Edit file File name : pcrefuns.hlp Content :pcre_compile SYNOPSIS Compile a PCRE regular expression USAGE PCRE_Type pcre_compile (String_Type pattern [, Int_Type options]) DESCRIPTION The `pcre_compile' function compiles a PCRE style regular expression and returns the result. The optional `options' argument may be used to provide addition information affecting the compilation of the pattern. Specifically, it is a bit-mapped value formed from the logical-or of zero or more of the following symbolic constants: PCRE_ANCHORED Force the match to be at the start of a string PCRE_CASELESS Matches are to be case-insensitive PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY (See PCRE docs for more information) PCRE_DOTALL The dot pattern matches all characters PCRE_EXTENDED Ignore whitespace in the pattern PCRE_EXTRA (See PCRE docs for features this activates) PCRE_MULTILINE Treat the subject string as multi-lines PCRE_UNGREEDY Make the matches not greedy PCRE_UTF8 Regard the pattern and subject strings as UTF-8 Many of these flags may be set within the pattern itself. See the PCRE library documentation for more information about the precise details of these flags and the supported regular expressions. Upon success, this function returns a PCRE_Type object representing the compiled patterned. If compilation fails, a `ParseError' exception will be thrown. SEE ALSO pcre_exec, pcre_nth_match, pcre_nth_substr, pcre_matches -------------------------------------------------------------- pcre_exec SYNOPSIS Match a string against a compiled PCRE pattern USAGE Int_Type pcre_exec(p, str [,pos [,options]]); PCRE_Type p; String_Type str; Int_Type pos, options; DESCRIPTION The `pcre_exec' function applies a pre-compiled pattern `p' to a string `str' and returns the result of the match. The optional third argument `pos' may be used to specify the point, as an offset from the start of the string, where matching is to start. The fourth argument, if present, may be used to provide additional information about how matching is to take place. Its value may be specified as a logical-or of zero or more of the following flags: PCRE_NOTBOL The first character in the string is not at the beginning of a line. PCRE_NOTEOL The last character in the string is not at the end of a line. PCRE_NOTEMPTY An empty string is not a valid match. See the PCRE library documentation for more information about the meaning of these flags. Upon success, this function returns a positive integer equal to 1 plus the number of so-called captured substrings. It returns 0 if the pattern fails to match the string. SEE ALSO pcre_compile, pcre_nth_match, pcre_nth_substr, pcre_matches -------------------------------------------------------------- pcre_matches SYNOPSIS Match a PCRE to a string and return the matches USAGE String_Type[] = pcre_matches (regexp, str [,pcre_exec_options]) DESCRIPTION This function combines the `pcre_exec' and `pcre_nth_substr' functions into simple to use function that matches the specified regular expression `regexp' to the string `string' and returns matched substrings as an array. If `regexp' is a string, the function will first compile the pattern using the `pcre_compile' function. The third parameter is optional and, if provided, will be passed as the `options' parameter to `pcre_exec'. If no match is found, the function will return NULL. QUALIFIERS The following qualifiers are supported: options=int Options to pass to pcre_compile offset=int Start matching offset in bytes for pcre_exec EXAMPLE After the execution of: str = "Error in file foo.c, line 127, column 10"; pattern = "file ([^,]+), line (\\d+)"; matches = pcre_matches (pattern, str); the value of the matches variable will be the array: [ "file foo.c, line 127", "foo.c", 127 ] SEE ALSO pcre_compile, pcre_exec, pcre_nth_substr, pcre_nth_match -------------------------------------------------------------- pcre_nth_match SYNOPSIS Return the location of the nth match of a PCRE USAGE Int_Type[2] pcre_nth_match (PCRE_Type p, Int_Type nth) DESCRIPTION The `pcre_nth_match' function returns an integer array whose values specify the locations of the beginning and end of the `nth' captured substrings of the most recent call to `pcre_exec' with the compiled pattern. A value of `nth' equal to 0 represents the substring representing the entire match of the pattern. If the `nth' match did not take place, the function returns NULL. EXAMPLE After the execution of: str = "Error in file foo.c, line 127, column 10"; pattern = "file ([^,]+), line (\\d+)"; p = pcre_compile (pattern); if (pcre_exec (p, str)) { match_pos = pcre_nth_match (p, 0); file_pos = pcre_nth_match (p, 1); line_pos = pcre_nth_match (p, 2); } `match_pos' will be set to `[9,29]', `file_pos' to `[14,19,]' and `line_pos' to `[26,29]'. These integer arrays may be used to extract the substrings matched by the pattern, e.g., file = substr (str, file_pos[0]+1, file_pos[1]-file_pos[0]); line = str[[line_pos[0]:line_pos[1]-1]]; Alternatively, the function `pcre_nth_substr' may be used to get the matched substrings: file = pcre_nth_substr (p, str, 0); SEE ALSO pcre_compile, pcre_exec, pcre_nth_substr, pcre_matches -------------------------------------------------------------- pcre_nth_substr SYNOPSIS Extract the nth substring from a PCRE match USAGE String_Type pcre_nth_substr (PCRE_Type p, String_Type str, Int_Type nth) DESCRIPTION This function may be used to extract the `nth' captured substring resulting from the most recent use of the compiled pattern `p' by the `pcre_exec' function. Unlike `pcre_nth_match', this function returns the specified captured substring itself and not the position of the substring. For this reason, the subject string of the pattern is a required argument. SEE ALSO pcre_matches, pcre_compile, pcre_exec, pcre_nth_match -------------------------------------------------------------- slang_to_pcre SYNOPSIS Convert a S-Lang regular expression to a PCRE one USAGE String_Type slang_to_pcre (String_Type pattern) DESCRIPTION This function may be used to convert a slang regular expression to a PCRE compatible one. The converted pattern is returned. SEE ALSO pcre_compile, string_match -------------------------------------------------------------- Save