FM / html

/usr/share/doc/pcre-devel/html

Name	Size	Mode	Actions
index.html	7677	0644	edit dl rm
NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.txt	31359	0644	edit dl rm
pcre-config.html	3659	0644	edit dl rm
pcre.html	10382	0644	edit dl rm
pcre16.html	16214	0644	edit dl rm
pcre32.html	16098	0644	edit dl rm
pcreapi.html	135354	0644	edit dl rm
pcrebuild.html	22838	0644	edit dl rm
pcrecallout.html	11675	0644	edit dl rm
pcrecompat.html	9791	0644	edit dl rm
pcrecpp.html	14395	0644	edit dl rm
pcredemo.html	16192	0644	edit dl rm
pcregrep.html	37847	0644	edit dl rm
pcrejit.html	22103	0644	edit dl rm
pcrelimits.html	3195	0644	edit dl rm
pcrematching.html	10898	0644	edit dl rm
pcrepartial.html	23592	0644	edit dl rm
pcrepattern.html	140690	0644	edit dl rm
pcreperform.html	7827	0644	edit dl rm
pcreposix.html	12139	0644	edit dl rm
pcreprecompile.html	7399	0644	edit dl rm
pcresample.html	3784	0644	edit dl rm
pcrestack.html	9594	0644	edit dl rm
pcresyntax.html	16694	0644	edit dl rm
pcretest.html	52187	0644	edit dl rm
pcreunicode.html	11444	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_assign_jit_stack.html	2541	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_compile.html	4735	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_compile2.html	4907	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_config.html	3938	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_copy_named_substring.html	2359	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_copy_substring.html	2115	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_dfa_exec.html	5969	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_exec.html	5059	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_free_study.html	1231	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_free_substring.html	1283	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_free_substring_list.html	1289	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_fullinfo.html	5150	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_get_named_substring.html	2460	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_get_stringnumber.html	1773	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_get_stringtable_entries.html	2062	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_get_substring.html	2243	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_get_substring_list.html	2198	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_jit_exec.html	4814	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_jit_stack_alloc.html	1720	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_jit_stack_free.html	1279	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_maketables.html	1397	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_pattern_to_host_byte_order.html	1960	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_refcount.html	1442	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_study.html	2146	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_utf16_to_host_byte_order.html	2033	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_utf32_to_host_byte_order.html	2033	0644	edit dl rm
pcre_version.html	1172	0644	edit dl rm
README.txt	45548	0644	edit dl rm

Edit: /usr/share/doc/pcre-devel/html/pcreprecompile.html (7399B)

<html>
<head>
<title>pcreprecompile specification</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
<h1>pcreprecompile man page</h1>

Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.


This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically
from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the
man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
 
<ul>
<li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">SAVING AND RE-USING PRECOMPILED PCRE PATTERNS</a>
<li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">SAVING A COMPILED PATTERN</a>
<li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">RE-USING A PRECOMPILED PATTERN</a>
<li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">COMPATIBILITY WITH DIFFERENT PCRE RELEASES</a>
<li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">AUTHOR</a>
<li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">REVISION</a>
</ul>
 <a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">SAVING AND RE-USING PRECOMPILED PCRE PATTERNS</a> 

If you are running an application that uses a large number of regular
expression patterns, it may be useful to store them in a precompiled form
instead of having to compile them every time the application is run.
If you are not using any private character tables (see the
<a href="pcre_maketables.html">pcre_maketables()</a>
documentation), this is relatively straightforward. If you are using private
tables, it is a little bit more complicated. However, if you are using the
just-in-time optimization feature, it is not possible to save and reload the
JIT data.


If you save compiled patterns to a file, you can copy them to a different host
and run them there. If the two hosts have different endianness (byte order),
you should run the pcre[16|32]_pattern_to_host_byte_order() function on the
new host before trying to match the pattern. The matching functions return
PCRE_ERROR_BADENDIANNESS if they detect a pattern with the wrong endianness.


Compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different
version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes, and saving and
restoring a compiled pattern loses any JIT optimization data.

 <a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">SAVING A COMPILED PATTERN</a> 

The value returned by pcre[16|32]_compile() points to a single block of
memory that holds the compiled pattern and associated data. You can find the
length of this block in bytes by calling pcre[16|32]_fullinfo() with an
argument of PCRE_INFO_SIZE. You can then save the data in any appropriate
manner. Here is sample code for the 8-bit library that compiles a pattern and
writes it to a file. It assumes that the variable fd refers to a file
that is open for output:
<pre>
 int erroroffset, rc, size;
 char *error;
 pcre *re;

re = pcre_compile("my pattern", 0, &error, &erroroffset, NULL);
 if (re == NULL) { ... handle errors ... }
 rc = pcre_fullinfo(re, NULL, PCRE_INFO_SIZE, &size);
 if (rc &#60; 0) { ... handle errors ... }
 rc = fwrite(re, 1, size, fd);
 if (rc != size) { ... handle errors ... }
</pre>
In this example, the bytes that comprise the compiled pattern are copied
exactly. Note that this is binary data that may contain any of the 256 possible
byte values. On systems that make a distinction between binary and non-binary
data, be sure that the file is opened for binary output.


If you want to write more than one pattern to a file, you will have to devise a
way of separating them. For binary data, preceding each pattern with its length
is probably the most straightforward approach. Another possibility is to write
out the data in hexadecimal instead of binary, one pattern to a line.


Saving compiled patterns in a file is only one possible way of storing them for
later use. They could equally well be saved in a database, or in the memory of
some daemon process that passes them via sockets to the processes that want
them.


If the pattern has been studied, it is also possible to save the normal study
data in a similar way to the compiled pattern itself. However, if the
PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE was used, the just-in-time data that is created cannot
be saved because it is too dependent on the current environment. When studying
generates additional information, pcre[16|32]_study() returns a pointer to a
pcre[16|32]_extra data block. Its format is defined in the
<a href="pcreapi.html#extradata">section on matching a pattern</a>
in the
<a href="pcreapi.html">pcreapi</a>
documentation. The study_data field points to the binary study data, and
this is what you must save (not the pcre[16|32]_extra block itself). The
length of the study data can be obtained by calling pcre[16|32]_fullinfo()
with an argument of PCRE_INFO_STUDYSIZE. Remember to check that
pcre[16|32]_study() did return a non-NULL value before trying to save the
study data.

 <a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">RE-USING A PRECOMPILED PATTERN</a> 

Re-using a precompiled pattern is straightforward. Having reloaded it into main
memory, called pcre[16|32]_pattern_to_host_byte_order() if necessary, you
pass its pointer to pcre[16|32]_exec() or pcre[16|32]_dfa_exec() in
the usual way.


However, if you passed a pointer to custom character tables when the pattern
was compiled (the tableptr argument of pcre[16|32]_compile()), you
must now pass a similar pointer to pcre[16|32]_exec() or
pcre[16|32]_dfa_exec(), because the value saved with the compiled pattern
will obviously be nonsense. A field in a pcre[16|32]_extra() block is used
to pass this data, as described in the
<a href="pcreapi.html#extradata">section on matching a pattern</a>
in the
<a href="pcreapi.html">pcreapi</a>
documentation.


Warning: The tables that pcre_exec() and pcre_dfa_exec() use
must be the same as those that were used when the pattern was compiled. If this
is not the case, the behaviour is undefined.


If you did not provide custom character tables when the pattern was compiled,
the pointer in the compiled pattern is NULL, which causes the matching
functions to use PCRE's internal tables. Thus, you do not need to take any
special action at run time in this case.


If you saved study data with the compiled pattern, you need to create your own
pcre[16|32]_extra data block and set the study_data field to point
to the reloaded study data. You must also set the PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA bit in
the flags field to indicate that study data is present. Then pass the
pcre[16|32]_extra block to the matching function in the usual way. If the
pattern was studied for just-in-time optimization, that data cannot be saved,
and so is lost by a save/restore cycle.

 <a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">COMPATIBILITY WITH DIFFERENT PCRE RELEASES</a> 

In general, it is safest to recompile all saved patterns when you update to a
new PCRE release, though not all updates actually require this.

 <a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a> 

Philip Hazel
 
University Computing Service
 
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
 

 <a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">REVISION</a> 

Last updated: 12 November 2013
 
Copyright &copy; 1997-2013 University of Cambridge.
 

Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.

cmd: