35:   Character tables
   36:   File manifest
   37: 
   38: 
   39: The PCRE APIs
   40: -------------
   41: 
   42: PCRE is written in C, and it has its own API. There are three sets of
   43: functions, one for the 8-bit library, which processes strings of bytes, one for
   44: the 16-bit library, which processes strings of 16-bit values, and one for the
   45: 32-bit library, which processes strings of 32-bit values. The distribution also
   46: includes a set of C++ wrapper functions (see the pcrecpp man page for details),
   47: courtesy of Google Inc., which can be used to call the 8-bit PCRE library from
   48: C++.
   49: 
   50: In addition, there is a set of C wrapper functions (again, just for the 8-bit
   51: library) that are based on the POSIX regular expression API (see the pcreposix
   52: man page). These end up in the library called libpcreposix. Note that this just
   53: provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE; the regular expressions themselves
   54: still follow Perl syntax and semantics. The POSIX API is restricted, and does
   55: not give full access to all of PCRE's facilities.
   56: 
   57: The header file for the POSIX-style functions is called pcreposix.h. The
   58: official POSIX name is regex.h, but I did not want to risk possible problems
   59: with existing files of that name by distributing it that way. To use PCRE with
   60: an existing program that uses the POSIX API, pcreposix.h will have to be
   61: renamed or pointed at by a link.
   62: 
   63: If you are using the POSIX interface to PCRE and there is already a POSIX regex
   64: library installed on your system, as well as worrying about the regex.h header
   65: file (as mentioned above), you must also take care when linking programs to
   66: ensure that they link with PCRE's libpcreposix library. Otherwise they may pick
   67: up the POSIX functions of the same name from the other library.
   68: 
   69: One way of avoiding this confusion is to compile PCRE with the addition of
   70: -Dregcomp=PCREregcomp (and similarly for the other POSIX functions) to the
   71: compiler flags (CFLAGS if you are using "configure" -- see below). This has the
   72: effect of renaming the functions so that the names no longer clash. Of course,
   73: you have to do the same thing for your applications, or write them using the
   74: new names.
   75: 
   76: 
   77: Documentation for PCRE
   78: ----------------------
   79: 
   80: If you install PCRE in the normal way on a Unix-like system, you will end up
   81: with a set of man pages whose names all start with "pcre". The one that is just
   82: called "pcre" lists all the others. In addition to these man pages, the PCRE
   83: documentation is supplied in two other forms:
   84: 
   85:   1. There are files called doc/pcre.txt, doc/pcregrep.txt, and
   86:      doc/pcretest.txt in the source distribution. The first of these is a
   87:      concatenation of the text forms of all the section 3 man pages except
   88:      those that summarize individual functions. The other two are the text
   89:      forms of the section 1 man pages for the pcregrep and pcretest commands.
   90:      These text forms are provided for ease of scanning with text editors or
   91:      similar tools. They are installed in <prefix>/share/doc/pcre, where
   92:      <prefix> is the installation prefix (defaulting to /usr/local).
   93: 
   94:   2. A set of files containing all the documentation in HTML form, hyperlinked
   95:      in various ways, and rooted in a file called index.html, is distributed in
   96:      doc/html and installed in <prefix>/share/doc/pcre/html.
   97: 
   98: Users of PCRE have contributed files containing the documentation for various
   99: releases in CHM format. These can be found in the Contrib directory of the FTP
  100: site (see next section).
  101: 
  102: 
  103: Contributions by users of PCRE
  104: ------------------------------
  105: 
  106: You can find contributions from PCRE users in the directory
  107: 
  108:   ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/Contrib
  109: 
  110: There is a README file giving brief descriptions of what they are. Some are
  111: complete in themselves; others are pointers to URLs containing relevant files.
  112: Some of this material is likely to be well out-of-date. Several of the earlier
  113: contributions provided support for compiling PCRE on various flavours of
  114: Windows (I myself do not use Windows). Nowadays there is more Windows support
  115: in the standard distribution, so these contibutions have been archived.
  116: 
  117: A PCRE user maintains downloadable Windows binaries of the pcregrep and
  118: pcretest programs here:
  119: 
  120:   http://www.rexegg.com/pcregrep-pcretest.html
  121: 
  122: 
  123: Building PCRE on non-Unix-like systems
  124: --------------------------------------
  125: 
  126: For a non-Unix-like system, please read the comments in the file
  127: NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD, though if your system supports the use of "configure" and
  128: "make" you may be able to build PCRE using autotools in the same way as for
  129: many Unix-like systems.
  130: 
  131: PCRE can also be configured using the GUI facility provided by CMake's
  132: cmake-gui command. This creates Makefiles, solution files, etc. The file
  133: NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD has information about CMake.
  134: 
  135: PCRE has been compiled on many different operating systems. It should be
  136: straightforward to build PCRE on any system that has a Standard C compiler and
  137: library, because it uses only Standard C functions.
  138: 
  139: 
  140: Building PCRE without using autotools
  141: -------------------------------------
  142: 
  143: The use of autotools (in particular, libtool) is problematic in some
  144: environments, even some that are Unix or Unix-like. See the NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD
  145: file for ways of building PCRE without using autotools.
  146: 
  147: 
  148: Building PCRE using autotools
  149: -----------------------------
  150: 
  151: If you are using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC), please see the special note
  152: in the section entitled "Using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC)" below.
  153: 
  154: The following instructions assume the use of the widely used "configure; make;
  155: make install" (autotools) process.
  156: 
  157: To build PCRE on system that supports autotools, first run the "configure"
  158: command from the PCRE distribution directory, with your current directory set
  159: to the directory where you want the files to be created. This command is a
  160: standard GNU "autoconf" configuration script, for which generic instructions
  161: are supplied in the file INSTALL.
  162: 
  163: Most commonly, people build PCRE within its own distribution directory, and in
  164: this case, on many systems, just running "./configure" is sufficient. However,
  165: the usual methods of changing standard defaults are available. For example:
  166: 
  167: CFLAGS='-O2 -Wall' ./configure --prefix=/opt/local
  168: 
  169: This command specifies that the C compiler should be run with the flags '-O2
  170: -Wall' instead of the default, and that "make install" should install PCRE
  171: under /opt/local instead of the default /usr/local.
  172: 
  173: If you want to build in a different directory, just run "configure" with that
  174: directory as current. For example, suppose you have unpacked the PCRE source
  175: into /source/pcre/pcre-xxx, but you want to build it in /build/pcre/pcre-xxx:
  176: 
  177: cd /build/pcre/pcre-xxx
  178: /source/pcre/pcre-xxx/configure
  179: 
  180: PCRE is written in C and is normally compiled as a C library. However, it is
  181: possible to build it as a C++ library, though the provided building apparatus
  182: does not have any features to support this.
  183: 
  184: There are some optional features that can be included or omitted from the PCRE
  185: library. They are also documented in the pcrebuild man page.
  186: 
  187: . By default, both shared and static libraries are built. You can change this
  188:   by adding one of these options to the "configure" command:
  189: 
  190:   --disable-shared
  191:   --disable-static
  192: 
  193:   (See also "Shared libraries on Unix-like systems" below.)
  194: 
  195: . By default, only the 8-bit library is built. If you add --enable-pcre16 to
  196:   the "configure" command, the 16-bit library is also built. If you add
  197:   --enable-pcre32 to the "configure" command, the 32-bit library is also built.
  198:   If you want only the 16-bit or 32-bit library, use --disable-pcre8 to disable
  199:   building the 8-bit library.
  200: 
  201: . If you are building the 8-bit library and want to suppress the building of
  202:   the C++ wrapper library, you can add --disable-cpp to the "configure"
  203:   command. Otherwise, when "configure" is run without --disable-pcre8, it will
  204:   try to find a C++ compiler and C++ header files, and if it succeeds, it will
  205:   try to build the C++ wrapper.
  206: 
  207: . If you want to include support for just-in-time compiling, which can give
  208:   large performance improvements on certain platforms, add --enable-jit to the
  209:   "configure" command. This support is available only for certain hardware
  210:   architectures. If you try to enable it on an unsupported architecture, there
  211:   will be a compile time error.
  212: 
  213: . When JIT support is enabled, pcregrep automatically makes use of it, unless
  214:   you add --disable-pcregrep-jit to the "configure" command.
  215: 
  216: . If you want to make use of the support for UTF-8 Unicode character strings in
  217:   the 8-bit library, or UTF-16 Unicode character strings in the 16-bit library,
  218:   or UTF-32 Unicode character strings in the 32-bit library, you must add
  219:   --enable-utf to the "configure" command. Without it, the code for handling
  220:   UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-8 is not included in the relevant library. Even
  221:   when --enable-utf is included, the use of a UTF encoding still has to be
  222:   enabled by an option at run time. When PCRE is compiled with this option, its
  223:   input can only either be ASCII or UTF-8/16/32, even when running on EBCDIC
  224:   platforms. It is not possible to use both --enable-utf and --enable-ebcdic at
  225:   the same time.
  226: 
  227: . There are no separate options for enabling UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32
  228:   independently because that would allow ridiculous settings such as requesting
  229:   UTF-16 support while building only the 8-bit library. However, the option
  230:   --enable-utf8 is retained for backwards compatibility with earlier releases
  231:   that did not support 16-bit or 32-bit character strings. It is synonymous with
  232:   --enable-utf. It is not possible to configure one library with UTF support
  233:   and the other without in the same configuration.
  234: 
  235: . If, in addition to support for UTF-8/16/32 character strings, you want to
  236:   include support for the \P, \p, and \X sequences that recognize Unicode
  237:   character properties, you must add --enable-unicode-properties to the
  238:   "configure" command. This adds about 30K to the size of the library (in the
  239:   form of a property table); only the basic two-letter properties such as Lu
  240:   are supported.
  241: 
  242: . You can build PCRE to recognize either CR or LF or the sequence CRLF or any
  243:   of the preceding, or any of the Unicode newline sequences as indicating the
  244:   end of a line. Whatever you specify at build time is the default; the caller
  245:   of PCRE can change the selection at run time. The default newline indicator
  246:   is a single LF character (the Unix standard). You can specify the default
  247:   newline indicator by adding --enable-newline-is-cr or --enable-newline-is-lf
  248:   or --enable-newline-is-crlf or --enable-newline-is-anycrlf or
  249:   --enable-newline-is-any to the "configure" command, respectively.
  250: 
  251:   If you specify --enable-newline-is-cr or --enable-newline-is-crlf, some of
  252:   the standard tests will fail, because the lines in the test files end with
  253:   LF. Even if the files are edited to change the line endings, there are likely
  254:   to be some failures. With --enable-newline-is-anycrlf or
  255:   --enable-newline-is-any, many tests should succeed, but there may be some
  256:   failures.
  257: 
  258: . By default, the sequence \R in a pattern matches any Unicode line ending
  259:   sequence. This is independent of the option specifying what PCRE considers to
  260:   be the end of a line (see above). However, the caller of PCRE can restrict \R
  261:   to match only CR, LF, or CRLF. You can make this the default by adding
  262:   --enable-bsr-anycrlf to the "configure" command (bsr = "backslash R").
  263: 
  264: . When called via the POSIX interface, PCRE uses malloc() to get additional
  265:   storage for processing capturing parentheses if there are more than 10 of
  266:   them in a pattern. You can increase this threshold by setting, for example,
  267: 
  268:   --with-posix-malloc-threshold=20
  269: 
  270:   on the "configure" command.
  271: 
  272: . PCRE has a counter that limits the depth of nesting of parentheses in a
  273:   pattern. This limits the amount of system stack that a pattern uses when it
  274:   is compiled. The default is 250, but you can change it by setting, for
  275:   example,
  276: 
  277:   --with-parens-nest-limit=500
  278: 
  279: . PCRE has a counter that can be set to limit the amount of resources it uses
  280:   when matching a pattern. If the limit is exceeded during a match, the match
  281:   fails. The default is ten million. You can change the default by setting, for
  282:   example,
  283: 
  284:   --with-match-limit=500000
  285: 
  286:   on the "configure" command. This is just the default; individual calls to
  287:   pcre_exec() can supply their own value. There is more discussion on the
  288:   pcreapi man page.
  289: 
  290: . There is a separate counter that limits the depth of recursive function calls
  291:   during a matching process. This also has a default of ten million, which is
  292:   essentially "unlimited". You can change the default by setting, for example,
  293: 
  294:   --with-match-limit-recursion=500000
  295: 
  296:   Recursive function calls use up the runtime stack; running out of stack can
  297:   cause programs to crash in strange ways. There is a discussion about stack
  298:   sizes in the pcrestack man page.
  299: 
  300: . The default maximum compiled pattern size is around 64K. You can increase
  301:   this by adding --with-link-size=3 to the "configure" command. In the 8-bit
  302:   library, PCRE then uses three bytes instead of two for offsets to different
  303:   parts of the compiled pattern. In the 16-bit library, --with-link-size=3 is
  304:   the same as --with-link-size=4, which (in both libraries) uses four-byte
  305:   offsets. Increasing the internal link size reduces performance. In the 32-bit
  306:   library, the only supported link size is 4.
  307: 
  308: . You can build PCRE so that its internal match() function that is called from
  309:   pcre_exec() does not call itself recursively. Instead, it uses memory blocks
  310:   obtained from the heap via the special functions pcre_stack_malloc() and
  311:   pcre_stack_free() to save data that would otherwise be saved on the stack. To
  312:   build PCRE like this, use
  313: 
  314:   --disable-stack-for-recursion
  315: 
  316:   on the "configure" command. PCRE runs more slowly in this mode, but it may be
  317:   necessary in environments with limited stack sizes. This applies only to the
  318:   normal execution of the pcre_exec() function; if JIT support is being
  319:   successfully used, it is not relevant. Equally, it does not apply to
  320:   pcre_dfa_exec(), which does not use deeply nested recursion. There is a
  321:   discussion about stack sizes in the pcrestack man page.
  322: 
  323: . For speed, PCRE uses four tables for manipulating and identifying characters
  324:   whose code point values are less than 256. By default, it uses a set of
  325:   tables for ASCII encoding that is part of the distribution. If you specify
  326: 
  327:   --enable-rebuild-chartables
  328: 
  329:   a program called dftables is compiled and run in the default C locale when
  330:   you obey "make". It builds a source file called pcre_chartables.c. If you do
  331:   not specify this option, pcre_chartables.c is created as a copy of
  332:   pcre_chartables.c.dist. See "Character tables" below for further information.
  333: 
  334: . It is possible to compile PCRE for use on systems that use EBCDIC as their
  335:   character code (as opposed to ASCII/Unicode) by specifying
  336: 
  337:   --enable-ebcdic
  338: 
  339:   This automatically implies --enable-rebuild-chartables (see above). However,
  340:   when PCRE is built this way, it always operates in EBCDIC. It cannot support
  341:   both EBCDIC and UTF-8/16/32. There is a second option, --enable-ebcdic-nl25,
  342:   which specifies that the code value for the EBCDIC NL character is 0x25
  343:   instead of the default 0x15.
  344: 
  345: . In environments where valgrind is installed, if you specify
  346: 
  347:   --enable-valgrind
  348: 
  349:   PCRE will use valgrind annotations to mark certain memory regions as
  350:   unaddressable. This allows it to detect invalid memory accesses, and is
  351:   mostly useful for debugging PCRE itself.
  352: 
  353: . In environments where the gcc compiler is used and lcov version 1.6 or above
  354:   is installed, if you specify
  355: 
  356:   --enable-coverage
  357: 
  358:   the build process implements a code coverage report for the test suite. The
  359:   report is generated by running "make coverage". If ccache is installed on
  360:   your system, it must be disabled when building PCRE for coverage reporting.
  361:   You can do this by setting the environment variable CCACHE_DISABLE=1 before
  362:   running "make" to build PCRE. There is more information about coverage
  363:   reporting in the "pcrebuild" documentation.
  364: 
  365: . The pcregrep program currently supports only 8-bit data files, and so
  366:   requires the 8-bit PCRE library. It is possible to compile pcregrep to use
  367:   libz and/or libbz2, in order to read .gz and .bz2 files (respectively), by
  368:   specifying one or both of
  369: 
  370:   --enable-pcregrep-libz
  371:   --enable-pcregrep-libbz2
  372: 
  373:   Of course, the relevant libraries must be installed on your system.
  374: 
  375: . The default size of internal buffer used by pcregrep can be set by, for
  376:   example:
  377: 
  378:   --with-pcregrep-bufsize=50K
  379: 
  380:   The default value is 20K.
  381: 
  382: . It is possible to compile pcretest so that it links with the libreadline
  383:   or libedit libraries, by specifying, respectively,
  384: 
  385:   --enable-pcretest-libreadline or --enable-pcretest-libedit
  386: 
  387:   If this is done, when pcretest's input is from a terminal, it reads it using
  388:   the readline() function. This provides line-editing and history facilities.
  389:   Note that libreadline is GPL-licenced, so if you distribute a binary of
  390:   pcretest linked in this way, there may be licensing issues. These can be
  391:   avoided by linking with libedit (which has a BSD licence) instead.
  392: 
  393:   Enabling libreadline causes the -lreadline option to be added to the pcretest
  394:   build. In many operating environments with a sytem-installed readline
  395:   library this is sufficient. However, in some environments (e.g. if an
  396:   unmodified distribution version of readline is in use), it may be necessary
  397:   to specify something like LIBS="-lncurses" as well. This is because, to quote
  398:   the readline INSTALL, "Readline uses the termcap functions, but does not link
  399:   with the termcap or curses library itself, allowing applications which link
  400:   with readline the to choose an appropriate library." If you get error
  401:   messages about missing functions tgetstr, tgetent, tputs, tgetflag, or tgoto,
  402:   this is the problem, and linking with the ncurses library should fix it.
  403: 
  404: The "configure" script builds the following files for the basic C library:
  405: 
  406: . Makefile             the makefile that builds the library
  407: . config.h             build-time configuration options for the library
  408: . pcre.h               the public PCRE header file
  409: . pcre-config          script that shows the building settings such as CFLAGS
  410:                          that were set for "configure"
  411: . libpcre.pc         ) data for the pkg-config command
  412: . libpcre16.pc       )
  413: . libpcre32.pc       )
  414: . libpcreposix.pc    )
  415: . libtool              script that builds shared and/or static libraries
  416: 
  417: Versions of config.h and pcre.h are distributed in the PCRE tarballs under the
  418: names config.h.generic and pcre.h.generic. These are provided for those who
  419: have to built PCRE without using "configure" or CMake. If you use "configure"
  420: or CMake, the .generic versions are not used.
  421: 
  422: When building the 8-bit library, if a C++ compiler is found, the following
  423: files are also built:
  424: 
  425: . libpcrecpp.pc        data for the pkg-config command
  426: . pcrecpparg.h         header file for calling PCRE via the C++ wrapper
  427: . pcre_stringpiece.h   header for the C++ "stringpiece" functions
  428: 
  429: The "configure" script also creates config.status, which is an executable
  430: script that can be run to recreate the configuration, and config.log, which
  431: contains compiler output from tests that "configure" runs.
  432: 
  433: Once "configure" has run, you can run "make". This builds the the libraries
  434: libpcre, libpcre16 and/or libpcre32, and a test program called pcretest. If you
  435: enabled JIT support with --enable-jit, a test program called pcre_jit_test is
  436: built as well.
  437: 
  438: If the 8-bit library is built, libpcreposix and the pcregrep command are also
  439: built, and if a C++ compiler was found on your system, and you did not disable
  440: it with --disable-cpp, "make" builds the C++ wrapper library, which is called
  441: libpcrecpp, as well as some test programs called pcrecpp_unittest,
  442: pcre_scanner_unittest, and pcre_stringpiece_unittest.
  443: 
  444: The command "make check" runs all the appropriate tests. Details of the PCRE
  445: tests are given below in a separate section of this document.
  446: 
  447: You can use "make install" to install PCRE into live directories on your
  448: system. The following are installed (file names are all relative to the
  449: <prefix> that is set when "configure" is run):
  450: 
  451:   Commands (bin):
  452:     pcretest
  453:     pcregrep (if 8-bit support is enabled)
  454:     pcre-config
  455: 
  456:   Libraries (lib):
  457:     libpcre16     (if 16-bit support is enabled)
  458:     libpcre32     (if 32-bit support is enabled)
  459:     libpcre       (if 8-bit support is enabled)
  460:     libpcreposix  (if 8-bit support is enabled)
  461:     libpcrecpp    (if 8-bit and C++ support is enabled)
  462: 
  463:   Configuration information (lib/pkgconfig):
  464:     libpcre16.pc
  465:     libpcre32.pc
  466:     libpcre.pc
  467:     libpcreposix.pc
  468:     libpcrecpp.pc (if C++ support is enabled)
  469: 
  470:   Header files (include):
  471:     pcre.h
  472:     pcreposix.h
  473:     pcre_scanner.h      )
  474:     pcre_stringpiece.h  ) if C++ support is enabled
  475:     pcrecpp.h           )
  476:     pcrecpparg.h        )
  477: 
  478:   Man pages (share/man/man{1,3}):
  479:     pcregrep.1
  480:     pcretest.1
  481:     pcre-config.1
  482:     pcre.3
  483:     pcre*.3 (lots more pages, all starting "pcre")
  484: 
  485:   HTML documentation (share/doc/pcre/html):
  486:     index.html
  487:     *.html (lots more pages, hyperlinked from index.html)
  488: 
  489:   Text file documentation (share/doc/pcre):
  490:     AUTHORS
  491:     COPYING
  492:     ChangeLog
  493:     LICENCE
  494:     NEWS
  495:     README
  496:     pcre.txt         (a concatenation of the man(3) pages)
  497:     pcretest.txt     the pcretest man page
  498:     pcregrep.txt     the pcregrep man page
  499:     pcre-config.txt  the pcre-config man page
  500: 
  501: If you want to remove PCRE from your system, you can run "make uninstall".
  502: This removes all the files that "make install" installed. However, it does not
  503: remove any directories, because these are often shared with other programs.
  504: 
  505: 
  506: Retrieving configuration information
  507: ------------------------------------
  508: 
  509: Running "make install" installs the command pcre-config, which can be used to
  510: recall information about the PCRE configuration and installation. For example:
  511: 
  512:   pcre-config --version
  513: 
  514: prints the version number, and
  515: 
  516:   pcre-config --libs
  517: 
  518: outputs information about where the library is installed. This command can be
  519: included in makefiles for programs that use PCRE, saving the programmer from
  520: having to remember too many details.
  521: 
  522: The pkg-config command is another system for saving and retrieving information
  523: about installed libraries. Instead of separate commands for each library, a
  524: single command is used. For example:
  525: 
  526:   pkg-config --cflags pcre
  527: 
  528: The data is held in *.pc files that are installed in a directory called
  529: <prefix>/lib/pkgconfig.
  530: 
  531: 
  532: Shared libraries
  533: ----------------
  534: 
  535: The default distribution builds PCRE as shared libraries and static libraries,
  536: as long as the operating system supports shared libraries. Shared library
  537: support relies on the "libtool" script which is built as part of the
  538: "configure" process.
  539: 
  540: The libtool script is used to compile and link both shared and static
  541: libraries. They are placed in a subdirectory called .libs when they are newly
  542: built. The programs pcretest and pcregrep are built to use these uninstalled
  543: libraries (by means of wrapper scripts in the case of shared libraries). When
  544: you use "make install" to install shared libraries, pcregrep and pcretest are
  545: automatically re-built to use the newly installed shared libraries before being
  546: installed themselves. However, the versions left in the build directory still
  547: use the uninstalled libraries.
  548: 
  549: To build PCRE using static libraries only you must use --disable-shared when
  550: configuring it. For example:
  551: 
  552: ./configure --prefix=/usr/gnu --disable-shared
  553: 
  554: Then run "make" in the usual way. Similarly, you can use --disable-static to
  555: build only shared libraries.
  556: 
  557: 
  558: Cross-compiling using autotools
  559: -------------------------------
  560: 
  561: You can specify CC and CFLAGS in the normal way to the "configure" command, in
  562: order to cross-compile PCRE for some other host. However, you should NOT
  563: specify --enable-rebuild-chartables, because if you do, the dftables.c source
  564: file is compiled and run on the local host, in order to generate the inbuilt
  565: character tables (the pcre_chartables.c file). This will probably not work,
  566: because dftables.c needs to be compiled with the local compiler, not the cross
  567: compiler.
  568: 
  569: When --enable-rebuild-chartables is not specified, pcre_chartables.c is created
  570: by making a copy of pcre_chartables.c.dist, which is a default set of tables
  571: that assumes ASCII code. Cross-compiling with the default tables should not be
  572: a problem.
  573: 
  574: If you need to modify the character tables when cross-compiling, you should
  575: move pcre_chartables.c.dist out of the way, then compile dftables.c by hand and
  576: run it on the local host to make a new version of pcre_chartables.c.dist.
  577: Then when you cross-compile PCRE this new version of the tables will be used.
  578: 
  579: 
  580: Using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC)
  581: ----------------------------------
  582: 
  583: Unless C++ support is disabled by specifying the "--disable-cpp" option of the
  584: "configure" script, you must include the "-AA" option in the CXXFLAGS
  585: environment variable in order for the C++ components to compile correctly.
  586: 
  587: Also, note that the aCC compiler on PA-RISC platforms may have a defect whereby
  588: needed libraries fail to get included when specifying the "-AA" compiler
  589: option. If you experience unresolved symbols when linking the C++ programs,
  590: use the workaround of specifying the following environment variable prior to
  591: running the "configure" script:
  592: 
  593:   CXXLDFLAGS="-lstd_v2 -lCsup_v2"
  594: 
  595: 
  596: Compiling in Tru64 using native compilers
  597: -----------------------------------------
  598: 
  599: The following error may occur when compiling with native compilers in the Tru64
  600: operating system:
  601: 
  602:   CXX    libpcrecpp_la-pcrecpp.lo
  603: cxx: Error: /usr/lib/cmplrs/cxx/V7.1-006/include/cxx/iosfwd, line 58: #error
  604:           directive: "cannot include iosfwd -- define __USE_STD_IOSTREAM to
  605:           override default - see section 7.1.2 of the C++ Using Guide"
  606: #error "cannot include iosfwd -- define __USE_STD_IOSTREAM to override default
  607: - see section 7.1.2 of the C++ Using Guide"
  608: 
  609: This may be followed by other errors, complaining that 'namespace "std" has no
  610: member'. The solution to this is to add the line
  611: 
  612: #define __USE_STD_IOSTREAM 1
  613: 
  614: to the config.h file.
  615: 
  616: 
  617: Using Sun's compilers for Solaris
  618: ---------------------------------
  619: 
  620: A user reports that the following configurations work on Solaris 9 sparcv9 and
  621: Solaris 9 x86 (32-bit):
  622: 
  623:   Solaris 9 sparcv9: ./configure --disable-cpp CC=/bin/cc CFLAGS="-m64 -g"
  624:   Solaris 9 x86:     ./configure --disable-cpp CC=/bin/cc CFLAGS="-g"
  625: 
  626: 
  627: Using PCRE from MySQL
  628: ---------------------
  629: 
  630: On systems where both PCRE and MySQL are installed, it is possible to make use
  631: of PCRE from within MySQL, as an alternative to the built-in pattern matching.
  632: There is a web page that tells you how to do this:
  633: 
  634:   http://www.mysqludf.org/lib_mysqludf_preg/index.php
  635: 
  636: 
  637: Making new tarballs
  638: -------------------
  639: 
  640: The command "make dist" creates three PCRE tarballs, in tar.gz, tar.bz2, and
  641: zip formats. The command "make distcheck" does the same, but then does a trial
  642: build of the new distribution to ensure that it works.
  643: 
  644: If you have modified any of the man page sources in the doc directory, you
  645: should first run the PrepareRelease script before making a distribution. This
  646: script creates the .txt and HTML forms of the documentation from the man pages.
  647: 
  648: 
  649: Testing PCRE
  650: ------------
  651: 
  652: To test the basic PCRE library on a Unix-like system, run the RunTest script.
  653: There is another script called RunGrepTest that tests the options of the
  654: pcregrep command. If the C++ wrapper library is built, three test programs
  655: called pcrecpp_unittest, pcre_scanner_unittest, and pcre_stringpiece_unittest
  656: are also built. When JIT support is enabled, another test program called
  657: pcre_jit_test is built.
  658: 
  659: Both the scripts and all the program tests are run if you obey "make check" or
  660: "make test". For other environments, see the instructions in
  661: NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.
  662: 
  663: The RunTest script runs the pcretest test program (which is documented in its
  664: own man page) on each of the relevant testinput files in the testdata
  665: directory, and compares the output with the contents of the corresponding
  666: testoutput files. RunTest uses a file called testtry to hold the main output
  667: from pcretest. Other files whose names begin with "test" are used as working
  668: files in some tests.
  669: 
  670: Some tests are relevant only when certain build-time options were selected. For
  671: example, the tests for UTF-8/16/32 support are run only if --enable-utf was
  672: used. RunTest outputs a comment when it skips a test.
  673: 
  674: Many of the tests that are not skipped are run up to three times. The second
  675: run forces pcre_study() to be called for all patterns except for a few in some
  676: tests that are marked "never study" (see the pcretest program for how this is
  677: done). If JIT support is available, the non-DFA tests are run a third time,
  678: this time with a forced pcre_study() with the PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE option.
  679: This testing can be suppressed by putting "nojit" on the RunTest command line.
  680: 
  681: The entire set of tests is run once for each of the 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit
  682: libraries that are enabled. If you want to run just one set of tests, call
  683: RunTest with either the -8, -16 or -32 option.
  684: 
  685: If valgrind is installed, you can run the tests under it by putting "valgrind"
  686: on the RunTest command line. To run pcretest on just one or more specific test
  687: files, give their numbers as arguments to RunTest, for example:
  688: 
  689:   RunTest 2 7 11
  690: 
  691: You can also specify ranges of tests such as 3-6 or 3- (meaning 3 to the
  692: end), or a number preceded by ~ to exclude a test. For example:
  693: 
  694:   Runtest 3-15 ~10
  695: 
  696: This runs tests 3 to 15, excluding test 10, and just ~13 runs all the tests
  697: except test 13. Whatever order the arguments are in, the tests are always run
  698: in numerical order.
  699: 
  700: You can also call RunTest with the single argument "list" to cause it to output
  701: a list of tests.
  702: 
  703: The first test file can be fed directly into the perltest.pl script to check
  704: that Perl gives the same results. The only difference you should see is in the
  705: first few lines, where the Perl version is given instead of the PCRE version.
  706: 
  707: The second set of tests check pcre_fullinfo(), pcre_study(),
  708: pcre_copy_substring(), pcre_get_substring(), pcre_get_substring_list(), error
  709: detection, and run-time flags that are specific to PCRE, as well as the POSIX
  710: wrapper API. It also uses the debugging flags to check some of the internals of
  711: pcre_compile().
  712: 
  713: If you build PCRE with a locale setting that is not the standard C locale, the
  714: character tables may be different (see next paragraph). In some cases, this may
  715: cause failures in the second set of tests. For example, in a locale where the
  716: isprint() function yields TRUE for characters in the range 128-255, the use of
  717: [:isascii:] inside a character class defines a different set of characters, and
  718: this shows up in this test as a difference in the compiled code, which is being
  719: listed for checking. Where the comparison test output contains [\x00-\x7f] the
  720: test will contain [\x00-\xff], and similarly in some other cases. This is not a
  721: bug in PCRE.
  722: 
  723: The third set of tests checks pcre_maketables(), the facility for building a
  724: set of character tables for a specific locale and using them instead of the
  725: default tables. The tests make use of the "fr_FR" (French) locale. Before
  726: running the test, the script checks for the presence of this locale by running
  727: the "locale" command. If that command fails, or if it doesn't include "fr_FR"
  728: in the list of available locales, the third test cannot be run, and a comment
  729: is output to say why. If running this test produces instances of the error
  730: 
  731:   ** Failed to set locale "fr_FR"
  732: 
  733: in the comparison output, it means that locale is not available on your system,
  734: despite being listed by "locale". This does not mean that PCRE is broken.
  735: 
  736: [If you are trying to run this test on Windows, you may be able to get it to
  737: work by changing "fr_FR" to "french" everywhere it occurs. Alternatively, use
  738: RunTest.bat. The version of RunTest.bat included with PCRE 7.4 and above uses
  739: Windows versions of test 2. More info on using RunTest.bat is included in the
  740: document entitled NON-UNIX-USE.]
  741: 
  742: The fourth and fifth tests check the UTF-8/16/32 support and error handling and
  743: internal UTF features of PCRE that are not relevant to Perl, respectively. The
  744: sixth and seventh tests do the same for Unicode character properties support.
  745: 
  746: The eighth, ninth, and tenth tests check the pcre_dfa_exec() alternative
  747: matching function, in non-UTF-8/16/32 mode, UTF-8/16/32 mode, and UTF-8/16/32
  748: mode with Unicode property support, respectively.
  749: 
  750: The eleventh test checks some internal offsets and code size features; it is
  751: run only when the default "link size" of 2 is set (in other cases the sizes
  752: change) and when Unicode property support is enabled.
  753: 
  754: The twelfth test is run only when JIT support is available, and the thirteenth
  755: test is run only when JIT support is not available. They test some JIT-specific
  756: features such as information output from pcretest about JIT compilation.
  757: 
  758: The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth tests are run only in 8-bit mode, and
  759: the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth tests are run only in 16/32-bit
  760: mode. These are tests that generate different output in the two modes. They are
  761: for general cases, UTF-8/16/32 support, and Unicode property support,
  762: respectively.
  763: 
  764: The twentieth test is run only in 16/32-bit mode. It tests some specific
  765: 16/32-bit features of the DFA matching engine.
  766: 
  767: The twenty-first and twenty-second tests are run only in 16/32-bit mode, when
  768: the link size is set to 2 for the 16-bit library. They test reloading
  769: pre-compiled patterns.
  770: 
  771: The twenty-third and twenty-fourth tests are run only in 16-bit mode. They are
  772: for general cases, and UTF-16 support, respectively.
  773: 
  774: The twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth tests are run only in 32-bit mode. They are
  775: for general cases, and UTF-32 support, respectively.
  776: 
  777: 
  778: Character tables
  779: ----------------
  780: 
  781: For speed, PCRE uses four tables for manipulating and identifying characters
  782: whose code point values are less than 256. The final argument of the
  783: pcre_compile() function is a pointer to a block of memory containing the
  784: concatenated tables. A call to pcre_maketables() can be used to generate a set
  785: of tables in the current locale. If the final argument for pcre_compile() is
  786: passed as NULL, a set of default tables that is built into the binary is used.
  787: 
  788: The source file called pcre_chartables.c contains the default set of tables. By
  789: default, this is created as a copy of pcre_chartables.c.dist, which contains
  790: tables for ASCII coding. However, if --enable-rebuild-chartables is specified
  791: for ./configure, a different version of pcre_chartables.c is built by the
  792: program dftables (compiled from dftables.c), which uses the ANSI C character
  793: handling functions such as isalnum(), isalpha(), isupper(), islower(), etc. to
  794: build the table sources. This means that the default C locale which is set for
  795: your system will control the contents of these default tables. You can change
  796: the default tables by editing pcre_chartables.c and then re-building PCRE. If
  797: you do this, you should take care to ensure that the file does not get
  798: automatically re-generated. The best way to do this is to move
  799: pcre_chartables.c.dist out of the way and replace it with your customized
  800: tables.
  801: 
  802: When the dftables program is run as a result of --enable-rebuild-chartables,
  803: it uses the default C locale that is set on your system. It does not pay
  804: attention to the LC_xxx environment variables. In other words, it uses the
  805: system's default locale rather than whatever the compiling user happens to have
  806: set. If you really do want to build a source set of character tables in a
  807: locale that is specified by the LC_xxx variables, you can run the dftables
  808: program by hand with the -L option. For example:
  809: 
  810:   ./dftables -L pcre_chartables.c.special
  811: 
  812: The first two 256-byte tables provide lower casing and case flipping functions,
  813: respectively. The next table consists of three 32-byte bit maps which identify
  814: digits, "word" characters, and white space, respectively. These are used when
  815: building 32-byte bit maps that represent character classes for code points less
  816: than 256.
  817: 
  818: The final 256-byte table has bits indicating various character types, as
  819: follows:
  820: 
  821:     1   white space character
  822:     2   letter
  823:     4   decimal digit
  824:     8   hexadecimal digit
  825:    16   alphanumeric or '_'
  826:   128   regular expression metacharacter or binary zero
  827: 
  828: You should not alter the set of characters that contain the 128 bit, as that
  829: will cause PCRE to malfunction.
  830: 
  831: 
  832: File manifest
  833: -------------
  834: 
  835: The distribution should contain the files listed below. Where a file name is
  836: given as pcre[16|32]_xxx it means that there are three files, one with the name
  837: pcre_xxx, one with the name pcre16_xx, and a third with the name pcre32_xxx.
  838: 
  839: (A) Source files of the PCRE library functions and their headers:
  840: 
  841:   dftables.c              auxiliary program for building pcre_chartables.c
  842:                           when --enable-rebuild-chartables is specified
  843: 
  844:   pcre_chartables.c.dist  a default set of character tables that assume ASCII
  845:                           coding; used, unless --enable-rebuild-chartables is
  846:                           specified, by copying to pcre[16]_chartables.c
  847: 
  848:   pcreposix.c                )
  849:   pcre[16|32]_byte_order.c   )
  850:   pcre[16|32]_compile.c      )
  851:   pcre[16|32]_config.c       )
  852:   pcre[16|32]_dfa_exec.c     )
  853:   pcre[16|32]_exec.c         )
  854:   pcre[16|32]_fullinfo.c     )
  855:   pcre[16|32]_get.c          ) sources for the functions in the library,
  856:   pcre[16|32]_globals.c      )   and some internal functions that they use
  857:   pcre[16|32]_jit_compile.c  )
  858:   pcre[16|32]_maketables.c   )
  859:   pcre[16|32]_newline.c      )
  860:   pcre[16|32]_refcount.c     )
  861:   pcre[16|32]_string_utils.c )
  862:   pcre[16|32]_study.c        )
  863:   pcre[16|32]_tables.c       )
  864:   pcre[16|32]_ucd.c          )
  865:   pcre[16|32]_version.c      )
  866:   pcre[16|32]_xclass.c       )
  867:   pcre_ord2utf8.c            )
  868:   pcre_valid_utf8.c          )
  869:   pcre16_ord2utf16.c         )
  870:   pcre16_utf16_utils.c       )
  871:   pcre16_valid_utf16.c       )
  872:   pcre32_utf32_utils.c       )
  873:   pcre32_valid_utf32.c       )
  874: 
  875:   pcre[16|32]_printint.c     ) debugging function that is used by pcretest,
  876:                              )   and can also be #included in pcre_compile()
  877: 
  878:   pcre.h.in               template for pcre.h when built by "configure"
  879:   pcreposix.h             header for the external POSIX wrapper API
  880:   pcre_internal.h         header for internal use
  881:   sljit/*                 16 files that make up the JIT compiler
  882:   ucp.h                   header for Unicode property handling
  883: 
  884:   config.h.in             template for config.h, which is built by "configure"
  885: 
  886:   pcrecpp.h               public header file for the C++ wrapper
  887:   pcrecpparg.h.in         template for another C++ header file
  888:   pcre_scanner.h          public header file for C++ scanner functions
  889:   pcrecpp.cc              )
  890:   pcre_scanner.cc         ) source for the C++ wrapper library
  891: 
  892:   pcre_stringpiece.h.in   template for pcre_stringpiece.h, the header for the
  893:                             C++ stringpiece functions
  894:   pcre_stringpiece.cc     source for the C++ stringpiece functions
  895: 
  896: (B) Source files for programs that use PCRE:
  897: 
  898:   pcredemo.c              simple demonstration of coding calls to PCRE
  899:   pcregrep.c              source of a grep utility that uses PCRE
  900:   pcretest.c              comprehensive test program
  901: 
  902: (C) Auxiliary files:
  903: 
  904:   132html                 script to turn "man" pages into HTML
  905:   AUTHORS                 information about the author of PCRE
  906:   ChangeLog               log of changes to the code
  907:   CleanTxt                script to clean nroff output for txt man pages
  908:   Detrail                 script to remove trailing spaces
  909:   HACKING                 some notes about the internals of PCRE
  910:   INSTALL                 generic installation instructions
  911:   LICENCE                 conditions for the use of PCRE
  912:   COPYING                 the same, using GNU's standard name
  913:   Makefile.in             ) template for Unix Makefile, which is built by
  914:                           )   "configure"
  915:   Makefile.am             ) the automake input that was used to create
  916:                           )   Makefile.in
  917:   NEWS                    important changes in this release
  918:   NON-UNIX-USE            the previous name for NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD
  919:   NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD     notes on building PCRE without using autotools
  920:   PrepareRelease          script to make preparations for "make dist"
  921:   README                  this file
  922:   RunTest                 a Unix shell script for running tests
  923:   RunGrepTest             a Unix shell script for pcregrep tests
  924:   aclocal.m4              m4 macros (generated by "aclocal")
  925:   config.guess            ) files used by libtool,
  926:   config.sub              )   used only when building a shared library
  927:   configure               a configuring shell script (built by autoconf)
  928:   configure.ac            ) the autoconf input that was used to build
  929:                           )   "configure" and config.h
  930:   depcomp                 ) script to find program dependencies, generated by
  931:                           )   automake
  932:   doc/*.3                 man page sources for PCRE
  933:   doc/*.1                 man page sources for pcregrep and pcretest
  934:   doc/index.html.src      the base HTML page
  935:   doc/html/*              HTML documentation
  936:   doc/pcre.txt            plain text version of the man pages
  937:   doc/pcretest.txt        plain text documentation of test program
  938:   doc/perltest.txt        plain text documentation of Perl test program
  939:   install-sh              a shell script for installing files
  940:   libpcre16.pc.in         template for libpcre16.pc for pkg-config
  941:   libpcre32.pc.in         template for libpcre32.pc for pkg-config
  942:   libpcre.pc.in           template for libpcre.pc for pkg-config
  943:   libpcreposix.pc.in      template for libpcreposix.pc for pkg-config
  944:   libpcrecpp.pc.in        template for libpcrecpp.pc for pkg-config
  945:   ltmain.sh               file used to build a libtool script
  946:   missing                 ) common stub for a few missing GNU programs while
  947:                           )   installing, generated by automake
  948:   mkinstalldirs           script for making install directories
  949:   perltest.pl             Perl test program
  950:   pcre-config.in          source of script which retains PCRE information
  951:   pcre_jit_test.c         test program for the JIT compiler
  952:   pcrecpp_unittest.cc          )
  953:   pcre_scanner_unittest.cc     ) test programs for the C++ wrapper
  954:   pcre_stringpiece_unittest.cc )
  955:   testdata/testinput*     test data for main library tests
  956:   testdata/testoutput*    expected test results
  957:   testdata/grep*          input and output for pcregrep tests
  958:   testdata/*              other supporting test files
  959: 
  960: (D) Auxiliary files for cmake support
  961: 
  962:   cmake/COPYING-CMAKE-SCRIPTS
  963:   cmake/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake
  964:   cmake/FindEditline.cmake
  965:   cmake/FindReadline.cmake
  966:   CMakeLists.txt
  967:   config-cmake.h.in
  968: 
  969: (E) Auxiliary files for VPASCAL
  970: 
  971:   makevp.bat
  972:   makevp_c.txt
  973:   makevp_l.txt
  974:   pcregexp.pas
  975: 
  976: (F) Auxiliary files for building PCRE "by hand"
  977: 
  978:   pcre.h.generic          ) a version of the public PCRE header file
  979:                           )   for use in non-"configure" environments
  980:   config.h.generic        ) a version of config.h for use in non-"configure"
  981:                           )   environments
  982: 
  983: (F) Miscellaneous
  984: 
  985:   RunTest.bat            a script for running tests under Windows
  986: 
  987: Philip Hazel
  988: Email local part: ph10
  989: Email domain: cam.ac.uk
  990: Last updated: 05 November 2013

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