PCRE2_COMPILE(3)

NAME
PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

SYNOPSIS

#include <pcre2.h>

pcre2_code *pcre2_compile(PCRE2_SPTR pattern, PCRE2_SIZE length,
  uint32_t options, int *errorcode, PCRE2_SIZE *erroroffset,
  pcre2_compile_context *ccontext);

DESCRIPTION

This function compiles a regular expression pattern into an internal form. Its arguments are:

  pattern A string containing expression to be compiled
  length The length of the string or PCRE2_ZERO_TERMINATED
  options Option bits
  errorcode Where to put an error code
  erroffset Where to put an error offset
  ccontext Pointer to a compile context or NULL

The length of the string and any error offset that is returned are in code units, not characters. A compile context is needed only if you want to change

  What \R matches (Unicode newlines or CR, LF, CRLF only)
  PCRE2's character tables
  The newline character sequence
  The compile time nested parentheses limit

or provide an external function for stack size checking. The option bits are:

  PCRE2_ANCHORED Force pattern anchoring
  PCRE2_ALT_BSUX Alternative handling of \u, \U, and \x
  PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX Alternative handling of ^ in multiline mode
  PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT Compile automatic callouts
  PCRE2_CASELESS Do caseless matching
  PCRE2_DOLLAR_ENDONLY $ not to match newline at end
  PCRE2_DOTALL . matches anything including NL
  PCRE2_DUPNAMES Allow duplicate names for subpatterns
  PCRE2_EXTENDED Ignore white space and # comments
  PCRE2_FIRSTLINE Force matching to be before newline
  PCRE2_MATCH_UNSET_BACKREF Match unset back references
  PCRE2_MULTILINE ^ and $ match newlines within data
  PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C Lock out the use of \C in patterns
  PCRE2_NEVER_UCP Lock out PCRE2_UCP, e.g. via (*UCP)
  PCRE2_NEVER_UTF Lock out PCRE2_UTF, e.g. via (*UTF)
  PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE Disable numbered capturing paren-
                        theses (named ones available)
  PCRE2_NO_AUTO_POSSESS Disable auto-possessification
  PCRE2_NO_DOTSTAR_ANCHOR Disable automatic anchoring for .*
  PCRE2_NO_START_OPTIMIZE Disable match-time start optimizations
  PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK Do not check the pattern for UTF validity
                        (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF is set)
  PCRE2_UCP Use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc.
  PCRE2_UNGREEDY Invert greediness of quantifiers
  PCRE2_UTF Treat pattern and subjects as UTF strings

PCRE2 must be built with Unicode support in order to use PCRE2_UTF, PCRE2_UCP and related options.

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.

There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API in the pcre2api page and a description of the POSIX API in the pcre2posix page.