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<title>pcre_compile specification</title>
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<br><b>
SYNOPSIS
</b><br>
<P>
<b>#include <pcre.h></b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre *pcre_compile(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<br><b>
DESCRIPTION
</b><br>
<P>
This function compiles a regular expression into an internal form. Its
arguments are:
</P>
<P>
<pre>
<i>pattern</i> A zero-terminated string containing the
regular expression to be compiled
<i>options</i> Zero or more option bits
<i>errptr</i> Where to put an error message
<i>erroffset</i> Offset in pattern where error was found
<i>tableptr</i> Pointer to character tables, or NULL to
use the built-in default
</PRE>
</P>
<P>
The option bits are:
</P>
<P>
<pre>
PCRE_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring
PCRE_CASELESS Do caseless matching
PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end
PCRE_DOTALL . matches anything including NL
PCRE_EXTENDED Ignore whitespace and # comments
PCRE_EXTRA PCRE extra features
(not much use currently)
PCRE_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data
PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren-
theses (named ones available)
PCRE_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers
PCRE_UTF8 Run in UTF-8 mode
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-8
validity (only relevant if
PCRE_UTF8 is set)
</PRE>
</P>
<P>
PCRE must be compiled with UTF-8 support in order to use PCRE_UTF8
(or PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK).
</P>
<P>
The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that
contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected.
</P>
<P>
There is a complete description of the PCRE API in the
<a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
page.
