Annotation of embedaddon/pcre/doc/pcre.3, revision 1.1.1.1
1.1 misho 1: .TH PCRE 3
2: .SH NAME
3: PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
4: .SH INTRODUCTION
5: .rs
6: .sp
7: The PCRE library is a set of functions that implement regular expression
8: pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics as Perl, with just a few
9: differences. Some features that appeared in Python and PCRE before they
10: appeared in Perl are also available using the Python syntax, there is some
11: support for one or two .NET and Oniguruma syntax items, and there is an option
12: for requesting some minor changes that give better JavaScript compatibility.
13: .P
14: The current implementation of PCRE corresponds approximately with Perl 5.12,
15: including support for UTF-8 encoded strings and Unicode general category
16: properties. However, UTF-8 and Unicode support has to be explicitly enabled; it
17: is not the default. The Unicode tables correspond to Unicode release 6.0.0.
18: .P
19: In addition to the Perl-compatible matching function, PCRE contains an
20: alternative function that matches the same compiled patterns in a different
21: way. In certain circumstances, the alternative function has some advantages.
22: For a discussion of the two matching algorithms, see the
23: .\" HREF
24: \fBpcrematching\fP
25: .\"
26: page.
27: .P
28: PCRE is written in C and released as a C library. A number of people have
29: written wrappers and interfaces of various kinds. In particular, Google Inc.
30: have provided a comprehensive C++ wrapper. This is now included as part of the
31: PCRE distribution. The
32: .\" HREF
33: \fBpcrecpp\fP
34: .\"
35: page has details of this interface. Other people's contributions can be found
36: in the \fIContrib\fP directory at the primary FTP site, which is:
37: .sp
38: .\" HTML <a href="ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre">
39: .\" </a>
40: ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre
41: .P
42: Details of exactly which Perl regular expression features are and are not
43: supported by PCRE are given in separate documents. See the
44: .\" HREF
45: \fBpcrepattern\fP
46: .\"
47: and
48: .\" HREF
49: \fBpcrecompat\fP
50: .\"
51: pages. There is a syntax summary in the
52: .\" HREF
53: \fBpcresyntax\fP
54: .\"
55: page.
56: .P
57: Some features of PCRE can be included, excluded, or changed when the library is
58: built. The
59: .\" HREF
60: \fBpcre_config()\fP
61: .\"
62: function makes it possible for a client to discover which features are
63: available. The features themselves are described in the
64: .\" HREF
65: \fBpcrebuild\fP
66: .\"
67: page. Documentation about building PCRE for various operating systems can be
68: found in the \fBREADME\fP and \fBNON-UNIX-USE\fP files in the source
69: distribution.
70: .P
71: The library contains a number of undocumented internal functions and data
72: tables that are used by more than one of the exported external functions, but
73: which are not intended for use by external callers. Their names all begin with
74: "_pcre_", which hopefully will not provoke any name clashes. In some
75: environments, it is possible to control which external symbols are exported
76: when a shared library is built, and in these cases the undocumented symbols are
77: not exported.
78: .
79: .
80: .SH "USER DOCUMENTATION"
81: .rs
82: .sp
83: The user documentation for PCRE comprises a number of different sections. In
84: the "man" format, each of these is a separate "man page". In the HTML format,
85: each is a separate page, linked from the index page. In the plain text format,
86: all the sections, except the \fBpcredemo\fP section, are concatenated, for ease
87: of searching. The sections are as follows:
88: .sp
89: pcre this document
90: pcre-config show PCRE installation configuration information
91: pcreapi details of PCRE's native C API
92: pcrebuild options for building PCRE
93: pcrecallout details of the callout feature
94: pcrecompat discussion of Perl compatibility
95: pcrecpp details of the C++ wrapper
96: pcredemo a demonstration C program that uses PCRE
97: pcregrep description of the \fBpcregrep\fP command
98: pcrejit discussion of the just-in-time optimization support
99: pcrelimits details of size and other limits
100: pcrematching discussion of the two matching algorithms
101: pcrepartial details of the partial matching facility
102: .\" JOIN
103: pcrepattern syntax and semantics of supported
104: regular expressions
105: pcreperform discussion of performance issues
106: pcreposix the POSIX-compatible C API
107: pcreprecompile details of saving and re-using precompiled patterns
108: pcresample discussion of the pcredemo program
109: pcrestack discussion of stack usage
110: pcresyntax quick syntax reference
111: pcretest description of the \fBpcretest\fP testing command
112: pcreunicode discussion of Unicode and UTF-8 support
113: .sp
114: In addition, in the "man" and HTML formats, there is a short page for each
115: C library function, listing its arguments and results.
116: .
117: .
118: .SH AUTHOR
119: .rs
120: .sp
121: .nf
122: Philip Hazel
123: University Computing Service
124: Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
125: .fi
126: .P
127: Putting an actual email address here seems to have been a spam magnet, so I've
128: taken it away. If you want to email me, use my two initials, followed by the
129: two digits 10, at the domain cam.ac.uk.
130: .
131: .
132: .SH REVISION
133: .rs
134: .sp
135: .nf
136: Last updated: 24 August 2011
137: Copyright (c) 1997-2011 University of Cambridge.
138: .fi
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