111 lines
		
	
	
		
			3.8 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			111 lines
		
	
	
		
			3.8 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
<html>
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<head>
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<title>pcre2sample specification</title>
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</head>
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<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
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<h1>pcre2sample man page</h1>
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<p>
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Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
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</p>
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<p>
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This page is part of the PCRE2 HTML documentation. It was generated
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automatically from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it,
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please consult the man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
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<br>
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<br><b>
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PCRE2 SAMPLE PROGRAM
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</b><br>
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<P>
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A simple, complete demonstration program to get you started with using PCRE2 is
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supplied in the file <i>pcre2demo.c</i> in the <b>src</b> directory in the PCRE2
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distribution. A listing of this program is given in the
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<a href="pcre2demo.html"><b>pcre2demo</b></a>
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documentation. If you do not have a copy of the PCRE2 distribution, you can
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save this listing to re-create the contents of <i>pcre2demo.c</i>.
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</P>
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<P>
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The demonstration program compiles the regular expression that is its
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first argument, and matches it against the subject string in its second
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argument. No PCRE2 options are set, and default character tables are used. If
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matching succeeds, the program outputs the portion of the subject that matched,
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together with the contents of any captured substrings.
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</P>
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<P>
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If the -g option is given on the command line, the program then goes on to
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check for further matches of the same regular expression in the same subject
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string. The logic is a little bit tricky because of the possibility of matching
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an empty string. Comments in the code explain what is going on.
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</P>
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<P>
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The code in <b>pcre2demo.c</b> is an 8-bit program that uses the PCRE2 8-bit
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library. It handles strings and characters that are stored in 8-bit code units.
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By default, one character corresponds to one code unit, but if the pattern
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starts with "(*UTF)", both it and the subject are treated as UTF-8 strings,
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where characters may occupy multiple code units.
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</P>
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<P>
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If PCRE2 is installed in the standard include and library directories for your
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operating system, you should be able to compile the demonstration program using
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a command like this:
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<pre>
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  cc -o pcre2demo pcre2demo.c -lpcre2-8
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</pre>
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If PCRE2 is installed elsewhere, you may need to add additional options to the
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command line. For example, on a Unix-like system that has PCRE2 installed in
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<i>/usr/local</i>, you can compile the demonstration program using a command
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like this:
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<pre>
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  cc -o pcre2demo -I/usr/local/include pcre2demo.c -L/usr/local/lib -lpcre2-8
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</pre>
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Once you have built the demonstration program, you can run simple tests like
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this:
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<pre>
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  ./pcre2demo 'cat|dog' 'the cat sat on the mat'
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  ./pcre2demo -g 'cat|dog' 'the dog sat on the cat'
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</pre>
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Note that there is a much more comprehensive test program, called
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<a href="pcre2test.html"><b>pcre2test</b>,</a>
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which supports many more facilities for testing regular expressions using all
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three PCRE2 libraries (8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit, though not all three need be
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installed). The
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<a href="pcre2demo.html"><b>pcre2demo</b></a>
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program is provided as a relatively simple coding example.
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</P>
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<P>
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If you try to run
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<a href="pcre2demo.html"><b>pcre2demo</b></a>
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when PCRE2 is not installed in the standard library directory, you may get an
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error like this on some operating systems (e.g. Solaris):
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<pre>
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  ld.so.1: pcre2demo: fatal: libpcre2-8.so.0: open failed: No such file or directory
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</pre>
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This is caused by the way shared library support works on those systems. You
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need to add
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<pre>
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  -R/usr/local/lib
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</pre>
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(for example) to the compile command to get round this problem.
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</P>
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<br><b>
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AUTHOR
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</b><br>
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<P>
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Philip Hazel
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<br>
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University Computing Service
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<br>
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Cambridge, England.
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<br>
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</P>
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<br><b>
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REVISION
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</b><br>
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<P>
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Last updated: 02 February 2016
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<br>
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Copyright © 1997-2016 University of Cambridge.
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<br>
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<p>
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Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
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</p>
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