PCRE\_COMPILE2(3) Library Functions Manual PCRE\_COMPILE2(3)

# [NAME](#NAME)

PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**#include <pcre.h>**

```
pcre *pcre_compile2(const char *pattern, int options,
     int *errorcodeptr,
     const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
     const unsigned char *tableptr);

pcre16 *pcre16_compile2(PCRE_SPTR16 pattern, int options,
     int *errorcodeptr,
     const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
     const unsigned char *tableptr);

pcre32 *pcre32_compile2(PCRE_SPTR32 pattern, int options,
     int *errorcodeptr,£
     const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
     const unsigned char *tableptr);
```

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

This function compiles a regular expression into an internal form. It is the same as **pcre\[16|32]\_compile()**, except for the addition of the *errorcodeptr* argument. The arguments are:

*pattern* A zero-terminated string containing the  
regular expression to be compiled  
*options* Zero or more option bits  
*errorcodeptr* Where to put an error code  
*errptr* Where to put an error message  
*erroffset* Offset in pattern where error was found  
*tableptr* Pointer to character tables, or NULL to  
use the built-in default

The option bits are:

PCRE\_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring  
PCRE\_AUTO\_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts  
PCRE\_BSR\_ANYCRLF \\R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF  
PCRE\_BSR\_UNICODE \\R matches all Unicode line endings  
PCRE\_CASELESS Do caseless matching  
PCRE\_DOLLAR\_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end  
PCRE\_DOTALL . matches anything including NL  
PCRE\_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns  
PCRE\_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments  
PCRE\_EXTRA PCRE extra features  
(not much use currently)  
PCRE\_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline  
PCRE\_JAVASCRIPT\_COMPAT JavaScript compatibility  
PCRE\_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data  
PCRE\_NEVER\_UTF Lock out UTF, e.g. via (\*UTF)  
PCRE\_NEWLINE\_ANY Recognize any Unicode newline sequence  
PCRE\_NEWLINE\_ANYCRLF Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline  
sequences  
PCRE\_NEWLINE\_CR Set CR as the newline sequence  
PCRE\_NEWLINE\_CRLF Set CRLF as the newline sequence  
PCRE\_NEWLINE\_LF Set LF as the newline sequence  
PCRE\_NO\_AUTO\_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren-  
theses (named ones available)  
PCRE\_NO\_AUTO\_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification  
PCRE\_NO\_START\_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations  
PCRE\_NO\_UTF16\_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-16  
validity (only relevant if  
PCRE\_UTF16 is set)  
PCRE\_NO\_UTF32\_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-32  
validity (only relevant if  
PCRE\_UTF32 is set)  
PCRE\_NO\_UTF8\_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF-8  
validity (only relevant if  
PCRE\_UTF8 is set)  
PCRE\_UCP Use Unicode properties for \\d, \\w, etc.  
PCRE\_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers  
PCRE\_UTF16 Run **pcre16\_compile()** in UTF-16 mode  
PCRE\_UTF32 Run **pcre32\_compile()** in UTF-32 mode  
PCRE\_UTF8 Run **pcre\_compile()** in UTF-8 mode

PCRE must be built with UTF support in order to use PCRE\_UTF8/16/32 and PCRE\_NO\_UTF8/16/32\_CHECK, and with UCP support if PCRE\_UCP is used.

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. Note that compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes.

There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the **pcreapi** page and a description of the POSIX API in the **pcreposix** page.

01 October 2013 PCRE 8.34

---

Document: pcre16_compile2(3) from pcre 8.45-r11 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/pcre/pcre/8.45/pcre-8.45.tar.bz2