/[pcre]/code/trunk/README

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-revision 73 by nigel,
Sat Feb 24 21:40:30 2007 UTC
+revision 93 by nigel,
Sat Feb 24 21:41:42 2007 UTC
 Line 7 
 The latest release of PCRE is always ava
  Please read the NEWS file if you are upgrading from a previous release.
- PCRE has its own native API, but a set of "wrapper" functions that are based on
- the POSIX API are also supplied in the library libpcreposix. Note that this
+ The PCRE APIs
- just provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE: the regular expressions
+ -------------
- themselves still follow Perl syntax and semantics. The header file
- for the POSIX-style functions is called pcreposix.h. The official POSIX name is
+ PCRE is written in C, and it has its own API. The distribution now includes a
- regex.h, but I didn't want to risk possible problems with existing files of
+ set of C++ wrapper functions, courtesy of Google Inc. (see the pcrecpp man page
- that name by distributing it that way. To use it with an existing program that
+ for details).
- uses the POSIX API, it will have to be renamed or pointed at by a link.
+ Also included are a set of C wrapper functions that are based on the POSIX
+ API. These end up in the library called libpcreposix. Note that this just
+ provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE: the regular expressions themselves
+ still follow Perl syntax and semantics. The header file for the POSIX-style
+ functions is called pcreposix.h. The official POSIX name is regex.h, but I
+ didn't want to risk possible problems with existing files of that name by
+ distributing it that way. To use it with an existing program that uses the
+ POSIX API, it will have to be renamed or pointed at by a link.
  If you are using the POSIX interface to PCRE and there is already a POSIX regex
  library installed on your system, you must take care when linking programs to
-Line 22 
 ensure that they link with PCRE's libpcr
+Line 30 
 ensure that they link with PCRE's libpcr
  up the "real" POSIX functions of the same name.
+ Documentation for PCRE
+ ----------------------
+ If you install PCRE in the normal way, you will end up with an installed set of
+ man pages whose names all start with "pcre". The one that is just called "pcre"
+ lists all the others. In addition to these man pages, the PCRE documentation is
+ supplied in two other forms; however, as there is no standard place to install
+ them, they are left in the doc directory of the unpacked source distribution.
+ These forms are:
+. Files called doc/pcre.txt, doc/pcregrep.txt, and doc/pcretest.txt. The
+      first of these is a concatenation of the text forms of all the section 3
+      man pages except those that summarize individual functions. The other two
+      are the text forms of the section 1 man pages for the pcregrep and
+      pcretest commands. Text forms are provided for ease of scanning with text
+      editors or similar tools.
+. A subdirectory called doc/html contains all the documentation in HTML
+      form, hyperlinked in various ways, and rooted in a file called
+      doc/index.html.
  Contributions by users of PCRE
  ------------------------------
-Line 38 
 others are pointers to URLs containing r
+Line 68 
 others are pointers to URLs containing r
  Building PCRE on a Unix-like system
  -----------------------------------
+ If you are using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC), please see the special note
+ in the section entitled "Using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC)" below.
  To build PCRE on a Unix-like system, first run the "configure" command from the
  PCRE distribution directory, with your current directory set to the directory
  where you want the files to be created. This command is a standard GNU
-Line 46 
 INSTALL.
+Line 79 
 INSTALL.
  Most commonly, people build PCRE within its own distribution directory, and in
  this case, on many systems, just running "./configure" is sufficient, but the
- usual methods of changing standard defaults are available. For example,
+ usual methods of changing standard defaults are available. For example:
  CFLAGS='-O2 -Wall' ./configure --prefix=/opt/local
-Line 61 
 into /source/pcre/pcre-xxx, but you want
+Line 94 
 into /source/pcre/pcre-xxx, but you want
  cd /build/pcre/pcre-xxx
  /source/pcre/pcre-xxx/configure
+ PCRE is written in C and is normally compiled as a C library. However, it is
+ possible to build it as a C++ library, though the provided building apparatus
+ does not have any features to support this.
  There are some optional features that can be included or omitted from the PCRE
  library. You can read more about them in the pcrebuild man page.
+ . If you want to suppress the building of the C++ wrapper library, you can add
+   --disable-cpp to the "configure" command. Otherwise, when "configure" is run,
+   will try to find a C++ compiler and C++ header files, and if it succeeds, it
+   will try to build the C++ wrapper.
  . If you want to make use of the support for UTF-8 character strings in PCRE,
    you must add --enable-utf8 to the "configure" command. Without it, the code
    for handling UTF-8 is not included in the library. (Even when included, it
    still has to be enabled by an option at run time.)
- . You can build PCRE to recognized CR or NL as the newline character, instead
+ . If, in addition to support for UTF-8 character strings, you want to include
-   of whatever your compiler uses for "\n", by adding --newline-is-cr or
+   support for the \P, \p, and \X sequences that recognize Unicode character
-   --newline-is-nl to the "configure" command, respectively. Only do this if you
+   properties, you must add --enable-unicode-properties to the "configure"
-   really understand what you are doing. On traditional Unix-like systems, the
+   command. This adds about 30K to the size of the library (in the form of a
-   newline character is NL.
+   property table); only the basic two-letter properties such as Lu are
+   supported.
+ . You can build PCRE to recognize either CR or LF or the sequence CRLF or any
+   of the Unicode newline sequences as indicating the end of a line. Whatever
+   you specify at build time is the default; the caller of PCRE can change the
+   selection at run time. The default newline indicator is a single LF character
+   (the Unix standard). You can specify the default newline indicator by adding
+   --newline-is-cr or --newline-is-lf or --newline-is-crlf or --newline-is-any
+   to the "configure" command, respectively.
  . When called via the POSIX interface, PCRE uses malloc() to get additional
    storage for processing capturing parentheses if there are more than 10 of
-Line 83 
 library. You can read more about them in
+Line 134 
 library. You can read more about them in
    on the "configure" command.
- . PCRE has a counter which can be set to limit the amount of resources it uses.
+ . PCRE has a counter that can be set to limit the amount of resources it uses.
    If the limit is exceeded during a match, the match fails. The default is ten
    million. You can change the default by setting, for example,
-Line 93 
 library. You can read more about them in
+Line 144 
 library. You can read more about them in
    pcre_exec() can supply their own value. There is discussion on the pcreapi
    man page.
+ . There is a separate counter that limits the depth of recursive function calls
+   during a matching process. This also has a default of ten million, which is
+   essentially "unlimited". You can change the default by setting, for example,
+   --with-match-limit-recursion=500000
+   Recursive function calls use up the runtime stack; running out of stack can
+   cause programs to crash in strange ways. There is a discussion about stack
+   sizes in the pcrestack man page.
  . The default maximum compiled pattern size is around 64K. You can increase
    this by adding --with-link-size=3 to the "configure" command. You can
    increase it even more by setting --with-link-size=4, but this is unlikely
-Line 101 
 library. You can read more about them in
+Line 162 
 library. You can read more about them in
    is a representation of the compiled pattern, and this changes with the link
    size.
- . You can build PCRE so that its match() function does not call itself
+ . You can build PCRE so that its internal match() function that is called from
-   recursively. Instead, it uses blocks of data from the heap via special
+   pcre_exec() does not call itself recursively. Instead, it uses blocks of data
-   functions pcre_stack_malloc() and pcre_stack_free() to save data that would
+   from the heap via special functions pcre_stack_malloc() and pcre_stack_free()
-   otherwise be saved on the stack. To build PCRE like this, use
+   to save data that would otherwise be saved on the stack. To build PCRE like
+   this, use
    --disable-stack-for-recursion
    on the "configure" command. PCRE runs more slowly in this mode, but it may be
-   necessary in environments with limited stack sizes.
+   necessary in environments with limited stack sizes. This applies only to the
+   pcre_exec() function; it does not apply to pcre_dfa_exec(), which does not
+   use deeply nested recursion.
+ The "configure" script builds eight files for the basic C library:
+ . Makefile is the makefile that builds the library
+ . config.h contains build-time configuration options for the library
+ . pcre-config is a script that shows the settings of "configure" options
+ . libpcre.pc is data for the pkg-config command
+ . libtool is a script that builds shared and/or static libraries
+ . RunTest is a script for running tests on the library
+ . RunGrepTest is a script for running tests on the pcregrep command
- The "configure" script builds five files:
+ In addition, if a C++ compiler is found, the following are also built:
- . libtool is a script that builds shared and/or static libraries
+ . pcrecpp.h is the header file for programs that call PCRE via the C++ wrapper
- . Makefile is built by copying Makefile.in and making substitutions.
+ . pcre_stringpiece.h is the header for the C++ "stringpiece" functions
- . config.h is built by copying config.in and making substitutions.
- . pcre-config is built by copying pcre-config.in and making substitutions.
+ The "configure" script also creates config.status, which is an executable
- . RunTest is a script for running tests
+ script that can be run to recreate the configuration, and config.log, which
+ contains compiler output from tests that "configure" runs.
- Once "configure" has run, you can run "make". It builds two libraries called
+ Once "configure" has run, you can run "make". It builds two libraries, called
  libpcre and libpcreposix, a test program called pcretest, and the pcregrep
- command. You can use "make install" to copy these, the public header files
+ command. If a C++ compiler was found on your system, it also builds the C++
- pcre.h and pcreposix.h, and the man pages to appropriate live directories on
+ wrapper library, which is called libpcrecpp, and some test programs called
- your system, in the normal way.
+ pcrecpp_unittest, pcre_scanner_unittest, and pcre_stringpiece_unittest.
+ The command "make test" runs all the appropriate tests. Details of the PCRE
+ tests are given in a separate section of this document, below.
+ You can use "make install" to copy the libraries, the public header files
+ pcre.h, pcreposix.h, pcrecpp.h, and pcre_stringpiece.h (the last two only if
+ the C++ wrapper was built), and the man pages to appropriate live directories
+ on your system, in the normal way.
+ If you want to remove PCRE from your system, you can run "make uninstall".
+ This removes all the files that "make install" installed. However, it does not
+ remove any directories, because these are often shared with other programs.
+ Retrieving configuration information on Unix-like systems
+ ---------------------------------------------------------
  Running "make install" also installs the command pcre-config, which can be used
  to recall information about the PCRE configuration and installation. For
- example,
+ example:
    pcre-config --version
  prints the version number, and
-  pcre-config --libs
+   pcre-config --libs
  outputs information about where the library is installed. This command can be
  included in makefiles for programs that use PCRE, saving the programmer from
  having to remember too many details.
+ The pkg-config command is another system for saving and retrieving information
+ about installed libraries. Instead of separate commands for each library, a
+ single command is used. For example:
+   pkg-config --cflags pcre
+ The data is held in *.pc files that are installed in a directory called
+ pkgconfig.
  Shared libraries on Unix-like systems
  -------------------------------------
- The default distribution builds PCRE as two shared libraries and two static
+ The default distribution builds PCRE as shared libraries and static libraries,
- libraries, as long as the operating system supports shared libraries. Shared
+ as long as the operating system supports shared libraries. Shared library
- library support relies on the "libtool" script which is built as part of the
+ support relies on the "libtool" script which is built as part of the
  "configure" process.
  The libtool script is used to compile and link both shared and static
-Line 158 
 installed themselves. However, the versi
+Line 258 
 installed themselves. However, the versi
  use the uninstalled libraries.
  To build PCRE using static libraries only you must use --disable-shared when
- configuring it. For example
+ configuring it. For example:
  ./configure --prefix=/usr/gnu --disable-shared
-Line 174 
 order to cross-compile PCRE for some oth
+Line 274 
 order to cross-compile PCRE for some oth
  process, the dftables.c source file is compiled *and run* on the local host, in
  order to generate the default character tables (the chartables.c file). It
  therefore needs to be compiled with the local compiler, not the cross compiler.
- You can do this by specifying CC_FOR_BUILD (and if necessary CFLAGS_FOR_BUILD)
+ You can do this by specifying CC_FOR_BUILD (and if necessary CFLAGS_FOR_BUILD;
+ there are also CXX_FOR_BUILD and CXXFLAGS_FOR_BUILD for the C++ wrapper)
  when calling the "configure" command. If they are not specified, they default
  to the values of CC and CFLAGS.
+ Using HP's ANSI C++ compiler (aCC)
+ ----------------------------------
+ Unless C++ support is disabled by specifying the "--disable-cpp" option of the
+ "configure" script, you *must* include the "-AA" option in the CXXFLAGS
+ environment variable in order for the C++ components to compile correctly.
+ Also, note that the aCC compiler on PA-RISC platforms may have a defect whereby
+ needed libraries fail to get included when specifying the "-AA" compiler
+ option. If you experience unresolved symbols when linking the C++ programs,
+ use the workaround of specifying the following environment variable prior to
+ running the "configure" script:
+   CXXLDFLAGS="-lstd_v2 -lCsup_v2"
  Building on non-Unix systems
  ----------------------------
-Line 188 
 PCRE in the same way as for Unix systems
+Line 305 
 PCRE in the same way as for Unix systems
  PCRE has been compiled on Windows systems and on Macintoshes, but I don't know
  the details because I don't use those systems. It should be straightforward to
- build PCRE on any system that has a Standard C compiler, because it uses only
+ build PCRE on any system that has a Standard C compiler and library, because it
- Standard C functions.
+ uses only Standard C functions.
  Testing PCRE
  ------------
  To test PCRE on a Unix system, run the RunTest script that is created by the
- configuring process. (This can also be run by "make runtest", "make check", or
+ configuring process. There is also a script called RunGrepTest that tests the
- "make test".) For other systems, see the instructions in NON-UNIX-USE.
+ options of the pcregrep command. If the C++ wrapper library is build, three
+ test programs called pcrecpp_unittest, pcre_scanner_unittest, and
- The script runs the pcretest test program (which is documented in its own man
+ pcre_stringpiece_unittest are provided.
- page) on each of the testinput files (in the testdata directory) in turn,
- and compares the output with the contents of the corresponding testoutput file.
+ Both the scripts and all the program tests are run if you obey "make runtest",
- A file called testtry is used to hold the output from pcretest. To run pcretest
+ "make check", or "make test". For other systems, see the instructions in
- on just one of the test files, give its number as an argument to RunTest, for
+ NON-UNIX-USE.
- example:
+ The RunTest script runs the pcretest test program (which is documented in its
+ own man page) on each of the testinput files (in the testdata directory) in
+ turn, and compares the output with the contents of the corresponding testoutput
+ files. A file called testtry is used to hold the main output from pcretest
+ (testsavedregex is also used as a working file). To run pcretest on just one of
+ the test files, give its number as an argument to RunTest, for example:
    RunTest 2
- The first file can also be fed directly into the perltest script to check that
+ The first test file can also be fed directly into the perltest script to check
- Perl gives the same results. The only difference you should see is in the first
+ that Perl gives the same results. The only difference you should see is in the
- few lines, where the Perl version is given instead of the PCRE version.
+ first few lines, where the Perl version is given instead of the PCRE version.
  The second set of tests check pcre_fullinfo(), pcre_info(), pcre_study(),
  pcre_copy_substring(), pcre_get_substring(), pcre_get_substring_list(), error
-Line 247 
 running "configure". This file can be al
+Line 370 
 running "configure". This file can be al
  provided you are running Perl 5.8 or higher. (For Perl 5.6, a small patch,
  commented in the script, can be be used.)
- The fifth and final file tests error handling with UTF-8 encoding, and internal
+ The fifth test checks error handling with UTF-8 encoding, and internal UTF-8
- UTF-8 features of PCRE that are not relevant to Perl.
+ features of PCRE that are not relevant to Perl.
+ The sixth and test checks the support for Unicode character properties. It it
+ not run automatically unless PCRE is built with Unicode property support. To to
+ this you must set --enable-unicode-properties when running "configure".
+ The seventh, eighth, and ninth tests check the pcre_dfa_exec() alternative
+ matching function, in non-UTF-8 mode, UTF-8 mode, and UTF-8 mode with Unicode
+ property support, respectively. The eighth and ninth tests are not run
+ automatically unless PCRE is build with the relevant support.
  Character tables
  ----------------
- PCRE uses four tables for manipulating and identifying characters. The final
+ PCRE uses four tables for manipulating and identifying characters whose values
- argument of the pcre_compile() function is a pointer to a block of memory
+ are less than 256. The final argument of the pcre_compile() function is a
- containing the concatenated tables. A call to pcre_maketables() can be used to
+ pointer to a block of memory containing the concatenated tables. A call to
- generate a set of tables in the current locale. If the final argument for
+ pcre_maketables() can be used to generate a set of tables in the current
- pcre_compile() is passed as NULL, a set of default tables that is built into
+ locale. If the final argument for pcre_compile() is passed as NULL, a set of
- the binary is used.
+ default tables that is built into the binary is used.
  The source file called chartables.c contains the default set of tables. This is
  not supplied in the distribution, but is built by the program dftables
-Line 299 
 The distribution should contain the foll
+Line 431 
 The distribution should contain the foll
      headers:
    dftables.c            auxiliary program for building chartables.c
-   get.c                 )
-   maketables.c          )
-   study.c               ) source of
-   pcre.c                )   the functions
    pcreposix.c           )
-   printint.c            )
+   pcre_compile.c        )
-   pcre.in               "source" for the header for the external API; pcre.h
+   pcre_config.c         )
-                           is built from this by "configure"
+   pcre_dfa_exec.c       )
+   pcre_exec.c           )
+   pcre_fullinfo.c       )
+   pcre_get.c            ) sources for the functions in the library,
+   pcre_globals.c        )   and some internal functions that they use
+   pcre_info.c           )
+   pcre_maketables.c     )
+   pcre_newline.c        )
+   pcre_ord2utf8.c       )
+   pcre_refcount.c       )
+   pcre_study.c          )
+   pcre_tables.c         )
+   pcre_try_flipped.c    )
+   pcre_ucp_searchfuncs.c)
+   pcre_valid_utf8.c     )
+   pcre_version.c        )
+   pcre_xclass.c         )
+   ucptable.c            )
+   pcre_printint.src     ) debugging function that is #included in pcretest, and
+                         )   can also be #included in pcre_compile()
+   pcre.h                the public PCRE header file
    pcreposix.h           header for the external POSIX wrapper API
-   internal.h            header for internal use
+   pcre_internal.h       header for internal use
+   ucp.h                 ) headers concerned with
+   ucpinternal.h         )   Unicode property handling
    config.in             template for config.h, which is built by configure
+   pcrecpp.h             the header file for the C++ wrapper
+   pcrecpparg.h.in       "source" for another C++ header file
+   pcrecpp.cc            )
+   pcre_scanner.cc       ) source for the C++ wrapper library
+   pcre_stringpiece.h.in "source" for pcre_stringpiece.h, the header for the
+                           C++ stringpiece functions
+   pcre_stringpiece.cc   source for the C++ stringpiece functions
  (B) Auxiliary files:
    AUTHORS               information about the author of PCRE
-Line 323 
 The distribution should contain the foll
+Line 485 
 The distribution should contain the foll
    NON-UNIX-USE          notes on building PCRE on non-Unix systems
    README                this file
    RunTest.in            template for a Unix shell script for running tests
+   RunGrepTest.in        template for a Unix shell script for pcregrep tests
    config.guess          ) files used by libtool,
    config.sub            )   used only when building a shared library
+   config.h.in           "source" for the config.h header file
    configure             a configuring shell script (built by autoconf)
-   configure.in          the autoconf input used to build configure
+   configure.ac          the autoconf input used to build configure
    doc/Tech.Notes        notes on the encoding
    doc/*.3               man page sources for the PCRE functions
    doc/*.1               man page sources for pcregrep and pcretest
-Line 335 
 The distribution should contain the foll
+Line 499 
 The distribution should contain the foll
    doc/pcretest.txt      plain text documentation of test program
    doc/perltest.txt      plain text documentation of Perl test program
    install-sh            a shell script for installing files
+   libpcre.pc.in         "source" for libpcre.pc for pkg-config
    ltmain.sh             file used to build a libtool script
+   mkinstalldirs         script for making install directories
    pcretest.c            comprehensive test program
    pcredemo.c            simple demonstration of coding calls to PCRE
    perltest              Perl test program
    pcregrep.c            source of a grep utility that uses PCRE
    pcre-config.in        source of script which retains PCRE information
-   testdata/testinput1   test data, compatible with Perl
+   pcrecpp_unittest.c           )
-   testdata/testinput2   test data for error messages and non-Perl things
+   pcre_scanner_unittest.c      ) test programs for the C++ wrapper
-   testdata/testinput3   test data for locale-specific tests
+   pcre_stringpiece_unittest.c  )
-   testdata/testinput4   test data for UTF-8 tests compatible with Perl
+   testdata/testinput*   test data for main library tests
-   testdata/testinput5   test data for other UTF-8 tests
+   testdata/testoutput*  expected test results
-   testdata/testoutput1  test results corresponding to testinput1
+   testdata/grep*        input and output for pcregrep tests
-   testdata/testoutput2  test results corresponding to testinput2
-   testdata/testoutput3  test results corresponding to testinput3
-   testdata/testoutput4  test results corresponding to testinput4
-   testdata/testoutput5  test results corresponding to testinput5
  (C) Auxiliary files for Win32 DLL
-   dll.mk
+   libpcre.def
-   pcre.def
+   libpcreposix.def
  (D) Auxiliary file for VPASCAL
    makevp.bat
- Philip Hazel <ph10@cam.ac.uk>
+ Philip Hazel
- December 2003
+ Email local part: ph10
+ Email domain: cam.ac.uk
+ November 2006

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