PCRE2DEMO(3) Library Functions Manual PCRE2DEMO(3) NAME PCRE2DEMO - A demonstration C program for PCRE2 SOURCE CODE /************************************************* * PCRE2 DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM * *************************************************/ /* This is a demonstration program to illustrate a straightforward way of using the PCRE2 regular expression library from a C program. See the pcre2sample documentation for a short discussion ("man pcre2sample" if you have the PCRE2 man pages installed). PCRE2 is a revised API for the library, and is incompatible with the original PCRE API. There are actually three libraries, each supporting a different code unit width. This demonstration program uses the 8-bit library. The default is to process each code unit as a separate character, but if the pattern begins with "(*UTF)", both it and the subject are treated as UTF-8 strings, where characters may occupy multiple code units. In Unix-like environments, if PCRE2 is installed in your standard system libraries, you should be able to compile this program using this command: cc -Wall pcre2demo.c -lpcre2-8 -o pcre2demo If PCRE2 is not installed in a standard place, it is likely to be installed with support for the pkg-config mechanism. If you have pkg-config, you can compile this program using this command: cc -Wall pcre2demo.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs libpcre2-8` -o pcre2demo If you do not have pkg-config, you may have to use something like this: cc -Wall pcre2demo.c -I/usr/local/include -L/usr/local/lib \ -R/usr/local/lib -lpcre2-8 -o pcre2demo Replace "/usr/local/include" and "/usr/local/lib" with wherever the include and library files for PCRE2 are installed on your system. Only some operating systems (Solaris is one) use the -R option. Building under Windows: If you want to statically link this program against a non-dll .a file, you must define PCRE2_STATIC before including pcre2.h, so in this environment, uncomment the following line. */ /* #define PCRE2_STATIC */ /* The PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH macro must be defined before including pcre2.h. For a program that uses only one code unit width, setting it to 8, 16, or 32 makes it possible to use generic function names such as pcre2_compile(). Note that just changing 8 to 16 (for example) is not sufficient to convert this program to process 16-bit characters. Even in a fully 16-bit environment, where string-handling functions such as strcmp() and printf() work with 16-bit characters, the code for handling the table of named substrings will still need to be modified. */ #define PCRE2_CODE_UNIT_WIDTH 8 #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #include <pcre2.h> /************************************************************************** * Here is the program. The API includes the concept of "contexts" for * * setting up unusual interface requirements for compiling and matching, * * such as custom memory managers and non-standard newline definitions. * * This program does not do any of this, so it makes no use of contexts, * * always passing NULL where a context could be given. * **************************************************************************/ int main(int argc, char **argv) { pcre2_code *re; PCRE2_SPTR pattern; /* PCRE2_SPTR is a pointer to unsigned code units of */ PCRE2_SPTR subject; /* the appropriate width (in this case, 8 bits). */ PCRE2_SPTR name_table; int errornumber; int find_all, caseless_match; int i; int rc; uint32_t namecount; uint32_t name_entry_size; PCRE2_SIZE erroroffset; PCRE2_SIZE *ovector; PCRE2_SIZE ovector_last[2]; PCRE2_SIZE subject_length; pcre2_match_data *match_data; /************************************************************************** * First, sort out the command line. Options: * * - "-g" to request repeated matching to find all occurrences, * * like Perl's /g option. We set the variable find_all to a non-zero * * value if the -g option is present. * * - "-i" to request caseless matching, like Perl's /i option. We set the * * variable caseless_match to PCRE2_CASELESS if the -i option is * * present. * **************************************************************************/ find_all = 0; caseless_match = 0; for (i = 1; i < argc; i++) { if (strcmp(argv[i], "-g") == 0) find_all = 1; else if (strcmp(argv[i], "-i") == 0) caseless_match = PCRE2_CASELESS; else if (argv[i][0] == '-') { printf("Unrecognised option %s\n", argv[i]); return 1; } else break; } /* After the options, we require exactly two arguments, which are the pattern, and the subject string. */ if (argc - i != 2) { printf("Exactly two arguments required: a regex and a subject string\n"); return 1; } /* Pattern and subject are char arguments, so they can be straightforwardly cast to PCRE2_SPTR because we are working in 8-bit code units. The subject length is cast to PCRE2_SIZE for completeness, though PCRE2_SIZE is in fact defined to be size_t. */ pattern = (PCRE2_SPTR)argv[i]; subject = (PCRE2_SPTR)argv[i+1]; subject_length = (PCRE2_SIZE)strlen((char *)subject); /************************************************************************* * Now we are going to compile the regular expression pattern, and handle * * any errors that are detected. * *************************************************************************/ re = pcre2_compile( pattern, /* the pattern */ PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED, /* indicates pattern is zero-terminated */ caseless_match, /* possibly enable caseless */ &errornumber, /* for error number */ &erroroffset, /* for error offset */ NULL); /* use default compile context */ /* Compilation failed: print the error message and exit. */ if (re == NULL) { PCRE2_UCHAR buffer[256]; pcre2_get_error_message(errornumber, buffer, sizeof(buffer)); printf("PCRE2 compilation failed at offset %d: %s\n", (int)erroroffset, buffer); return 1; } /************************************************************************* * If the compilation succeeded, we call PCRE2 again, in order to do a * * pattern match against the subject string. This does just ONE match. If * * further matching is needed, it will be done below. Before running the * * match we must set up a match_data block for holding the result. Using * * pcre2_match_data_create_from_pattern() ensures that the block is * * exactly the right size for the number of capturing parentheses in the * * pattern. If you need to know the actual size of a match_data block as * * a number of bytes, you can find it like this: * * * * PCRE2_SIZE match_data_size = pcre2_get_match_data_size(match_data); * *************************************************************************/ match_data = pcre2_match_data_create_from_pattern(re, NULL); /* Now run the match. */ rc = pcre2_match( re, /* the compiled pattern */ subject, /* the subject string */ subject_length, /* the length of the subject */ 0, /* start at offset 0 in the subject */ 0, /* default options */ match_data, /* block for storing the result */ NULL); /* use default match context */ /* Matching failed: handle error cases */ if (rc < 0) { switch(rc) { case PCRE2_ERROR_NOMATCH: printf("No match\n"); break; /* Handle other special cases if you like */ default: printf("Matching error %d\n", rc); break; } pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); /* Release memory used for the match */ pcre2_code_free(re); /* data and the compiled pattern. */ return 1; } /* Match succeeded. Get a pointer to the output vector, where string offsets are stored. */ ovector = pcre2_get_ovector_pointer(match_data); printf("Match succeeded at offset %d\n", (int)ovector[0]); /************************************************************************* * We have found the first match within the subject string. If the output * * vector wasn't big enough, say so. Then output any substrings that were * * captured. * *************************************************************************/ /* The output vector wasn't big enough. This should not happen, because we used pcre2_match_data_create_from_pattern() above. */ if (rc == 0) printf("ovector was not big enough for all the captured substrings\n"); /* Since release 10.38 PCRE2 has locked out the use of \K in lookaround assertions. This is the recommended behaviour. However, the option PCRE2_EXTRA_ALLOW_LOOKAROUND_BSK allows applications to re-enable the old behaviour. If that is set, it is possible to run patterns such as /(?=.\K)/ that use \K in an assertion to set the start of a match later than its end. In this demonstration program, we show how to detect this case, although it cannot arise because the option is never set. */ if (ovector[0] > ovector[1]) { printf("\\K was used in an assertion to set the match start after its end.\n" "From end to start the match was: %.*s\n", (int)(ovector[0] - ovector[1]), (char *)(subject + ovector[1])); printf("Run abandoned\n"); pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); pcre2_code_free(re); return 1; } /* Show substrings stored in the output vector by number. Obviously, in a real application you might want to do things other than print them. */ for (i = 0; i < rc; i++) { PCRE2_SPTR substring_start = subject + ovector[2*i]; PCRE2_SIZE substring_length = ovector[2*i+1] - ovector[2*i]; printf("%2d: %.*s\n", i, (int)substring_length, (char *)substring_start); } /************************************************************************** * That concludes the basic part of this demonstration program. We have * * compiled a pattern, and performed a single match. The code that follows * * shows first how to access named substrings, and then how to code for * * repeated matches on the same subject. * **************************************************************************/ /* See if there are any named substrings, and if so, show them by name. First we have to extract the count of named parentheses from the pattern. */ (void)pcre2_pattern_info( re, /* the compiled pattern */ PCRE2_INFO_NAMECOUNT, /* get the number of named substrings */ &namecount); /* where to put the answer */ if (namecount == 0) printf("No named substrings\n"); else { PCRE2_SPTR tabptr; printf("Named substrings\n"); /* Before we can access the substrings, we must extract the table for translating names to numbers, and the size of each entry in the table. */ (void)pcre2_pattern_info( re, /* the compiled pattern */ PCRE2_INFO_NAMETABLE, /* address of the table */ &name_table); /* where to put the answer */ (void)pcre2_pattern_info( re, /* the compiled pattern */ PCRE2_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE, /* size of each entry in the table */ &name_entry_size); /* where to put the answer */ /* Now we can scan the table and, for each entry, print the number, the name, and the substring itself. In the 8-bit library the number is held in two bytes, most significant first. */ tabptr = name_table; for (i = 0; i < namecount; i++) { int n = (tabptr[0] << 8) | tabptr[1]; printf("(%d) %*s: %.*s\n", n, name_entry_size - 3, tabptr + 2, (int)(ovector[2*n+1] - ovector[2*n]), subject + ovector[2*n]); tabptr += name_entry_size; } } /************************************************************************* * If the "-g" option was given on the command line, we want to continue * * to search for additional matches in the subject string, in a similar * * way to the /g option in Perl. This turns out to be trickier than you * * might think because of the possibility of matching an empty string. * * * * To help with this task, PCRE2 provides the pcre2_next_match() helper. * *************************************************************************/ if (!find_all) /* Check for -g */ { pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); /* Release the memory that was used */ pcre2_code_free(re); /* for the match data and the pattern. */ return 0; /* Exit the program. */ } /* Loop for second and subsequent matches */ ovector_last[0] = ovector[0]; ovector_last[1] = ovector[1]; for (;;) { PCRE2_SIZE start_offset; uint32_t options; /* After each successful match, we use pcre2_next_match() to obtain the match parameters for subsequent match attempts. */ if (!pcre2_next_match(match_data, &start_offset, &options)) break; /* Run the next matching operation */ rc = pcre2_match( re, /* the compiled pattern */ subject, /* the subject string */ subject_length, /* the length of the subject */ start_offset, /* starting offset in the subject */ options, /* options */ match_data, /* block for storing the result */ NULL); /* use default match context */ /* If this match attempt fails, exit the loop for subsequent matches. */ if (rc == PCRE2_ERROR_NOMATCH) break; /* Other matching errors are not recoverable. */ if (rc < 0) { printf("Matching error %d\n", rc); pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); pcre2_code_free(re); return 1; } /* This demonstration program depends on pcre2_next_match() to ensure that the loop for second and subsequent matches does not run forever. However, it would be robust practice for a production application to verify this. The following block of code shows how to do this. This error case is not reachable unless there is a bug in PCRE2. Because this program does not set the PCRE2_EXTRA_ALLOW_LOOKAROUND_BSK option, the logic is simple. We verify that either ovector[1] has advanced, or that we have an empty match touching the end of a previous non-empty match. See the API documentation for guidance if your application uses PCRE2_EXTRA_ALLOW_LOOKAROUND_BSK and searches for multiple matches. */ if (!(ovector[1] > ovector_last[1] || (ovector[1] == ovector[0] && ovector_last[1] > ovector_last[0] && ovector[1] == ovector_last[1]))) { printf("\\K was used in an assertion to yield non-advancing matches.\n"); printf("Run abandoned\n"); pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); pcre2_code_free(re); return 1; } ovector_last[0] = ovector[0]; ovector_last[1] = ovector[1]; /* Match succeeded. */ printf("\nMatch succeeded again at offset %d\n", (int)ovector[0]); /* The match succeeded, but the output vector wasn't big enough. This should not happen. */ if (rc == 0) printf("ovector was not big enough for all the captured substrings\n"); /* We guard against patterns such as /(?=.\K)/ that use \K in an assertion to set the start of a match later than its end. As explained above, this case should not occur because this demonstration program does not set the PCRE2_EXTRA_ALLOW_LOOKAROUND_BSK option, however, we do include code showing how to detect it. */ if (ovector[0] > ovector[1]) { printf("\\K was used in an assertion to set the match start after its end.\n" "From end to start the match was: %.*s\n", (int)(ovector[0] - ovector[1]), (char *)(subject + ovector[1])); printf("Run abandoned\n"); pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); pcre2_code_free(re); return 1; } /* As before, show substrings stored in the output vector by number, and then also any named substrings. */ for (i = 0; i < rc; i++) { PCRE2_SPTR substring_start = subject + ovector[2*i]; size_t substring_length = ovector[2*i+1] - ovector[2*i]; printf("%2d: %.*s\n", i, (int)substring_length, (char *)substring_start); } if (namecount == 0) printf("No named substrings\n"); else { PCRE2_SPTR tabptr = name_table; printf("Named substrings\n"); for (i = 0; i < namecount; i++) { int n = (tabptr[0] << 8) | tabptr[1]; printf("(%d) %*s: %.*s\n", n, name_entry_size - 3, tabptr + 2, (int)(ovector[2*n+1] - ovector[2*n]), subject + ovector[2*n]); tabptr += name_entry_size; } } } /* End of loop to find second and subsequent matches */ printf("\n"); pcre2_match_data_free(match_data); pcre2_code_free(re); return 0; } /* End of pcre2demo.c */ PCRE2 10.47 24 March 2025 PCRE2DEMO(3)
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