PCRE2_MATCH(3)

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

SYNOPSIS

#include <pcre2.h>

int pcre2_match(const pcre2_code *code, PCRE2_SPTR subject,
  PCRE2_SIZE length, PCRE2_SIZE startoffset,
  uint32_t options, pcre2_match_data *match_data,
  pcre2_match_context *mcontext);

DESCRIPTION

This function matches a compiled regular expression against a given subject string, using a matching algorithm that is similar to Perl's. It returns offsets to captured substrings. Its arguments are:

  code Points to the compiled pattern
  subject Points to the subject string
  length Length of the subject string
  startoffset Offset in the subject at which to start matching
  options Option bits
  match_data Points to a match data block, for results
  mcontext Points to a match context, or is NULL

A match context is needed only if you want to:

  Set up a callout function
  Change the limit for calling the internal function match()
  Change the limit for calling match() recursively
  Set custom memory management when the heap is used for recursion

The length and startoffset values are code units, not characters. The options are:

  PCRE2_ANCHORED Match only at the first position
  PCRE2_NOTBOL Subject string is not the beginning of a line
  PCRE2_NOTEOL Subject string is not the end of a line
  PCRE2_NOTEMPTY An empty string is not a valid match
  PCRE2_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART An empty string at the start of the subject
                        is not a valid match
  PCRE2_NO_UTF_CHECK Do not check the subject for UTF
                        validity (only relevant if PCRE2_UTF
                        was set at compile time)
  PCRE2_PARTIAL_SOFT Return PCRE2_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial
                        match if no full matches are found
  PCRE2_PARTIAL_HARD Return PCRE2_ERROR_PARTIAL for a partial match
                        if that is found before a full match

For details of partial matching, see the pcre2partial page. 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.