esruby 0.0.0 → 0.0.2

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  1. checksums.yaml +4 -4
  2. data/LICENSE +6 -6
  3. data/bin/esruby +9 -0
  4. data/lib/esruby.rb +8 -0
  5. data/resources/mruby/build_config.rb +0 -1
  6. data/resources/mruby/mrbgems/mruby-print/mrblib/print.rb +1 -1
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- <li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">CHARACTERS AND METACHARACTERS</a>
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- <li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">BACKSLASH</a>
21
- <li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">CIRCUMFLEX AND DOLLAR</a>
22
- <li><a name="TOC7" href="#SEC7">FULL STOP (PERIOD, DOT) AND \N</a>
23
- <li><a name="TOC8" href="#SEC8">MATCHING A SINGLE DATA UNIT</a>
24
- <li><a name="TOC9" href="#SEC9">SQUARE BRACKETS AND CHARACTER CLASSES</a>
25
- <li><a name="TOC10" href="#SEC10">POSIX CHARACTER CLASSES</a>
26
- <li><a name="TOC11" href="#SEC11">VERTICAL BAR</a>
27
- <li><a name="TOC12" href="#SEC12">INTERNAL OPTION SETTING</a>
28
- <li><a name="TOC13" href="#SEC13">SUBPATTERNS</a>
29
- <li><a name="TOC14" href="#SEC14">DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NUMBERS</a>
30
- <li><a name="TOC15" href="#SEC15">NAMED SUBPATTERNS</a>
31
- <li><a name="TOC16" href="#SEC16">REPETITION</a>
32
- <li><a name="TOC17" href="#SEC17">ATOMIC GROUPING AND POSSESSIVE QUANTIFIERS</a>
33
- <li><a name="TOC18" href="#SEC18">BACK REFERENCES</a>
34
- <li><a name="TOC19" href="#SEC19">ASSERTIONS</a>
35
- <li><a name="TOC20" href="#SEC20">CONDITIONAL SUBPATTERNS</a>
36
- <li><a name="TOC21" href="#SEC21">COMMENTS</a>
37
- <li><a name="TOC22" href="#SEC22">RECURSIVE PATTERNS</a>
38
- <li><a name="TOC23" href="#SEC23">SUBPATTERNS AS SUBROUTINES</a>
39
- <li><a name="TOC24" href="#SEC24">ONIGURUMA SUBROUTINE SYNTAX</a>
40
- <li><a name="TOC25" href="#SEC25">CALLOUTS</a>
41
- <li><a name="TOC26" href="#SEC26">BACKTRACKING CONTROL</a>
42
- <li><a name="TOC27" href="#SEC27">SEE ALSO</a>
43
- <li><a name="TOC28" href="#SEC28">AUTHOR</a>
44
- <li><a name="TOC29" href="#SEC29">REVISION</a>
45
- </ul>
46
- <br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">PCRE REGULAR EXPRESSION DETAILS</a><br>
47
- <P>
48
- The syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that are supported by PCRE
49
- are described in detail below. There is a quick-reference syntax summary in the
50
- <a href="pcresyntax.html"><b>pcresyntax</b></a>
51
- page. PCRE tries to match Perl syntax and semantics as closely as it can. PCRE
52
- also supports some alternative regular expression syntax (which does not
53
- conflict with the Perl syntax) in order to provide some compatibility with
54
- regular expressions in Python, .NET, and Oniguruma.
55
- </P>
56
- <P>
57
- Perl's regular expressions are described in its own documentation, and
58
- regular expressions in general are covered in a number of books, some of which
59
- have copious examples. Jeffrey Friedl's "Mastering Regular Expressions",
60
- published by O'Reilly, covers regular expressions in great detail. This
61
- description of PCRE's regular expressions is intended as reference material.
62
- </P>
63
- <P>
64
- The original operation of PCRE was on strings of one-byte characters. However,
65
- there is now also support for UTF-8 strings in the original library, an
66
- extra library that supports 16-bit and UTF-16 character strings, and a
67
- third library that supports 32-bit and UTF-32 character strings. To use these
68
- features, PCRE must be built to include appropriate support. When using UTF
69
- strings you must either call the compiling function with the PCRE_UTF8,
70
- PCRE_UTF16, or PCRE_UTF32 option, or the pattern must start with one of
71
- these special sequences:
72
- <pre>
73
- (*UTF8)
74
- (*UTF16)
75
- (*UTF32)
76
- (*UTF)
77
- </pre>
78
- (*UTF) is a generic sequence that can be used with any of the libraries.
79
- Starting a pattern with such a sequence is equivalent to setting the relevant
80
- option. This feature is not Perl-compatible. How setting a UTF mode affects
81
- pattern matching is mentioned in several places below. There is also a summary
82
- of features in the
83
- <a href="pcreunicode.html"><b>pcreunicode</b></a>
84
- page.
85
- </P>
86
- <P>
87
- Another special sequence that may appear at the start of a pattern or in
88
- combination with (*UTF8), (*UTF16), (*UTF32) or (*UTF) is:
89
- <pre>
90
- (*UCP)
91
- </pre>
92
- This has the same effect as setting the PCRE_UCP option: it causes sequences
93
- such as \d and \w to use Unicode properties to determine character types,
94
- instead of recognizing only characters with codes less than 128 via a lookup
95
- table.
96
- </P>
97
- <P>
98
- If a pattern starts with (*NO_START_OPT), it has the same effect as setting the
99
- PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option either at compile or matching time. There are
100
- also some more of these special sequences that are concerned with the handling
101
- of newlines; they are described below.
102
- </P>
103
- <P>
104
- The remainder of this document discusses the patterns that are supported by
105
- PCRE when one its main matching functions, <b>pcre_exec()</b> (8-bit) or
106
- <b>pcre[16|32]_exec()</b> (16- or 32-bit), is used. PCRE also has alternative
107
- matching functions, <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> and <b>pcre[16|32_dfa_exec()</b>,
108
- which match using a different algorithm that is not Perl-compatible. Some of
109
- the features discussed below are not available when DFA matching is used. The
110
- advantages and disadvantages of the alternative functions, and how they differ
111
- from the normal functions, are discussed in the
112
- <a href="pcrematching.html"><b>pcrematching</b></a>
113
- page.
114
- </P>
115
- <br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">EBCDIC CHARACTER CODES</a><br>
116
- <P>
117
- PCRE can be compiled to run in an environment that uses EBCDIC as its character
118
- code rather than ASCII or Unicode (typically a mainframe system). In the
119
- sections below, character code values are ASCII or Unicode; in an EBCDIC
120
- environment these characters may have different code values, and there are no
121
- code points greater than 255.
122
- <a name="newlines"></a></P>
123
- <br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">NEWLINE CONVENTIONS</a><br>
124
- <P>
125
- PCRE supports five different conventions for indicating line breaks in
126
- strings: a single CR (carriage return) character, a single LF (linefeed)
127
- character, the two-character sequence CRLF, any of the three preceding, or any
128
- Unicode newline sequence. The
129
- <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
130
- page has
131
- <a href="pcreapi.html#newlines">further discussion</a>
132
- about newlines, and shows how to set the newline convention in the
133
- <i>options</i> arguments for the compiling and matching functions.
134
- </P>
135
- <P>
136
- It is also possible to specify a newline convention by starting a pattern
137
- string with one of the following five sequences:
138
- <pre>
139
- (*CR) carriage return
140
- (*LF) linefeed
141
- (*CRLF) carriage return, followed by linefeed
142
- (*ANYCRLF) any of the three above
143
- (*ANY) all Unicode newline sequences
144
- </pre>
145
- These override the default and the options given to the compiling function. For
146
- example, on a Unix system where LF is the default newline sequence, the pattern
147
- <pre>
148
- (*CR)a.b
149
- </pre>
150
- changes the convention to CR. That pattern matches "a\nb" because LF is no
151
- longer a newline. Note that these special settings, which are not
152
- Perl-compatible, are recognized only at the very start of a pattern, and that
153
- they must be in upper case. If more than one of them is present, the last one
154
- is used.
155
- </P>
156
- <P>
157
- The newline convention affects where the circumflex and dollar assertions are
158
- true. It also affects the interpretation of the dot metacharacter when
159
- PCRE_DOTALL is not set, and the behaviour of \N. However, it does not affect
160
- what the \R escape sequence matches. By default, this is any Unicode newline
161
- sequence, for Perl compatibility. However, this can be changed; see the
162
- description of \R in the section entitled
163
- <a href="#newlineseq">"Newline sequences"</a>
164
- below. A change of \R setting can be combined with a change of newline
165
- convention.
166
- </P>
167
- <br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">CHARACTERS AND METACHARACTERS</a><br>
168
- <P>
169
- A regular expression is a pattern that is matched against a subject string from
170
- left to right. Most characters stand for themselves in a pattern, and match the
171
- corresponding characters in the subject. As a trivial example, the pattern
172
- <pre>
173
- The quick brown fox
174
- </pre>
175
- matches a portion of a subject string that is identical to itself. When
176
- caseless matching is specified (the PCRE_CASELESS option), letters are matched
177
- independently of case. In a UTF mode, PCRE always understands the concept of
178
- case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless matching is
179
- always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of case is
180
- supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise.
181
- If you want to use caseless matching for characters 128 and above, you must
182
- ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as well as with
183
- UTF support.
184
- </P>
185
- <P>
186
- The power of regular expressions comes from the ability to include alternatives
187
- and repetitions in the pattern. These are encoded in the pattern by the use of
188
- <i>metacharacters</i>, which do not stand for themselves but instead are
189
- interpreted in some special way.
190
- </P>
191
- <P>
192
- There are two different sets of metacharacters: those that are recognized
193
- anywhere in the pattern except within square brackets, and those that are
194
- recognized within square brackets. Outside square brackets, the metacharacters
195
- are as follows:
196
- <pre>
197
- \ general escape character with several uses
198
- ^ assert start of string (or line, in multiline mode)
199
- $ assert end of string (or line, in multiline mode)
200
- . match any character except newline (by default)
201
- [ start character class definition
202
- | start of alternative branch
203
- ( start subpattern
204
- ) end subpattern
205
- ? extends the meaning of (
206
- also 0 or 1 quantifier
207
- also quantifier minimizer
208
- * 0 or more quantifier
209
- + 1 or more quantifier
210
- also "possessive quantifier"
211
- { start min/max quantifier
212
- </pre>
213
- Part of a pattern that is in square brackets is called a "character class". In
214
- a character class the only metacharacters are:
215
- <pre>
216
- \ general escape character
217
- ^ negate the class, but only if the first character
218
- - indicates character range
219
- [ POSIX character class (only if followed by POSIX syntax)
220
- ] terminates the character class
221
- </pre>
222
- The following sections describe the use of each of the metacharacters.
223
- </P>
224
- <br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">BACKSLASH</a><br>
225
- <P>
226
- The backslash character has several uses. Firstly, if it is followed by a
227
- character that is not a number or a letter, it takes away any special meaning
228
- that character may have. This use of backslash as an escape character applies
229
- both inside and outside character classes.
230
- </P>
231
- <P>
232
- For example, if you want to match a * character, you write \* in the pattern.
233
- This escaping action applies whether or not the following character would
234
- otherwise be interpreted as a metacharacter, so it is always safe to precede a
235
- non-alphanumeric with backslash to specify that it stands for itself. In
236
- particular, if you want to match a backslash, you write \\.
237
- </P>
238
- <P>
239
- In a UTF mode, only ASCII numbers and letters have any special meaning after a
240
- backslash. All other characters (in particular, those whose codepoints are
241
- greater than 127) are treated as literals.
242
- </P>
243
- <P>
244
- If a pattern is compiled with the PCRE_EXTENDED option, white space in the
245
- pattern (other than in a character class) and characters between a # outside
246
- a character class and the next newline are ignored. An escaping backslash can
247
- be used to include a white space or # character as part of the pattern.
248
- </P>
249
- <P>
250
- If you want to remove the special meaning from a sequence of characters, you
251
- can do so by putting them between \Q and \E. This is different from Perl in
252
- that $ and @ are handled as literals in \Q...\E sequences in PCRE, whereas in
253
- Perl, $ and @ cause variable interpolation. Note the following examples:
254
- <pre>
255
- Pattern PCRE matches Perl matches
256
-
257
- \Qabc$xyz\E abc$xyz abc followed by the contents of $xyz
258
- \Qabc\$xyz\E abc\$xyz abc\$xyz
259
- \Qabc\E\$\Qxyz\E abc$xyz abc$xyz
260
- </pre>
261
- The \Q...\E sequence is recognized both inside and outside character classes.
262
- An isolated \E that is not preceded by \Q is ignored. If \Q is not followed
263
- by \E later in the pattern, the literal interpretation continues to the end of
264
- the pattern (that is, \E is assumed at the end). If the isolated \Q is inside
265
- a character class, this causes an error, because the character class is not
266
- terminated.
267
- <a name="digitsafterbackslash"></a></P>
268
- <br><b>
269
- Non-printing characters
270
- </b><br>
271
- <P>
272
- A second use of backslash provides a way of encoding non-printing characters
273
- in patterns in a visible manner. There is no restriction on the appearance of
274
- non-printing characters, apart from the binary zero that terminates a pattern,
275
- but when a pattern is being prepared by text editing, it is often easier to use
276
- one of the following escape sequences than the binary character it represents:
277
- <pre>
278
- \a alarm, that is, the BEL character (hex 07)
279
- \cx "control-x", where x is any ASCII character
280
- \e escape (hex 1B)
281
- \f form feed (hex 0C)
282
- \n linefeed (hex 0A)
283
- \r carriage return (hex 0D)
284
- \t tab (hex 09)
285
- \ddd character with octal code ddd, or back reference
286
- \xhh character with hex code hh
287
- \x{hhh..} character with hex code hhh.. (non-JavaScript mode)
288
- \uhhhh character with hex code hhhh (JavaScript mode only)
289
- </pre>
290
- The precise effect of \cx on ASCII characters is as follows: if x is a lower
291
- case letter, it is converted to upper case. Then bit 6 of the character (hex
292
- 40) is inverted. Thus \cA to \cZ become hex 01 to hex 1A (A is 41, Z is 5A),
293
- but \c{ becomes hex 3B ({ is 7B), and \c; becomes hex 7B (; is 3B). If the
294
- data item (byte or 16-bit value) following \c has a value greater than 127, a
295
- compile-time error occurs. This locks out non-ASCII characters in all modes.
296
- </P>
297
- <P>
298
- The \c facility was designed for use with ASCII characters, but with the
299
- extension to Unicode it is even less useful than it once was. It is, however,
300
- recognized when PCRE is compiled in EBCDIC mode, where data items are always
301
- bytes. In this mode, all values are valid after \c. If the next character is a
302
- lower case letter, it is converted to upper case. Then the 0xc0 bits of the
303
- byte are inverted. Thus \cA becomes hex 01, as in ASCII (A is C1), but because
304
- the EBCDIC letters are disjoint, \cZ becomes hex 29 (Z is E9), and other
305
- characters also generate different values.
306
- </P>
307
- <P>
308
- By default, after \x, from zero to two hexadecimal digits are read (letters
309
- can be in upper or lower case). Any number of hexadecimal digits may appear
310
- between \x{ and }, but the character code is constrained as follows:
311
- <pre>
312
- 8-bit non-UTF mode less than 0x100
313
- 8-bit UTF-8 mode less than 0x10ffff and a valid codepoint
314
- 16-bit non-UTF mode less than 0x10000
315
- 16-bit UTF-16 mode less than 0x10ffff and a valid codepoint
316
- 32-bit non-UTF mode less than 0x80000000
317
- 32-bit UTF-32 mode less than 0x10ffff and a valid codepoint
318
- </pre>
319
- Invalid Unicode codepoints are the range 0xd800 to 0xdfff (the so-called
320
- "surrogate" codepoints), and 0xffef.
321
- </P>
322
- <P>
323
- If characters other than hexadecimal digits appear between \x{ and }, or if
324
- there is no terminating }, this form of escape is not recognized. Instead, the
325
- initial \x will be interpreted as a basic hexadecimal escape, with no
326
- following digits, giving a character whose value is zero.
327
- </P>
328
- <P>
329
- If the PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT option is set, the interpretation of \x is
330
- as just described only when it is followed by two hexadecimal digits.
331
- Otherwise, it matches a literal "x" character. In JavaScript mode, support for
332
- code points greater than 256 is provided by \u, which must be followed by
333
- four hexadecimal digits; otherwise it matches a literal "u" character.
334
- Character codes specified by \u in JavaScript mode are constrained in the same
335
- was as those specified by \x in non-JavaScript mode.
336
- </P>
337
- <P>
338
- Characters whose value is less than 256 can be defined by either of the two
339
- syntaxes for \x (or by \u in JavaScript mode). There is no difference in the
340
- way they are handled. For example, \xdc is exactly the same as \x{dc} (or
341
- \u00dc in JavaScript mode).
342
- </P>
343
- <P>
344
- After \0 up to two further octal digits are read. If there are fewer than two
345
- digits, just those that are present are used. Thus the sequence \0\x\07
346
- specifies two binary zeros followed by a BEL character (code value 7). Make
347
- sure you supply two digits after the initial zero if the pattern character that
348
- follows is itself an octal digit.
349
- </P>
350
- <P>
351
- The handling of a backslash followed by a digit other than 0 is complicated.
352
- Outside a character class, PCRE reads it and any following digits as a decimal
353
- number. If the number is less than 10, or if there have been at least that many
354
- previous capturing left parentheses in the expression, the entire sequence is
355
- taken as a <i>back reference</i>. A description of how this works is given
356
- <a href="#backreferences">later,</a>
357
- following the discussion of
358
- <a href="#subpattern">parenthesized subpatterns.</a>
359
- </P>
360
- <P>
361
- Inside a character class, or if the decimal number is greater than 9 and there
362
- have not been that many capturing subpatterns, PCRE re-reads up to three octal
363
- digits following the backslash, and uses them to generate a data character. Any
364
- subsequent digits stand for themselves. The value of the character is
365
- constrained in the same way as characters specified in hexadecimal.
366
- For example:
367
- <pre>
368
- \040 is another way of writing an ASCII space
369
- \40 is the same, provided there are fewer than 40 previous capturing subpatterns
370
- \7 is always a back reference
371
- \11 might be a back reference, or another way of writing a tab
372
- \011 is always a tab
373
- \0113 is a tab followed by the character "3"
374
- \113 might be a back reference, otherwise the character with octal code 113
375
- \377 might be a back reference, otherwise the value 255 (decimal)
376
- \81 is either a back reference, or a binary zero followed by the two characters "8" and "1"
377
- </pre>
378
- Note that octal values of 100 or greater must not be introduced by a leading
379
- zero, because no more than three octal digits are ever read.
380
- </P>
381
- <P>
382
- All the sequences that define a single character value can be used both inside
383
- and outside character classes. In addition, inside a character class, \b is
384
- interpreted as the backspace character (hex 08).
385
- </P>
386
- <P>
387
- \N is not allowed in a character class. \B, \R, and \X are not special
388
- inside a character class. Like other unrecognized escape sequences, they are
389
- treated as the literal characters "B", "R", and "X" by default, but cause an
390
- error if the PCRE_EXTRA option is set. Outside a character class, these
391
- sequences have different meanings.
392
- </P>
393
- <br><b>
394
- Unsupported escape sequences
395
- </b><br>
396
- <P>
397
- In Perl, the sequences \l, \L, \u, and \U are recognized by its string
398
- handler and used to modify the case of following characters. By default, PCRE
399
- does not support these escape sequences. However, if the PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT
400
- option is set, \U matches a "U" character, and \u can be used to define a
401
- character by code point, as described in the previous section.
402
- </P>
403
- <br><b>
404
- Absolute and relative back references
405
- </b><br>
406
- <P>
407
- The sequence \g followed by an unsigned or a negative number, optionally
408
- enclosed in braces, is an absolute or relative back reference. A named back
409
- reference can be coded as \g{name}. Back references are discussed
410
- <a href="#backreferences">later,</a>
411
- following the discussion of
412
- <a href="#subpattern">parenthesized subpatterns.</a>
413
- </P>
414
- <br><b>
415
- Absolute and relative subroutine calls
416
- </b><br>
417
- <P>
418
- For compatibility with Oniguruma, the non-Perl syntax \g followed by a name or
419
- a number enclosed either in angle brackets or single quotes, is an alternative
420
- syntax for referencing a subpattern as a "subroutine". Details are discussed
421
- <a href="#onigurumasubroutines">later.</a>
422
- Note that \g{...} (Perl syntax) and \g&#60;...&#62; (Oniguruma syntax) are <i>not</i>
423
- synonymous. The former is a back reference; the latter is a
424
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">subroutine</a>
425
- call.
426
- <a name="genericchartypes"></a></P>
427
- <br><b>
428
- Generic character types
429
- </b><br>
430
- <P>
431
- Another use of backslash is for specifying generic character types:
432
- <pre>
433
- \d any decimal digit
434
- \D any character that is not a decimal digit
435
- \h any horizontal white space character
436
- \H any character that is not a horizontal white space character
437
- \s any white space character
438
- \S any character that is not a white space character
439
- \v any vertical white space character
440
- \V any character that is not a vertical white space character
441
- \w any "word" character
442
- \W any "non-word" character
443
- </pre>
444
- There is also the single sequence \N, which matches a non-newline character.
445
- This is the same as
446
- <a href="#fullstopdot">the "." metacharacter</a>
447
- when PCRE_DOTALL is not set. Perl also uses \N to match characters by name;
448
- PCRE does not support this.
449
- </P>
450
- <P>
451
- Each pair of lower and upper case escape sequences partitions the complete set
452
- of characters into two disjoint sets. Any given character matches one, and only
453
- one, of each pair. The sequences can appear both inside and outside character
454
- classes. They each match one character of the appropriate type. If the current
455
- matching point is at the end of the subject string, all of them fail, because
456
- there is no character to match.
457
- </P>
458
- <P>
459
- For compatibility with Perl, \s does not match the VT character (code 11).
460
- This makes it different from the the POSIX "space" class. The \s characters
461
- are HT (9), LF (10), FF (12), CR (13), and space (32). If "use locale;" is
462
- included in a Perl script, \s may match the VT character. In PCRE, it never
463
- does.
464
- </P>
465
- <P>
466
- A "word" character is an underscore or any character that is a letter or digit.
467
- By default, the definition of letters and digits is controlled by PCRE's
468
- low-valued character tables, and may vary if locale-specific matching is taking
469
- place (see
470
- <a href="pcreapi.html#localesupport">"Locale support"</a>
471
- in the
472
- <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
473
- page). For example, in a French locale such as "fr_FR" in Unix-like systems,
474
- or "french" in Windows, some character codes greater than 128 are used for
475
- accented letters, and these are then matched by \w. The use of locales with
476
- Unicode is discouraged.
477
- </P>
478
- <P>
479
- By default, in a UTF mode, characters with values greater than 128 never match
480
- \d, \s, or \w, and always match \D, \S, and \W. These sequences retain
481
- their original meanings from before UTF support was available, mainly for
482
- efficiency reasons. However, if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support,
483
- and the PCRE_UCP option is set, the behaviour is changed so that Unicode
484
- properties are used to determine character types, as follows:
485
- <pre>
486
- \d any character that \p{Nd} matches (decimal digit)
487
- \s any character that \p{Z} matches, plus HT, LF, FF, CR
488
- \w any character that \p{L} or \p{N} matches, plus underscore
489
- </pre>
490
- The upper case escapes match the inverse sets of characters. Note that \d
491
- matches only decimal digits, whereas \w matches any Unicode digit, as well as
492
- any Unicode letter, and underscore. Note also that PCRE_UCP affects \b, and
493
- \B because they are defined in terms of \w and \W. Matching these sequences
494
- is noticeably slower when PCRE_UCP is set.
495
- </P>
496
- <P>
497
- The sequences \h, \H, \v, and \V are features that were added to Perl at
498
- release 5.10. In contrast to the other sequences, which match only ASCII
499
- characters by default, these always match certain high-valued codepoints,
500
- whether or not PCRE_UCP is set. The horizontal space characters are:
501
- <pre>
502
- U+0009 Horizontal tab (HT)
503
- U+0020 Space
504
- U+00A0 Non-break space
505
- U+1680 Ogham space mark
506
- U+180E Mongolian vowel separator
507
- U+2000 En quad
508
- U+2001 Em quad
509
- U+2002 En space
510
- U+2003 Em space
511
- U+2004 Three-per-em space
512
- U+2005 Four-per-em space
513
- U+2006 Six-per-em space
514
- U+2007 Figure space
515
- U+2008 Punctuation space
516
- U+2009 Thin space
517
- U+200A Hair space
518
- U+202F Narrow no-break space
519
- U+205F Medium mathematical space
520
- U+3000 Ideographic space
521
- </pre>
522
- The vertical space characters are:
523
- <pre>
524
- U+000A Linefeed (LF)
525
- U+000B Vertical tab (VT)
526
- U+000C Form feed (FF)
527
- U+000D Carriage return (CR)
528
- U+0085 Next line (NEL)
529
- U+2028 Line separator
530
- U+2029 Paragraph separator
531
- </pre>
532
- In 8-bit, non-UTF-8 mode, only the characters with codepoints less than 256 are
533
- relevant.
534
- <a name="newlineseq"></a></P>
535
- <br><b>
536
- Newline sequences
537
- </b><br>
538
- <P>
539
- Outside a character class, by default, the escape sequence \R matches any
540
- Unicode newline sequence. In 8-bit non-UTF-8 mode \R is equivalent to the
541
- following:
542
- <pre>
543
- (?&#62;\r\n|\n|\x0b|\f|\r|\x85)
544
- </pre>
545
- This is an example of an "atomic group", details of which are given
546
- <a href="#atomicgroup">below.</a>
547
- This particular group matches either the two-character sequence CR followed by
548
- LF, or one of the single characters LF (linefeed, U+000A), VT (vertical tab,
549
- U+000B), FF (form feed, U+000C), CR (carriage return, U+000D), or NEL (next
550
- line, U+0085). The two-character sequence is treated as a single unit that
551
- cannot be split.
552
- </P>
553
- <P>
554
- In other modes, two additional characters whose codepoints are greater than 255
555
- are added: LS (line separator, U+2028) and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029).
556
- Unicode character property support is not needed for these characters to be
557
- recognized.
558
- </P>
559
- <P>
560
- It is possible to restrict \R to match only CR, LF, or CRLF (instead of the
561
- complete set of Unicode line endings) by setting the option PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
562
- either at compile time or when the pattern is matched. (BSR is an abbrevation
563
- for "backslash R".) This can be made the default when PCRE is built; if this is
564
- the case, the other behaviour can be requested via the PCRE_BSR_UNICODE option.
565
- It is also possible to specify these settings by starting a pattern string with
566
- one of the following sequences:
567
- <pre>
568
- (*BSR_ANYCRLF) CR, LF, or CRLF only
569
- (*BSR_UNICODE) any Unicode newline sequence
570
- </pre>
571
- These override the default and the options given to the compiling function, but
572
- they can themselves be overridden by options given to a matching function. Note
573
- that these special settings, which are not Perl-compatible, are recognized only
574
- at the very start of a pattern, and that they must be in upper case. If more
575
- than one of them is present, the last one is used. They can be combined with a
576
- change of newline convention; for example, a pattern can start with:
577
- <pre>
578
- (*ANY)(*BSR_ANYCRLF)
579
- </pre>
580
- They can also be combined with the (*UTF8), (*UTF16), (*UTF32), (*UTF) or
581
- (*UCP) special sequences. Inside a character class, \R is treated as an
582
- unrecognized escape sequence, and so matches the letter "R" by default, but
583
- causes an error if PCRE_EXTRA is set.
584
- <a name="uniextseq"></a></P>
585
- <br><b>
586
- Unicode character properties
587
- </b><br>
588
- <P>
589
- When PCRE is built with Unicode character property support, three additional
590
- escape sequences that match characters with specific properties are available.
591
- When in 8-bit non-UTF-8 mode, these sequences are of course limited to testing
592
- characters whose codepoints are less than 256, but they do work in this mode.
593
- The extra escape sequences are:
594
- <pre>
595
- \p{<i>xx</i>} a character with the <i>xx</i> property
596
- \P{<i>xx</i>} a character without the <i>xx</i> property
597
- \X a Unicode extended grapheme cluster
598
- </pre>
599
- The property names represented by <i>xx</i> above are limited to the Unicode
600
- script names, the general category properties, "Any", which matches any
601
- character (including newline), and some special PCRE properties (described
602
- in the
603
- <a href="#extraprops">next section).</a>
604
- Other Perl properties such as "InMusicalSymbols" are not currently supported by
605
- PCRE. Note that \P{Any} does not match any characters, so always causes a
606
- match failure.
607
- </P>
608
- <P>
609
- Sets of Unicode characters are defined as belonging to certain scripts. A
610
- character from one of these sets can be matched using a script name. For
611
- example:
612
- <pre>
613
- \p{Greek}
614
- \P{Han}
615
- </pre>
616
- Those that are not part of an identified script are lumped together as
617
- "Common". The current list of scripts is:
618
- </P>
619
- <P>
620
- Arabic,
621
- Armenian,
622
- Avestan,
623
- Balinese,
624
- Bamum,
625
- Batak,
626
- Bengali,
627
- Bopomofo,
628
- Brahmi,
629
- Braille,
630
- Buginese,
631
- Buhid,
632
- Canadian_Aboriginal,
633
- Carian,
634
- Chakma,
635
- Cham,
636
- Cherokee,
637
- Common,
638
- Coptic,
639
- Cuneiform,
640
- Cypriot,
641
- Cyrillic,
642
- Deseret,
643
- Devanagari,
644
- Egyptian_Hieroglyphs,
645
- Ethiopic,
646
- Georgian,
647
- Glagolitic,
648
- Gothic,
649
- Greek,
650
- Gujarati,
651
- Gurmukhi,
652
- Han,
653
- Hangul,
654
- Hanunoo,
655
- Hebrew,
656
- Hiragana,
657
- Imperial_Aramaic,
658
- Inherited,
659
- Inscriptional_Pahlavi,
660
- Inscriptional_Parthian,
661
- Javanese,
662
- Kaithi,
663
- Kannada,
664
- Katakana,
665
- Kayah_Li,
666
- Kharoshthi,
667
- Khmer,
668
- Lao,
669
- Latin,
670
- Lepcha,
671
- Limbu,
672
- Linear_B,
673
- Lisu,
674
- Lycian,
675
- Lydian,
676
- Malayalam,
677
- Mandaic,
678
- Meetei_Mayek,
679
- Meroitic_Cursive,
680
- Meroitic_Hieroglyphs,
681
- Miao,
682
- Mongolian,
683
- Myanmar,
684
- New_Tai_Lue,
685
- Nko,
686
- Ogham,
687
- Old_Italic,
688
- Old_Persian,
689
- Old_South_Arabian,
690
- Old_Turkic,
691
- Ol_Chiki,
692
- Oriya,
693
- Osmanya,
694
- Phags_Pa,
695
- Phoenician,
696
- Rejang,
697
- Runic,
698
- Samaritan,
699
- Saurashtra,
700
- Sharada,
701
- Shavian,
702
- Sinhala,
703
- Sora_Sompeng,
704
- Sundanese,
705
- Syloti_Nagri,
706
- Syriac,
707
- Tagalog,
708
- Tagbanwa,
709
- Tai_Le,
710
- Tai_Tham,
711
- Tai_Viet,
712
- Takri,
713
- Tamil,
714
- Telugu,
715
- Thaana,
716
- Thai,
717
- Tibetan,
718
- Tifinagh,
719
- Ugaritic,
720
- Vai,
721
- Yi.
722
- </P>
723
- <P>
724
- Each character has exactly one Unicode general category property, specified by
725
- a two-letter abbreviation. For compatibility with Perl, negation can be
726
- specified by including a circumflex between the opening brace and the property
727
- name. For example, \p{^Lu} is the same as \P{Lu}.
728
- </P>
729
- <P>
730
- If only one letter is specified with \p or \P, it includes all the general
731
- category properties that start with that letter. In this case, in the absence
732
- of negation, the curly brackets in the escape sequence are optional; these two
733
- examples have the same effect:
734
- <pre>
735
- \p{L}
736
- \pL
737
- </pre>
738
- The following general category property codes are supported:
739
- <pre>
740
- C Other
741
- Cc Control
742
- Cf Format
743
- Cn Unassigned
744
- Co Private use
745
- Cs Surrogate
746
-
747
- L Letter
748
- Ll Lower case letter
749
- Lm Modifier letter
750
- Lo Other letter
751
- Lt Title case letter
752
- Lu Upper case letter
753
-
754
- M Mark
755
- Mc Spacing mark
756
- Me Enclosing mark
757
- Mn Non-spacing mark
758
-
759
- N Number
760
- Nd Decimal number
761
- Nl Letter number
762
- No Other number
763
-
764
- P Punctuation
765
- Pc Connector punctuation
766
- Pd Dash punctuation
767
- Pe Close punctuation
768
- Pf Final punctuation
769
- Pi Initial punctuation
770
- Po Other punctuation
771
- Ps Open punctuation
772
-
773
- S Symbol
774
- Sc Currency symbol
775
- Sk Modifier symbol
776
- Sm Mathematical symbol
777
- So Other symbol
778
-
779
- Z Separator
780
- Zl Line separator
781
- Zp Paragraph separator
782
- Zs Space separator
783
- </pre>
784
- The special property L& is also supported: it matches a character that has
785
- the Lu, Ll, or Lt property, in other words, a letter that is not classified as
786
- a modifier or "other".
787
- </P>
788
- <P>
789
- The Cs (Surrogate) property applies only to characters in the range U+D800 to
790
- U+DFFF. Such characters are not valid in Unicode strings and so
791
- cannot be tested by PCRE, unless UTF validity checking has been turned off
792
- (see the discussion of PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK and
793
- PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK in the
794
- <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
795
- page). Perl does not support the Cs property.
796
- </P>
797
- <P>
798
- The long synonyms for property names that Perl supports (such as \p{Letter})
799
- are not supported by PCRE, nor is it permitted to prefix any of these
800
- properties with "Is".
801
- </P>
802
- <P>
803
- No character that is in the Unicode table has the Cn (unassigned) property.
804
- Instead, this property is assumed for any code point that is not in the
805
- Unicode table.
806
- </P>
807
- <P>
808
- Specifying caseless matching does not affect these escape sequences. For
809
- example, \p{Lu} always matches only upper case letters.
810
- </P>
811
- <P>
812
- Matching characters by Unicode property is not fast, because PCRE has to do a
813
- multistage table lookup in order to find a character's property. That is why
814
- the traditional escape sequences such as \d and \w do not use Unicode
815
- properties in PCRE by default, though you can make them do so by setting the
816
- PCRE_UCP option or by starting the pattern with (*UCP).
817
- </P>
818
- <br><b>
819
- Extended grapheme clusters
820
- </b><br>
821
- <P>
822
- The \X escape matches any number of Unicode characters that form an "extended
823
- grapheme cluster", and treats the sequence as an atomic group
824
- <a href="#atomicgroup">(see below).</a>
825
- Up to and including release 8.31, PCRE matched an earlier, simpler definition
826
- that was equivalent to
827
- <pre>
828
- (?&#62;\PM\pM*)
829
- </pre>
830
- That is, it matched a character without the "mark" property, followed by zero
831
- or more characters with the "mark" property. Characters with the "mark"
832
- property are typically non-spacing accents that affect the preceding character.
833
- </P>
834
- <P>
835
- This simple definition was extended in Unicode to include more complicated
836
- kinds of composite character by giving each character a grapheme breaking
837
- property, and creating rules that use these properties to define the boundaries
838
- of extended grapheme clusters. In releases of PCRE later than 8.31, \X matches
839
- one of these clusters.
840
- </P>
841
- <P>
842
- \X always matches at least one character. Then it decides whether to add
843
- additional characters according to the following rules for ending a cluster:
844
- </P>
845
- <P>
846
- 1. End at the end of the subject string.
847
- </P>
848
- <P>
849
- 2. Do not end between CR and LF; otherwise end after any control character.
850
- </P>
851
- <P>
852
- 3. Do not break Hangul (a Korean script) syllable sequences. Hangul characters
853
- are of five types: L, V, T, LV, and LVT. An L character may be followed by an
854
- L, V, LV, or LVT character; an LV or V character may be followed by a V or T
855
- character; an LVT or T character may be follwed only by a T character.
856
- </P>
857
- <P>
858
- 4. Do not end before extending characters or spacing marks. Characters with
859
- the "mark" property always have the "extend" grapheme breaking property.
860
- </P>
861
- <P>
862
- 5. Do not end after prepend characters.
863
- </P>
864
- <P>
865
- 6. Otherwise, end the cluster.
866
- <a name="extraprops"></a></P>
867
- <br><b>
868
- PCRE's additional properties
869
- </b><br>
870
- <P>
871
- As well as the standard Unicode properties described above, PCRE supports four
872
- more that make it possible to convert traditional escape sequences such as \w
873
- and \s and POSIX character classes to use Unicode properties. PCRE uses these
874
- non-standard, non-Perl properties internally when PCRE_UCP is set. They are:
875
- <pre>
876
- Xan Any alphanumeric character
877
- Xps Any POSIX space character
878
- Xsp Any Perl space character
879
- Xwd Any Perl "word" character
880
- </pre>
881
- Xan matches characters that have either the L (letter) or the N (number)
882
- property. Xps matches the characters tab, linefeed, vertical tab, form feed, or
883
- carriage return, and any other character that has the Z (separator) property.
884
- Xsp is the same as Xps, except that vertical tab is excluded. Xwd matches the
885
- same characters as Xan, plus underscore.
886
- <a name="resetmatchstart"></a></P>
887
- <br><b>
888
- Resetting the match start
889
- </b><br>
890
- <P>
891
- The escape sequence \K causes any previously matched characters not to be
892
- included in the final matched sequence. For example, the pattern:
893
- <pre>
894
- foo\Kbar
895
- </pre>
896
- matches "foobar", but reports that it has matched "bar". This feature is
897
- similar to a lookbehind assertion
898
- <a href="#lookbehind">(described below).</a>
899
- However, in this case, the part of the subject before the real match does not
900
- have to be of fixed length, as lookbehind assertions do. The use of \K does
901
- not interfere with the setting of
902
- <a href="#subpattern">captured substrings.</a>
903
- For example, when the pattern
904
- <pre>
905
- (foo)\Kbar
906
- </pre>
907
- matches "foobar", the first substring is still set to "foo".
908
- </P>
909
- <P>
910
- Perl documents that the use of \K within assertions is "not well defined". In
911
- PCRE, \K is acted upon when it occurs inside positive assertions, but is
912
- ignored in negative assertions.
913
- <a name="smallassertions"></a></P>
914
- <br><b>
915
- Simple assertions
916
- </b><br>
917
- <P>
918
- The final use of backslash is for certain simple assertions. An assertion
919
- specifies a condition that has to be met at a particular point in a match,
920
- without consuming any characters from the subject string. The use of
921
- subpatterns for more complicated assertions is described
922
- <a href="#bigassertions">below.</a>
923
- The backslashed assertions are:
924
- <pre>
925
- \b matches at a word boundary
926
- \B matches when not at a word boundary
927
- \A matches at the start of the subject
928
- \Z matches at the end of the subject
929
- also matches before a newline at the end of the subject
930
- \z matches only at the end of the subject
931
- \G matches at the first matching position in the subject
932
- </pre>
933
- Inside a character class, \b has a different meaning; it matches the backspace
934
- character. If any other of these assertions appears in a character class, by
935
- default it matches the corresponding literal character (for example, \B
936
- matches the letter B). However, if the PCRE_EXTRA option is set, an "invalid
937
- escape sequence" error is generated instead.
938
- </P>
939
- <P>
940
- A word boundary is a position in the subject string where the current character
941
- and the previous character do not both match \w or \W (i.e. one matches
942
- \w and the other matches \W), or the start or end of the string if the
943
- first or last character matches \w, respectively. In a UTF mode, the meanings
944
- of \w and \W can be changed by setting the PCRE_UCP option. When this is
945
- done, it also affects \b and \B. Neither PCRE nor Perl has a separate "start
946
- of word" or "end of word" metasequence. However, whatever follows \b normally
947
- determines which it is. For example, the fragment \ba matches "a" at the start
948
- of a word.
949
- </P>
950
- <P>
951
- The \A, \Z, and \z assertions differ from the traditional circumflex and
952
- dollar (described in the next section) in that they only ever match at the very
953
- start and end of the subject string, whatever options are set. Thus, they are
954
- independent of multiline mode. These three assertions are not affected by the
955
- PCRE_NOTBOL or PCRE_NOTEOL options, which affect only the behaviour of the
956
- circumflex and dollar metacharacters. However, if the <i>startoffset</i>
957
- argument of <b>pcre_exec()</b> is non-zero, indicating that matching is to start
958
- at a point other than the beginning of the subject, \A can never match. The
959
- difference between \Z and \z is that \Z matches before a newline at the end
960
- of the string as well as at the very end, whereas \z matches only at the end.
961
- </P>
962
- <P>
963
- The \G assertion is true only when the current matching position is at the
964
- start point of the match, as specified by the <i>startoffset</i> argument of
965
- <b>pcre_exec()</b>. It differs from \A when the value of <i>startoffset</i> is
966
- non-zero. By calling <b>pcre_exec()</b> multiple times with appropriate
967
- arguments, you can mimic Perl's /g option, and it is in this kind of
968
- implementation where \G can be useful.
969
- </P>
970
- <P>
971
- Note, however, that PCRE's interpretation of \G, as the start of the current
972
- match, is subtly different from Perl's, which defines it as the end of the
973
- previous match. In Perl, these can be different when the previously matched
974
- string was empty. Because PCRE does just one match at a time, it cannot
975
- reproduce this behaviour.
976
- </P>
977
- <P>
978
- If all the alternatives of a pattern begin with \G, the expression is anchored
979
- to the starting match position, and the "anchored" flag is set in the compiled
980
- regular expression.
981
- </P>
982
- <br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">CIRCUMFLEX AND DOLLAR</a><br>
983
- <P>
984
- The circumflex and dollar metacharacters are zero-width assertions. That is,
985
- they test for a particular condition being true without consuming any
986
- characters from the subject string.
987
- </P>
988
- <P>
989
- Outside a character class, in the default matching mode, the circumflex
990
- character is an assertion that is true only if the current matching point is at
991
- the start of the subject string. If the <i>startoffset</i> argument of
992
- <b>pcre_exec()</b> is non-zero, circumflex can never match if the PCRE_MULTILINE
993
- option is unset. Inside a character class, circumflex has an entirely different
994
- meaning
995
- <a href="#characterclass">(see below).</a>
996
- </P>
997
- <P>
998
- Circumflex need not be the first character of the pattern if a number of
999
- alternatives are involved, but it should be the first thing in each alternative
1000
- in which it appears if the pattern is ever to match that branch. If all
1001
- possible alternatives start with a circumflex, that is, if the pattern is
1002
- constrained to match only at the start of the subject, it is said to be an
1003
- "anchored" pattern. (There are also other constructs that can cause a pattern
1004
- to be anchored.)
1005
- </P>
1006
- <P>
1007
- The dollar character is an assertion that is true only if the current matching
1008
- point is at the end of the subject string, or immediately before a newline at
1009
- the end of the string (by default). Note, however, that it does not actually
1010
- match the newline. Dollar need not be the last character of the pattern if a
1011
- number of alternatives are involved, but it should be the last item in any
1012
- branch in which it appears. Dollar has no special meaning in a character class.
1013
- </P>
1014
- <P>
1015
- The meaning of dollar can be changed so that it matches only at the very end of
1016
- the string, by setting the PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option at compile time. This
1017
- does not affect the \Z assertion.
1018
- </P>
1019
- <P>
1020
- The meanings of the circumflex and dollar characters are changed if the
1021
- PCRE_MULTILINE option is set. When this is the case, a circumflex matches
1022
- immediately after internal newlines as well as at the start of the subject
1023
- string. It does not match after a newline that ends the string. A dollar
1024
- matches before any newlines in the string, as well as at the very end, when
1025
- PCRE_MULTILINE is set. When newline is specified as the two-character
1026
- sequence CRLF, isolated CR and LF characters do not indicate newlines.
1027
- </P>
1028
- <P>
1029
- For example, the pattern /^abc$/ matches the subject string "def\nabc" (where
1030
- \n represents a newline) in multiline mode, but not otherwise. Consequently,
1031
- patterns that are anchored in single line mode because all branches start with
1032
- ^ are not anchored in multiline mode, and a match for circumflex is possible
1033
- when the <i>startoffset</i> argument of <b>pcre_exec()</b> is non-zero. The
1034
- PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option is ignored if PCRE_MULTILINE is set.
1035
- </P>
1036
- <P>
1037
- Note that the sequences \A, \Z, and \z can be used to match the start and
1038
- end of the subject in both modes, and if all branches of a pattern start with
1039
- \A it is always anchored, whether or not PCRE_MULTILINE is set.
1040
- <a name="fullstopdot"></a></P>
1041
- <br><a name="SEC7" href="#TOC1">FULL STOP (PERIOD, DOT) AND \N</a><br>
1042
- <P>
1043
- Outside a character class, a dot in the pattern matches any one character in
1044
- the subject string except (by default) a character that signifies the end of a
1045
- line.
1046
- </P>
1047
- <P>
1048
- When a line ending is defined as a single character, dot never matches that
1049
- character; when the two-character sequence CRLF is used, dot does not match CR
1050
- if it is immediately followed by LF, but otherwise it matches all characters
1051
- (including isolated CRs and LFs). When any Unicode line endings are being
1052
- recognized, dot does not match CR or LF or any of the other line ending
1053
- characters.
1054
- </P>
1055
- <P>
1056
- The behaviour of dot with regard to newlines can be changed. If the PCRE_DOTALL
1057
- option is set, a dot matches any one character, without exception. If the
1058
- two-character sequence CRLF is present in the subject string, it takes two dots
1059
- to match it.
1060
- </P>
1061
- <P>
1062
- The handling of dot is entirely independent of the handling of circumflex and
1063
- dollar, the only relationship being that they both involve newlines. Dot has no
1064
- special meaning in a character class.
1065
- </P>
1066
- <P>
1067
- The escape sequence \N behaves like a dot, except that it is not affected by
1068
- the PCRE_DOTALL option. In other words, it matches any character except one
1069
- that signifies the end of a line. Perl also uses \N to match characters by
1070
- name; PCRE does not support this.
1071
- </P>
1072
- <br><a name="SEC8" href="#TOC1">MATCHING A SINGLE DATA UNIT</a><br>
1073
- <P>
1074
- Outside a character class, the escape sequence \C matches any one data unit,
1075
- whether or not a UTF mode is set. In the 8-bit library, one data unit is one
1076
- byte; in the 16-bit library it is a 16-bit unit; in the 32-bit library it is
1077
- a 32-bit unit. Unlike a dot, \C always
1078
- matches line-ending characters. The feature is provided in Perl in order to
1079
- match individual bytes in UTF-8 mode, but it is unclear how it can usefully be
1080
- used. Because \C breaks up characters into individual data units, matching one
1081
- unit with \C in a UTF mode means that the rest of the string may start with a
1082
- malformed UTF character. This has undefined results, because PCRE assumes that
1083
- it is dealing with valid UTF strings (and by default it checks this at the
1084
- start of processing unless the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK or
1085
- PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK option is used).
1086
- </P>
1087
- <P>
1088
- PCRE does not allow \C to appear in lookbehind assertions
1089
- <a href="#lookbehind">(described below)</a>
1090
- in a UTF mode, because this would make it impossible to calculate the length of
1091
- the lookbehind.
1092
- </P>
1093
- <P>
1094
- In general, the \C escape sequence is best avoided. However, one
1095
- way of using it that avoids the problem of malformed UTF characters is to use a
1096
- lookahead to check the length of the next character, as in this pattern, which
1097
- could be used with a UTF-8 string (ignore white space and line breaks):
1098
- <pre>
1099
- (?| (?=[\x00-\x7f])(\C) |
1100
- (?=[\x80-\x{7ff}])(\C)(\C) |
1101
- (?=[\x{800}-\x{ffff}])(\C)(\C)(\C) |
1102
- (?=[\x{10000}-\x{1fffff}])(\C)(\C)(\C)(\C))
1103
- </pre>
1104
- A group that starts with (?| resets the capturing parentheses numbers in each
1105
- alternative (see
1106
- <a href="#dupsubpatternnumber">"Duplicate Subpattern Numbers"</a>
1107
- below). The assertions at the start of each branch check the next UTF-8
1108
- character for values whose encoding uses 1, 2, 3, or 4 bytes, respectively. The
1109
- character's individual bytes are then captured by the appropriate number of
1110
- groups.
1111
- <a name="characterclass"></a></P>
1112
- <br><a name="SEC9" href="#TOC1">SQUARE BRACKETS AND CHARACTER CLASSES</a><br>
1113
- <P>
1114
- An opening square bracket introduces a character class, terminated by a closing
1115
- square bracket. A closing square bracket on its own is not special by default.
1116
- However, if the PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT option is set, a lone closing square
1117
- bracket causes a compile-time error. If a closing square bracket is required as
1118
- a member of the class, it should be the first data character in the class
1119
- (after an initial circumflex, if present) or escaped with a backslash.
1120
- </P>
1121
- <P>
1122
- A character class matches a single character in the subject. In a UTF mode, the
1123
- character may be more than one data unit long. A matched character must be in
1124
- the set of characters defined by the class, unless the first character in the
1125
- class definition is a circumflex, in which case the subject character must not
1126
- be in the set defined by the class. If a circumflex is actually required as a
1127
- member of the class, ensure it is not the first character, or escape it with a
1128
- backslash.
1129
- </P>
1130
- <P>
1131
- For example, the character class [aeiou] matches any lower case vowel, while
1132
- [^aeiou] matches any character that is not a lower case vowel. Note that a
1133
- circumflex is just a convenient notation for specifying the characters that
1134
- are in the class by enumerating those that are not. A class that starts with a
1135
- circumflex is not an assertion; it still consumes a character from the subject
1136
- string, and therefore it fails if the current pointer is at the end of the
1137
- string.
1138
- </P>
1139
- <P>
1140
- In UTF-8 (UTF-16, UTF-32) mode, characters with values greater than 255 (0xffff)
1141
- can be included in a class as a literal string of data units, or by using the
1142
- \x{ escaping mechanism.
1143
- </P>
1144
- <P>
1145
- When caseless matching is set, any letters in a class represent both their
1146
- upper case and lower case versions, so for example, a caseless [aeiou] matches
1147
- "A" as well as "a", and a caseless [^aeiou] does not match "A", whereas a
1148
- caseful version would. In a UTF mode, PCRE always understands the concept of
1149
- case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless matching is
1150
- always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of case is
1151
- supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise.
1152
- If you want to use caseless matching in a UTF mode for characters 128 and
1153
- above, you must ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as
1154
- well as with UTF support.
1155
- </P>
1156
- <P>
1157
- Characters that might indicate line breaks are never treated in any special way
1158
- when matching character classes, whatever line-ending sequence is in use, and
1159
- whatever setting of the PCRE_DOTALL and PCRE_MULTILINE options is used. A class
1160
- such as [^a] always matches one of these characters.
1161
- </P>
1162
- <P>
1163
- The minus (hyphen) character can be used to specify a range of characters in a
1164
- character class. For example, [d-m] matches any letter between d and m,
1165
- inclusive. If a minus character is required in a class, it must be escaped with
1166
- a backslash or appear in a position where it cannot be interpreted as
1167
- indicating a range, typically as the first or last character in the class.
1168
- </P>
1169
- <P>
1170
- It is not possible to have the literal character "]" as the end character of a
1171
- range. A pattern such as [W-]46] is interpreted as a class of two characters
1172
- ("W" and "-") followed by a literal string "46]", so it would match "W46]" or
1173
- "-46]". However, if the "]" is escaped with a backslash it is interpreted as
1174
- the end of range, so [W-\]46] is interpreted as a class containing a range
1175
- followed by two other characters. The octal or hexadecimal representation of
1176
- "]" can also be used to end a range.
1177
- </P>
1178
- <P>
1179
- Ranges operate in the collating sequence of character values. They can also be
1180
- used for characters specified numerically, for example [\000-\037]. Ranges
1181
- can include any characters that are valid for the current mode.
1182
- </P>
1183
- <P>
1184
- If a range that includes letters is used when caseless matching is set, it
1185
- matches the letters in either case. For example, [W-c] is equivalent to
1186
- [][\\^_`wxyzabc], matched caselessly, and in a non-UTF mode, if character
1187
- tables for a French locale are in use, [\xc8-\xcb] matches accented E
1188
- characters in both cases. In UTF modes, PCRE supports the concept of case for
1189
- characters with values greater than 128 only when it is compiled with Unicode
1190
- property support.
1191
- </P>
1192
- <P>
1193
- The character escape sequences \d, \D, \h, \H, \p, \P, \s, \S, \v,
1194
- \V, \w, and \W may appear in a character class, and add the characters that
1195
- they match to the class. For example, [\dABCDEF] matches any hexadecimal
1196
- digit. In UTF modes, the PCRE_UCP option affects the meanings of \d, \s, \w
1197
- and their upper case partners, just as it does when they appear outside a
1198
- character class, as described in the section entitled
1199
- <a href="#genericchartypes">"Generic character types"</a>
1200
- above. The escape sequence \b has a different meaning inside a character
1201
- class; it matches the backspace character. The sequences \B, \N, \R, and \X
1202
- are not special inside a character class. Like any other unrecognized escape
1203
- sequences, they are treated as the literal characters "B", "N", "R", and "X" by
1204
- default, but cause an error if the PCRE_EXTRA option is set.
1205
- </P>
1206
- <P>
1207
- A circumflex can conveniently be used with the upper case character types to
1208
- specify a more restricted set of characters than the matching lower case type.
1209
- For example, the class [^\W_] matches any letter or digit, but not underscore,
1210
- whereas [\w] includes underscore. A positive character class should be read as
1211
- "something OR something OR ..." and a negative class as "NOT something AND NOT
1212
- something AND NOT ...".
1213
- </P>
1214
- <P>
1215
- The only metacharacters that are recognized in character classes are backslash,
1216
- hyphen (only where it can be interpreted as specifying a range), circumflex
1217
- (only at the start), opening square bracket (only when it can be interpreted as
1218
- introducing a POSIX class name - see the next section), and the terminating
1219
- closing square bracket. However, escaping other non-alphanumeric characters
1220
- does no harm.
1221
- </P>
1222
- <br><a name="SEC10" href="#TOC1">POSIX CHARACTER CLASSES</a><br>
1223
- <P>
1224
- Perl supports the POSIX notation for character classes. This uses names
1225
- enclosed by [: and :] within the enclosing square brackets. PCRE also supports
1226
- this notation. For example,
1227
- <pre>
1228
- [01[:alpha:]%]
1229
- </pre>
1230
- matches "0", "1", any alphabetic character, or "%". The supported class names
1231
- are:
1232
- <pre>
1233
- alnum letters and digits
1234
- alpha letters
1235
- ascii character codes 0 - 127
1236
- blank space or tab only
1237
- cntrl control characters
1238
- digit decimal digits (same as \d)
1239
- graph printing characters, excluding space
1240
- lower lower case letters
1241
- print printing characters, including space
1242
- punct printing characters, excluding letters and digits and space
1243
- space white space (not quite the same as \s)
1244
- upper upper case letters
1245
- word "word" characters (same as \w)
1246
- xdigit hexadecimal digits
1247
- </pre>
1248
- The "space" characters are HT (9), LF (10), VT (11), FF (12), CR (13), and
1249
- space (32). Notice that this list includes the VT character (code 11). This
1250
- makes "space" different to \s, which does not include VT (for Perl
1251
- compatibility).
1252
- </P>
1253
- <P>
1254
- The name "word" is a Perl extension, and "blank" is a GNU extension from Perl
1255
- 5.8. Another Perl extension is negation, which is indicated by a ^ character
1256
- after the colon. For example,
1257
- <pre>
1258
- [12[:^digit:]]
1259
- </pre>
1260
- matches "1", "2", or any non-digit. PCRE (and Perl) also recognize the POSIX
1261
- syntax [.ch.] and [=ch=] where "ch" is a "collating element", but these are not
1262
- supported, and an error is given if they are encountered.
1263
- </P>
1264
- <P>
1265
- By default, in UTF modes, characters with values greater than 128 do not match
1266
- any of the POSIX character classes. However, if the PCRE_UCP option is passed
1267
- to <b>pcre_compile()</b>, some of the classes are changed so that Unicode
1268
- character properties are used. This is achieved by replacing the POSIX classes
1269
- by other sequences, as follows:
1270
- <pre>
1271
- [:alnum:] becomes \p{Xan}
1272
- [:alpha:] becomes \p{L}
1273
- [:blank:] becomes \h
1274
- [:digit:] becomes \p{Nd}
1275
- [:lower:] becomes \p{Ll}
1276
- [:space:] becomes \p{Xps}
1277
- [:upper:] becomes \p{Lu}
1278
- [:word:] becomes \p{Xwd}
1279
- </pre>
1280
- Negated versions, such as [:^alpha:] use \P instead of \p. The other POSIX
1281
- classes are unchanged, and match only characters with code points less than
1282
- 128.
1283
- </P>
1284
- <br><a name="SEC11" href="#TOC1">VERTICAL BAR</a><br>
1285
- <P>
1286
- Vertical bar characters are used to separate alternative patterns. For example,
1287
- the pattern
1288
- <pre>
1289
- gilbert|sullivan
1290
- </pre>
1291
- matches either "gilbert" or "sullivan". Any number of alternatives may appear,
1292
- and an empty alternative is permitted (matching the empty string). The matching
1293
- process tries each alternative in turn, from left to right, and the first one
1294
- that succeeds is used. If the alternatives are within a subpattern
1295
- <a href="#subpattern">(defined below),</a>
1296
- "succeeds" means matching the rest of the main pattern as well as the
1297
- alternative in the subpattern.
1298
- </P>
1299
- <br><a name="SEC12" href="#TOC1">INTERNAL OPTION SETTING</a><br>
1300
- <P>
1301
- The settings of the PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE, PCRE_DOTALL, and
1302
- PCRE_EXTENDED options (which are Perl-compatible) can be changed from within
1303
- the pattern by a sequence of Perl option letters enclosed between "(?" and ")".
1304
- The option letters are
1305
- <pre>
1306
- i for PCRE_CASELESS
1307
- m for PCRE_MULTILINE
1308
- s for PCRE_DOTALL
1309
- x for PCRE_EXTENDED
1310
- </pre>
1311
- For example, (?im) sets caseless, multiline matching. It is also possible to
1312
- unset these options by preceding the letter with a hyphen, and a combined
1313
- setting and unsetting such as (?im-sx), which sets PCRE_CASELESS and
1314
- PCRE_MULTILINE while unsetting PCRE_DOTALL and PCRE_EXTENDED, is also
1315
- permitted. If a letter appears both before and after the hyphen, the option is
1316
- unset.
1317
- </P>
1318
- <P>
1319
- The PCRE-specific options PCRE_DUPNAMES, PCRE_UNGREEDY, and PCRE_EXTRA can be
1320
- changed in the same way as the Perl-compatible options by using the characters
1321
- J, U and X respectively.
1322
- </P>
1323
- <P>
1324
- When one of these option changes occurs at top level (that is, not inside
1325
- subpattern parentheses), the change applies to the remainder of the pattern
1326
- that follows. If the change is placed right at the start of a pattern, PCRE
1327
- extracts it into the global options (and it will therefore show up in data
1328
- extracted by the <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> function).
1329
- </P>
1330
- <P>
1331
- An option change within a subpattern (see below for a description of
1332
- subpatterns) affects only that part of the subpattern that follows it, so
1333
- <pre>
1334
- (a(?i)b)c
1335
- </pre>
1336
- matches abc and aBc and no other strings (assuming PCRE_CASELESS is not used).
1337
- By this means, options can be made to have different settings in different
1338
- parts of the pattern. Any changes made in one alternative do carry on
1339
- into subsequent branches within the same subpattern. For example,
1340
- <pre>
1341
- (a(?i)b|c)
1342
- </pre>
1343
- matches "ab", "aB", "c", and "C", even though when matching "C" the first
1344
- branch is abandoned before the option setting. This is because the effects of
1345
- option settings happen at compile time. There would be some very weird
1346
- behaviour otherwise.
1347
- </P>
1348
- <P>
1349
- <b>Note:</b> There are other PCRE-specific options that can be set by the
1350
- application when the compiling or matching functions are called. In some cases
1351
- the pattern can contain special leading sequences such as (*CRLF) to override
1352
- what the application has set or what has been defaulted. Details are given in
1353
- the section entitled
1354
- <a href="#newlineseq">"Newline sequences"</a>
1355
- above. There are also the (*UTF8), (*UTF16),(*UTF32), and (*UCP) leading
1356
- sequences that can be used to set UTF and Unicode property modes; they are
1357
- equivalent to setting the PCRE_UTF8, PCRE_UTF16, PCRE_UTF32 and the PCRE_UCP
1358
- options, respectively. The (*UTF) sequence is a generic version that can be
1359
- used with any of the libraries.
1360
- <a name="subpattern"></a></P>
1361
- <br><a name="SEC13" href="#TOC1">SUBPATTERNS</a><br>
1362
- <P>
1363
- Subpatterns are delimited by parentheses (round brackets), which can be nested.
1364
- Turning part of a pattern into a subpattern does two things:
1365
- <br>
1366
- <br>
1367
- 1. It localizes a set of alternatives. For example, the pattern
1368
- <pre>
1369
- cat(aract|erpillar|)
1370
- </pre>
1371
- matches "cataract", "caterpillar", or "cat". Without the parentheses, it would
1372
- match "cataract", "erpillar" or an empty string.
1373
- <br>
1374
- <br>
1375
- 2. It sets up the subpattern as a capturing subpattern. This means that, when
1376
- the whole pattern matches, that portion of the subject string that matched the
1377
- subpattern is passed back to the caller via the <i>ovector</i> argument of the
1378
- matching function. (This applies only to the traditional matching functions;
1379
- the DFA matching functions do not support capturing.)
1380
- </P>
1381
- <P>
1382
- Opening parentheses are counted from left to right (starting from 1) to obtain
1383
- numbers for the capturing subpatterns. For example, if the string "the red
1384
- king" is matched against the pattern
1385
- <pre>
1386
- the ((red|white) (king|queen))
1387
- </pre>
1388
- the captured substrings are "red king", "red", and "king", and are numbered 1,
1389
- 2, and 3, respectively.
1390
- </P>
1391
- <P>
1392
- The fact that plain parentheses fulfil two functions is not always helpful.
1393
- There are often times when a grouping subpattern is required without a
1394
- capturing requirement. If an opening parenthesis is followed by a question mark
1395
- and a colon, the subpattern does not do any capturing, and is not counted when
1396
- computing the number of any subsequent capturing subpatterns. For example, if
1397
- the string "the white queen" is matched against the pattern
1398
- <pre>
1399
- the ((?:red|white) (king|queen))
1400
- </pre>
1401
- the captured substrings are "white queen" and "queen", and are numbered 1 and
1402
- 2. The maximum number of capturing subpatterns is 65535.
1403
- </P>
1404
- <P>
1405
- As a convenient shorthand, if any option settings are required at the start of
1406
- a non-capturing subpattern, the option letters may appear between the "?" and
1407
- the ":". Thus the two patterns
1408
- <pre>
1409
- (?i:saturday|sunday)
1410
- (?:(?i)saturday|sunday)
1411
- </pre>
1412
- match exactly the same set of strings. Because alternative branches are tried
1413
- from left to right, and options are not reset until the end of the subpattern
1414
- is reached, an option setting in one branch does affect subsequent branches, so
1415
- the above patterns match "SUNDAY" as well as "Saturday".
1416
- <a name="dupsubpatternnumber"></a></P>
1417
- <br><a name="SEC14" href="#TOC1">DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NUMBERS</a><br>
1418
- <P>
1419
- Perl 5.10 introduced a feature whereby each alternative in a subpattern uses
1420
- the same numbers for its capturing parentheses. Such a subpattern starts with
1421
- (?| and is itself a non-capturing subpattern. For example, consider this
1422
- pattern:
1423
- <pre>
1424
- (?|(Sat)ur|(Sun))day
1425
- </pre>
1426
- Because the two alternatives are inside a (?| group, both sets of capturing
1427
- parentheses are numbered one. Thus, when the pattern matches, you can look
1428
- at captured substring number one, whichever alternative matched. This construct
1429
- is useful when you want to capture part, but not all, of one of a number of
1430
- alternatives. Inside a (?| group, parentheses are numbered as usual, but the
1431
- number is reset at the start of each branch. The numbers of any capturing
1432
- parentheses that follow the subpattern start after the highest number used in
1433
- any branch. The following example is taken from the Perl documentation. The
1434
- numbers underneath show in which buffer the captured content will be stored.
1435
- <pre>
1436
- # before ---------------branch-reset----------- after
1437
- / ( a ) (?| x ( y ) z | (p (q) r) | (t) u (v) ) ( z ) /x
1438
- # 1 2 2 3 2 3 4
1439
- </pre>
1440
- A back reference to a numbered subpattern uses the most recent value that is
1441
- set for that number by any subpattern. The following pattern matches "abcabc"
1442
- or "defdef":
1443
- <pre>
1444
- /(?|(abc)|(def))\1/
1445
- </pre>
1446
- In contrast, a subroutine call to a numbered subpattern always refers to the
1447
- first one in the pattern with the given number. The following pattern matches
1448
- "abcabc" or "defabc":
1449
- <pre>
1450
- /(?|(abc)|(def))(?1)/
1451
- </pre>
1452
- If a
1453
- <a href="#conditions">condition test</a>
1454
- for a subpattern's having matched refers to a non-unique number, the test is
1455
- true if any of the subpatterns of that number have matched.
1456
- </P>
1457
- <P>
1458
- An alternative approach to using this "branch reset" feature is to use
1459
- duplicate named subpatterns, as described in the next section.
1460
- </P>
1461
- <br><a name="SEC15" href="#TOC1">NAMED SUBPATTERNS</a><br>
1462
- <P>
1463
- Identifying capturing parentheses by number is simple, but it can be very hard
1464
- to keep track of the numbers in complicated regular expressions. Furthermore,
1465
- if an expression is modified, the numbers may change. To help with this
1466
- difficulty, PCRE supports the naming of subpatterns. This feature was not
1467
- added to Perl until release 5.10. Python had the feature earlier, and PCRE
1468
- introduced it at release 4.0, using the Python syntax. PCRE now supports both
1469
- the Perl and the Python syntax. Perl allows identically numbered subpatterns to
1470
- have different names, but PCRE does not.
1471
- </P>
1472
- <P>
1473
- In PCRE, a subpattern can be named in one of three ways: (?&#60;name&#62;...) or
1474
- (?'name'...) as in Perl, or (?P&#60;name&#62;...) as in Python. References to capturing
1475
- parentheses from other parts of the pattern, such as
1476
- <a href="#backreferences">back references,</a>
1477
- <a href="#recursion">recursion,</a>
1478
- and
1479
- <a href="#conditions">conditions,</a>
1480
- can be made by name as well as by number.
1481
- </P>
1482
- <P>
1483
- Names consist of up to 32 alphanumeric characters and underscores. Named
1484
- capturing parentheses are still allocated numbers as well as names, exactly as
1485
- if the names were not present. The PCRE API provides function calls for
1486
- extracting the name-to-number translation table from a compiled pattern. There
1487
- is also a convenience function for extracting a captured substring by name.
1488
- </P>
1489
- <P>
1490
- By default, a name must be unique within a pattern, but it is possible to relax
1491
- this constraint by setting the PCRE_DUPNAMES option at compile time. (Duplicate
1492
- names are also always permitted for subpatterns with the same number, set up as
1493
- described in the previous section.) Duplicate names can be useful for patterns
1494
- where only one instance of the named parentheses can match. Suppose you want to
1495
- match the name of a weekday, either as a 3-letter abbreviation or as the full
1496
- name, and in both cases you want to extract the abbreviation. This pattern
1497
- (ignoring the line breaks) does the job:
1498
- <pre>
1499
- (?&#60;DN&#62;Mon|Fri|Sun)(?:day)?|
1500
- (?&#60;DN&#62;Tue)(?:sday)?|
1501
- (?&#60;DN&#62;Wed)(?:nesday)?|
1502
- (?&#60;DN&#62;Thu)(?:rsday)?|
1503
- (?&#60;DN&#62;Sat)(?:urday)?
1504
- </pre>
1505
- There are five capturing substrings, but only one is ever set after a match.
1506
- (An alternative way of solving this problem is to use a "branch reset"
1507
- subpattern, as described in the previous section.)
1508
- </P>
1509
- <P>
1510
- The convenience function for extracting the data by name returns the substring
1511
- for the first (and in this example, the only) subpattern of that name that
1512
- matched. This saves searching to find which numbered subpattern it was.
1513
- </P>
1514
- <P>
1515
- If you make a back reference to a non-unique named subpattern from elsewhere in
1516
- the pattern, the one that corresponds to the first occurrence of the name is
1517
- used. In the absence of duplicate numbers (see the previous section) this is
1518
- the one with the lowest number. If you use a named reference in a condition
1519
- test (see the
1520
- <a href="#conditions">section about conditions</a>
1521
- below), either to check whether a subpattern has matched, or to check for
1522
- recursion, all subpatterns with the same name are tested. If the condition is
1523
- true for any one of them, the overall condition is true. This is the same
1524
- behaviour as testing by number. For further details of the interfaces for
1525
- handling named subpatterns, see the
1526
- <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
1527
- documentation.
1528
- </P>
1529
- <P>
1530
- <b>Warning:</b> You cannot use different names to distinguish between two
1531
- subpatterns with the same number because PCRE uses only the numbers when
1532
- matching. For this reason, an error is given at compile time if different names
1533
- are given to subpatterns with the same number. However, you can give the same
1534
- name to subpatterns with the same number, even when PCRE_DUPNAMES is not set.
1535
- </P>
1536
- <br><a name="SEC16" href="#TOC1">REPETITION</a><br>
1537
- <P>
1538
- Repetition is specified by quantifiers, which can follow any of the following
1539
- items:
1540
- <pre>
1541
- a literal data character
1542
- the dot metacharacter
1543
- the \C escape sequence
1544
- the \X escape sequence
1545
- the \R escape sequence
1546
- an escape such as \d or \pL that matches a single character
1547
- a character class
1548
- a back reference (see next section)
1549
- a parenthesized subpattern (including assertions)
1550
- a subroutine call to a subpattern (recursive or otherwise)
1551
- </pre>
1552
- The general repetition quantifier specifies a minimum and maximum number of
1553
- permitted matches, by giving the two numbers in curly brackets (braces),
1554
- separated by a comma. The numbers must be less than 65536, and the first must
1555
- be less than or equal to the second. For example:
1556
- <pre>
1557
- z{2,4}
1558
- </pre>
1559
- matches "zz", "zzz", or "zzzz". A closing brace on its own is not a special
1560
- character. If the second number is omitted, but the comma is present, there is
1561
- no upper limit; if the second number and the comma are both omitted, the
1562
- quantifier specifies an exact number of required matches. Thus
1563
- <pre>
1564
- [aeiou]{3,}
1565
- </pre>
1566
- matches at least 3 successive vowels, but may match many more, while
1567
- <pre>
1568
- \d{8}
1569
- </pre>
1570
- matches exactly 8 digits. An opening curly bracket that appears in a position
1571
- where a quantifier is not allowed, or one that does not match the syntax of a
1572
- quantifier, is taken as a literal character. For example, {,6} is not a
1573
- quantifier, but a literal string of four characters.
1574
- </P>
1575
- <P>
1576
- In UTF modes, quantifiers apply to characters rather than to individual data
1577
- units. Thus, for example, \x{100}{2} matches two characters, each of
1578
- which is represented by a two-byte sequence in a UTF-8 string. Similarly,
1579
- \X{3} matches three Unicode extended grapheme clusters, each of which may be
1580
- several data units long (and they may be of different lengths).
1581
- </P>
1582
- <P>
1583
- The quantifier {0} is permitted, causing the expression to behave as if the
1584
- previous item and the quantifier were not present. This may be useful for
1585
- subpatterns that are referenced as
1586
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">subroutines</a>
1587
- from elsewhere in the pattern (but see also the section entitled
1588
- <a href="#subdefine">"Defining subpatterns for use by reference only"</a>
1589
- below). Items other than subpatterns that have a {0} quantifier are omitted
1590
- from the compiled pattern.
1591
- </P>
1592
- <P>
1593
- For convenience, the three most common quantifiers have single-character
1594
- abbreviations:
1595
- <pre>
1596
- * is equivalent to {0,}
1597
- + is equivalent to {1,}
1598
- ? is equivalent to {0,1}
1599
- </pre>
1600
- It is possible to construct infinite loops by following a subpattern that can
1601
- match no characters with a quantifier that has no upper limit, for example:
1602
- <pre>
1603
- (a?)*
1604
- </pre>
1605
- Earlier versions of Perl and PCRE used to give an error at compile time for
1606
- such patterns. However, because there are cases where this can be useful, such
1607
- patterns are now accepted, but if any repetition of the subpattern does in fact
1608
- match no characters, the loop is forcibly broken.
1609
- </P>
1610
- <P>
1611
- By default, the quantifiers are "greedy", that is, they match as much as
1612
- possible (up to the maximum number of permitted times), without causing the
1613
- rest of the pattern to fail. The classic example of where this gives problems
1614
- is in trying to match comments in C programs. These appear between /* and */
1615
- and within the comment, individual * and / characters may appear. An attempt to
1616
- match C comments by applying the pattern
1617
- <pre>
1618
- /\*.*\*/
1619
- </pre>
1620
- to the string
1621
- <pre>
1622
- /* first comment */ not comment /* second comment */
1623
- </pre>
1624
- fails, because it matches the entire string owing to the greediness of the .*
1625
- item.
1626
- </P>
1627
- <P>
1628
- However, if a quantifier is followed by a question mark, it ceases to be
1629
- greedy, and instead matches the minimum number of times possible, so the
1630
- pattern
1631
- <pre>
1632
- /\*.*?\*/
1633
- </pre>
1634
- does the right thing with the C comments. The meaning of the various
1635
- quantifiers is not otherwise changed, just the preferred number of matches.
1636
- Do not confuse this use of question mark with its use as a quantifier in its
1637
- own right. Because it has two uses, it can sometimes appear doubled, as in
1638
- <pre>
1639
- \d??\d
1640
- </pre>
1641
- which matches one digit by preference, but can match two if that is the only
1642
- way the rest of the pattern matches.
1643
- </P>
1644
- <P>
1645
- If the PCRE_UNGREEDY option is set (an option that is not available in Perl),
1646
- the quantifiers are not greedy by default, but individual ones can be made
1647
- greedy by following them with a question mark. In other words, it inverts the
1648
- default behaviour.
1649
- </P>
1650
- <P>
1651
- When a parenthesized subpattern is quantified with a minimum repeat count that
1652
- is greater than 1 or with a limited maximum, more memory is required for the
1653
- compiled pattern, in proportion to the size of the minimum or maximum.
1654
- </P>
1655
- <P>
1656
- If a pattern starts with .* or .{0,} and the PCRE_DOTALL option (equivalent
1657
- to Perl's /s) is set, thus allowing the dot to match newlines, the pattern is
1658
- implicitly anchored, because whatever follows will be tried against every
1659
- character position in the subject string, so there is no point in retrying the
1660
- overall match at any position after the first. PCRE normally treats such a
1661
- pattern as though it were preceded by \A.
1662
- </P>
1663
- <P>
1664
- In cases where it is known that the subject string contains no newlines, it is
1665
- worth setting PCRE_DOTALL in order to obtain this optimization, or
1666
- alternatively using ^ to indicate anchoring explicitly.
1667
- </P>
1668
- <P>
1669
- However, there are some cases where the optimization cannot be used. When .*
1670
- is inside capturing parentheses that are the subject of a back reference
1671
- elsewhere in the pattern, a match at the start may fail where a later one
1672
- succeeds. Consider, for example:
1673
- <pre>
1674
- (.*)abc\1
1675
- </pre>
1676
- If the subject is "xyz123abc123" the match point is the fourth character. For
1677
- this reason, such a pattern is not implicitly anchored.
1678
- </P>
1679
- <P>
1680
- Another case where implicit anchoring is not applied is when the leading .* is
1681
- inside an atomic group. Once again, a match at the start may fail where a later
1682
- one succeeds. Consider this pattern:
1683
- <pre>
1684
- (?&#62;.*?a)b
1685
- </pre>
1686
- It matches "ab" in the subject "aab". The use of the backtracking control verbs
1687
- (*PRUNE) and (*SKIP) also disable this optimization.
1688
- </P>
1689
- <P>
1690
- When a capturing subpattern is repeated, the value captured is the substring
1691
- that matched the final iteration. For example, after
1692
- <pre>
1693
- (tweedle[dume]{3}\s*)+
1694
- </pre>
1695
- has matched "tweedledum tweedledee" the value of the captured substring is
1696
- "tweedledee". However, if there are nested capturing subpatterns, the
1697
- corresponding captured values may have been set in previous iterations. For
1698
- example, after
1699
- <pre>
1700
- /(a|(b))+/
1701
- </pre>
1702
- matches "aba" the value of the second captured substring is "b".
1703
- <a name="atomicgroup"></a></P>
1704
- <br><a name="SEC17" href="#TOC1">ATOMIC GROUPING AND POSSESSIVE QUANTIFIERS</a><br>
1705
- <P>
1706
- With both maximizing ("greedy") and minimizing ("ungreedy" or "lazy")
1707
- repetition, failure of what follows normally causes the repeated item to be
1708
- re-evaluated to see if a different number of repeats allows the rest of the
1709
- pattern to match. Sometimes it is useful to prevent this, either to change the
1710
- nature of the match, or to cause it fail earlier than it otherwise might, when
1711
- the author of the pattern knows there is no point in carrying on.
1712
- </P>
1713
- <P>
1714
- Consider, for example, the pattern \d+foo when applied to the subject line
1715
- <pre>
1716
- 123456bar
1717
- </pre>
1718
- After matching all 6 digits and then failing to match "foo", the normal
1719
- action of the matcher is to try again with only 5 digits matching the \d+
1720
- item, and then with 4, and so on, before ultimately failing. "Atomic grouping"
1721
- (a term taken from Jeffrey Friedl's book) provides the means for specifying
1722
- that once a subpattern has matched, it is not to be re-evaluated in this way.
1723
- </P>
1724
- <P>
1725
- If we use atomic grouping for the previous example, the matcher gives up
1726
- immediately on failing to match "foo" the first time. The notation is a kind of
1727
- special parenthesis, starting with (?&#62; as in this example:
1728
- <pre>
1729
- (?&#62;\d+)foo
1730
- </pre>
1731
- This kind of parenthesis "locks up" the part of the pattern it contains once
1732
- it has matched, and a failure further into the pattern is prevented from
1733
- backtracking into it. Backtracking past it to previous items, however, works as
1734
- normal.
1735
- </P>
1736
- <P>
1737
- An alternative description is that a subpattern of this type matches the string
1738
- of characters that an identical standalone pattern would match, if anchored at
1739
- the current point in the subject string.
1740
- </P>
1741
- <P>
1742
- Atomic grouping subpatterns are not capturing subpatterns. Simple cases such as
1743
- the above example can be thought of as a maximizing repeat that must swallow
1744
- everything it can. So, while both \d+ and \d+? are prepared to adjust the
1745
- number of digits they match in order to make the rest of the pattern match,
1746
- (?&#62;\d+) can only match an entire sequence of digits.
1747
- </P>
1748
- <P>
1749
- Atomic groups in general can of course contain arbitrarily complicated
1750
- subpatterns, and can be nested. However, when the subpattern for an atomic
1751
- group is just a single repeated item, as in the example above, a simpler
1752
- notation, called a "possessive quantifier" can be used. This consists of an
1753
- additional + character following a quantifier. Using this notation, the
1754
- previous example can be rewritten as
1755
- <pre>
1756
- \d++foo
1757
- </pre>
1758
- Note that a possessive quantifier can be used with an entire group, for
1759
- example:
1760
- <pre>
1761
- (abc|xyz){2,3}+
1762
- </pre>
1763
- Possessive quantifiers are always greedy; the setting of the PCRE_UNGREEDY
1764
- option is ignored. They are a convenient notation for the simpler forms of
1765
- atomic group. However, there is no difference in the meaning of a possessive
1766
- quantifier and the equivalent atomic group, though there may be a performance
1767
- difference; possessive quantifiers should be slightly faster.
1768
- </P>
1769
- <P>
1770
- The possessive quantifier syntax is an extension to the Perl 5.8 syntax.
1771
- Jeffrey Friedl originated the idea (and the name) in the first edition of his
1772
- book. Mike McCloskey liked it, so implemented it when he built Sun's Java
1773
- package, and PCRE copied it from there. It ultimately found its way into Perl
1774
- at release 5.10.
1775
- </P>
1776
- <P>
1777
- PCRE has an optimization that automatically "possessifies" certain simple
1778
- pattern constructs. For example, the sequence A+B is treated as A++B because
1779
- there is no point in backtracking into a sequence of A's when B must follow.
1780
- </P>
1781
- <P>
1782
- When a pattern contains an unlimited repeat inside a subpattern that can itself
1783
- be repeated an unlimited number of times, the use of an atomic group is the
1784
- only way to avoid some failing matches taking a very long time indeed. The
1785
- pattern
1786
- <pre>
1787
- (\D+|&#60;\d+&#62;)*[!?]
1788
- </pre>
1789
- matches an unlimited number of substrings that either consist of non-digits, or
1790
- digits enclosed in &#60;&#62;, followed by either ! or ?. When it matches, it runs
1791
- quickly. However, if it is applied to
1792
- <pre>
1793
- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
1794
- </pre>
1795
- it takes a long time before reporting failure. This is because the string can
1796
- be divided between the internal \D+ repeat and the external * repeat in a
1797
- large number of ways, and all have to be tried. (The example uses [!?] rather
1798
- than a single character at the end, because both PCRE and Perl have an
1799
- optimization that allows for fast failure when a single character is used. They
1800
- remember the last single character that is required for a match, and fail early
1801
- if it is not present in the string.) If the pattern is changed so that it uses
1802
- an atomic group, like this:
1803
- <pre>
1804
- ((?&#62;\D+)|&#60;\d+&#62;)*[!?]
1805
- </pre>
1806
- sequences of non-digits cannot be broken, and failure happens quickly.
1807
- <a name="backreferences"></a></P>
1808
- <br><a name="SEC18" href="#TOC1">BACK REFERENCES</a><br>
1809
- <P>
1810
- Outside a character class, a backslash followed by a digit greater than 0 (and
1811
- possibly further digits) is a back reference to a capturing subpattern earlier
1812
- (that is, to its left) in the pattern, provided there have been that many
1813
- previous capturing left parentheses.
1814
- </P>
1815
- <P>
1816
- However, if the decimal number following the backslash is less than 10, it is
1817
- always taken as a back reference, and causes an error only if there are not
1818
- that many capturing left parentheses in the entire pattern. In other words, the
1819
- parentheses that are referenced need not be to the left of the reference for
1820
- numbers less than 10. A "forward back reference" of this type can make sense
1821
- when a repetition is involved and the subpattern to the right has participated
1822
- in an earlier iteration.
1823
- </P>
1824
- <P>
1825
- It is not possible to have a numerical "forward back reference" to a subpattern
1826
- whose number is 10 or more using this syntax because a sequence such as \50 is
1827
- interpreted as a character defined in octal. See the subsection entitled
1828
- "Non-printing characters"
1829
- <a href="#digitsafterbackslash">above</a>
1830
- for further details of the handling of digits following a backslash. There is
1831
- no such problem when named parentheses are used. A back reference to any
1832
- subpattern is possible using named parentheses (see below).
1833
- </P>
1834
- <P>
1835
- Another way of avoiding the ambiguity inherent in the use of digits following a
1836
- backslash is to use the \g escape sequence. This escape must be followed by an
1837
- unsigned number or a negative number, optionally enclosed in braces. These
1838
- examples are all identical:
1839
- <pre>
1840
- (ring), \1
1841
- (ring), \g1
1842
- (ring), \g{1}
1843
- </pre>
1844
- An unsigned number specifies an absolute reference without the ambiguity that
1845
- is present in the older syntax. It is also useful when literal digits follow
1846
- the reference. A negative number is a relative reference. Consider this
1847
- example:
1848
- <pre>
1849
- (abc(def)ghi)\g{-1}
1850
- </pre>
1851
- The sequence \g{-1} is a reference to the most recently started capturing
1852
- subpattern before \g, that is, is it equivalent to \2 in this example.
1853
- Similarly, \g{-2} would be equivalent to \1. The use of relative references
1854
- can be helpful in long patterns, and also in patterns that are created by
1855
- joining together fragments that contain references within themselves.
1856
- </P>
1857
- <P>
1858
- A back reference matches whatever actually matched the capturing subpattern in
1859
- the current subject string, rather than anything matching the subpattern
1860
- itself (see
1861
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">"Subpatterns as subroutines"</a>
1862
- below for a way of doing that). So the pattern
1863
- <pre>
1864
- (sens|respons)e and \1ibility
1865
- </pre>
1866
- matches "sense and sensibility" and "response and responsibility", but not
1867
- "sense and responsibility". If caseful matching is in force at the time of the
1868
- back reference, the case of letters is relevant. For example,
1869
- <pre>
1870
- ((?i)rah)\s+\1
1871
- </pre>
1872
- matches "rah rah" and "RAH RAH", but not "RAH rah", even though the original
1873
- capturing subpattern is matched caselessly.
1874
- </P>
1875
- <P>
1876
- There are several different ways of writing back references to named
1877
- subpatterns. The .NET syntax \k{name} and the Perl syntax \k&#60;name&#62; or
1878
- \k'name' are supported, as is the Python syntax (?P=name). Perl 5.10's unified
1879
- back reference syntax, in which \g can be used for both numeric and named
1880
- references, is also supported. We could rewrite the above example in any of
1881
- the following ways:
1882
- <pre>
1883
- (?&#60;p1&#62;(?i)rah)\s+\k&#60;p1&#62;
1884
- (?'p1'(?i)rah)\s+\k{p1}
1885
- (?P&#60;p1&#62;(?i)rah)\s+(?P=p1)
1886
- (?&#60;p1&#62;(?i)rah)\s+\g{p1}
1887
- </pre>
1888
- A subpattern that is referenced by name may appear in the pattern before or
1889
- after the reference.
1890
- </P>
1891
- <P>
1892
- There may be more than one back reference to the same subpattern. If a
1893
- subpattern has not actually been used in a particular match, any back
1894
- references to it always fail by default. For example, the pattern
1895
- <pre>
1896
- (a|(bc))\2
1897
- </pre>
1898
- always fails if it starts to match "a" rather than "bc". However, if the
1899
- PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT option is set at compile time, a back reference to an
1900
- unset value matches an empty string.
1901
- </P>
1902
- <P>
1903
- Because there may be many capturing parentheses in a pattern, all digits
1904
- following a backslash are taken as part of a potential back reference number.
1905
- If the pattern continues with a digit character, some delimiter must be used to
1906
- terminate the back reference. If the PCRE_EXTENDED option is set, this can be
1907
- white space. Otherwise, the \g{ syntax or an empty comment (see
1908
- <a href="#comments">"Comments"</a>
1909
- below) can be used.
1910
- </P>
1911
- <br><b>
1912
- Recursive back references
1913
- </b><br>
1914
- <P>
1915
- A back reference that occurs inside the parentheses to which it refers fails
1916
- when the subpattern is first used, so, for example, (a\1) never matches.
1917
- However, such references can be useful inside repeated subpatterns. For
1918
- example, the pattern
1919
- <pre>
1920
- (a|b\1)+
1921
- </pre>
1922
- matches any number of "a"s and also "aba", "ababbaa" etc. At each iteration of
1923
- the subpattern, the back reference matches the character string corresponding
1924
- to the previous iteration. In order for this to work, the pattern must be such
1925
- that the first iteration does not need to match the back reference. This can be
1926
- done using alternation, as in the example above, or by a quantifier with a
1927
- minimum of zero.
1928
- </P>
1929
- <P>
1930
- Back references of this type cause the group that they reference to be treated
1931
- as an
1932
- <a href="#atomicgroup">atomic group.</a>
1933
- Once the whole group has been matched, a subsequent matching failure cannot
1934
- cause backtracking into the middle of the group.
1935
- <a name="bigassertions"></a></P>
1936
- <br><a name="SEC19" href="#TOC1">ASSERTIONS</a><br>
1937
- <P>
1938
- An assertion is a test on the characters following or preceding the current
1939
- matching point that does not actually consume any characters. The simple
1940
- assertions coded as \b, \B, \A, \G, \Z, \z, ^ and $ are described
1941
- <a href="#smallassertions">above.</a>
1942
- </P>
1943
- <P>
1944
- More complicated assertions are coded as subpatterns. There are two kinds:
1945
- those that look ahead of the current position in the subject string, and those
1946
- that look behind it. An assertion subpattern is matched in the normal way,
1947
- except that it does not cause the current matching position to be changed.
1948
- </P>
1949
- <P>
1950
- Assertion subpatterns are not capturing subpatterns. If such an assertion
1951
- contains capturing subpatterns within it, these are counted for the purposes of
1952
- numbering the capturing subpatterns in the whole pattern. However, substring
1953
- capturing is carried out only for positive assertions, because it does not make
1954
- sense for negative assertions.
1955
- </P>
1956
- <P>
1957
- For compatibility with Perl, assertion subpatterns may be repeated; though
1958
- it makes no sense to assert the same thing several times, the side effect of
1959
- capturing parentheses may occasionally be useful. In practice, there only three
1960
- cases:
1961
- <br>
1962
- <br>
1963
- (1) If the quantifier is {0}, the assertion is never obeyed during matching.
1964
- However, it may contain internal capturing parenthesized groups that are called
1965
- from elsewhere via the
1966
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">subroutine mechanism.</a>
1967
- <br>
1968
- <br>
1969
- (2) If quantifier is {0,n} where n is greater than zero, it is treated as if it
1970
- were {0,1}. At run time, the rest of the pattern match is tried with and
1971
- without the assertion, the order depending on the greediness of the quantifier.
1972
- <br>
1973
- <br>
1974
- (3) If the minimum repetition is greater than zero, the quantifier is ignored.
1975
- The assertion is obeyed just once when encountered during matching.
1976
- </P>
1977
- <br><b>
1978
- Lookahead assertions
1979
- </b><br>
1980
- <P>
1981
- Lookahead assertions start with (?= for positive assertions and (?! for
1982
- negative assertions. For example,
1983
- <pre>
1984
- \w+(?=;)
1985
- </pre>
1986
- matches a word followed by a semicolon, but does not include the semicolon in
1987
- the match, and
1988
- <pre>
1989
- foo(?!bar)
1990
- </pre>
1991
- matches any occurrence of "foo" that is not followed by "bar". Note that the
1992
- apparently similar pattern
1993
- <pre>
1994
- (?!foo)bar
1995
- </pre>
1996
- does not find an occurrence of "bar" that is preceded by something other than
1997
- "foo"; it finds any occurrence of "bar" whatsoever, because the assertion
1998
- (?!foo) is always true when the next three characters are "bar". A
1999
- lookbehind assertion is needed to achieve the other effect.
2000
- </P>
2001
- <P>
2002
- If you want to force a matching failure at some point in a pattern, the most
2003
- convenient way to do it is with (?!) because an empty string always matches, so
2004
- an assertion that requires there not to be an empty string must always fail.
2005
- The backtracking control verb (*FAIL) or (*F) is a synonym for (?!).
2006
- <a name="lookbehind"></a></P>
2007
- <br><b>
2008
- Lookbehind assertions
2009
- </b><br>
2010
- <P>
2011
- Lookbehind assertions start with (?&#60;= for positive assertions and (?&#60;! for
2012
- negative assertions. For example,
2013
- <pre>
2014
- (?&#60;!foo)bar
2015
- </pre>
2016
- does find an occurrence of "bar" that is not preceded by "foo". The contents of
2017
- a lookbehind assertion are restricted such that all the strings it matches must
2018
- have a fixed length. However, if there are several top-level alternatives, they
2019
- do not all have to have the same fixed length. Thus
2020
- <pre>
2021
- (?&#60;=bullock|donkey)
2022
- </pre>
2023
- is permitted, but
2024
- <pre>
2025
- (?&#60;!dogs?|cats?)
2026
- </pre>
2027
- causes an error at compile time. Branches that match different length strings
2028
- are permitted only at the top level of a lookbehind assertion. This is an
2029
- extension compared with Perl, which requires all branches to match the same
2030
- length of string. An assertion such as
2031
- <pre>
2032
- (?&#60;=ab(c|de))
2033
- </pre>
2034
- is not permitted, because its single top-level branch can match two different
2035
- lengths, but it is acceptable to PCRE if rewritten to use two top-level
2036
- branches:
2037
- <pre>
2038
- (?&#60;=abc|abde)
2039
- </pre>
2040
- In some cases, the escape sequence \K
2041
- <a href="#resetmatchstart">(see above)</a>
2042
- can be used instead of a lookbehind assertion to get round the fixed-length
2043
- restriction.
2044
- </P>
2045
- <P>
2046
- The implementation of lookbehind assertions is, for each alternative, to
2047
- temporarily move the current position back by the fixed length and then try to
2048
- match. If there are insufficient characters before the current position, the
2049
- assertion fails.
2050
- </P>
2051
- <P>
2052
- In a UTF mode, PCRE does not allow the \C escape (which matches a single data
2053
- unit even in a UTF mode) to appear in lookbehind assertions, because it makes
2054
- it impossible to calculate the length of the lookbehind. The \X and \R
2055
- escapes, which can match different numbers of data units, are also not
2056
- permitted.
2057
- </P>
2058
- <P>
2059
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">"Subroutine"</a>
2060
- calls (see below) such as (?2) or (?&X) are permitted in lookbehinds, as long
2061
- as the subpattern matches a fixed-length string.
2062
- <a href="#recursion">Recursion,</a>
2063
- however, is not supported.
2064
- </P>
2065
- <P>
2066
- Possessive quantifiers can be used in conjunction with lookbehind assertions to
2067
- specify efficient matching of fixed-length strings at the end of subject
2068
- strings. Consider a simple pattern such as
2069
- <pre>
2070
- abcd$
2071
- </pre>
2072
- when applied to a long string that does not match. Because matching proceeds
2073
- from left to right, PCRE will look for each "a" in the subject and then see if
2074
- what follows matches the rest of the pattern. If the pattern is specified as
2075
- <pre>
2076
- ^.*abcd$
2077
- </pre>
2078
- the initial .* matches the entire string at first, but when this fails (because
2079
- there is no following "a"), it backtracks to match all but the last character,
2080
- then all but the last two characters, and so on. Once again the search for "a"
2081
- covers the entire string, from right to left, so we are no better off. However,
2082
- if the pattern is written as
2083
- <pre>
2084
- ^.*+(?&#60;=abcd)
2085
- </pre>
2086
- there can be no backtracking for the .*+ item; it can match only the entire
2087
- string. The subsequent lookbehind assertion does a single test on the last four
2088
- characters. If it fails, the match fails immediately. For long strings, this
2089
- approach makes a significant difference to the processing time.
2090
- </P>
2091
- <br><b>
2092
- Using multiple assertions
2093
- </b><br>
2094
- <P>
2095
- Several assertions (of any sort) may occur in succession. For example,
2096
- <pre>
2097
- (?&#60;=\d{3})(?&#60;!999)foo
2098
- </pre>
2099
- matches "foo" preceded by three digits that are not "999". Notice that each of
2100
- the assertions is applied independently at the same point in the subject
2101
- string. First there is a check that the previous three characters are all
2102
- digits, and then there is a check that the same three characters are not "999".
2103
- This pattern does <i>not</i> match "foo" preceded by six characters, the first
2104
- of which are digits and the last three of which are not "999". For example, it
2105
- doesn't match "123abcfoo". A pattern to do that is
2106
- <pre>
2107
- (?&#60;=\d{3}...)(?&#60;!999)foo
2108
- </pre>
2109
- This time the first assertion looks at the preceding six characters, checking
2110
- that the first three are digits, and then the second assertion checks that the
2111
- preceding three characters are not "999".
2112
- </P>
2113
- <P>
2114
- Assertions can be nested in any combination. For example,
2115
- <pre>
2116
- (?&#60;=(?&#60;!foo)bar)baz
2117
- </pre>
2118
- matches an occurrence of "baz" that is preceded by "bar" which in turn is not
2119
- preceded by "foo", while
2120
- <pre>
2121
- (?&#60;=\d{3}(?!999)...)foo
2122
- </pre>
2123
- is another pattern that matches "foo" preceded by three digits and any three
2124
- characters that are not "999".
2125
- <a name="conditions"></a></P>
2126
- <br><a name="SEC20" href="#TOC1">CONDITIONAL SUBPATTERNS</a><br>
2127
- <P>
2128
- It is possible to cause the matching process to obey a subpattern
2129
- conditionally or to choose between two alternative subpatterns, depending on
2130
- the result of an assertion, or whether a specific capturing subpattern has
2131
- already been matched. The two possible forms of conditional subpattern are:
2132
- <pre>
2133
- (?(condition)yes-pattern)
2134
- (?(condition)yes-pattern|no-pattern)
2135
- </pre>
2136
- If the condition is satisfied, the yes-pattern is used; otherwise the
2137
- no-pattern (if present) is used. If there are more than two alternatives in the
2138
- subpattern, a compile-time error occurs. Each of the two alternatives may
2139
- itself contain nested subpatterns of any form, including conditional
2140
- subpatterns; the restriction to two alternatives applies only at the level of
2141
- the condition. This pattern fragment is an example where the alternatives are
2142
- complex:
2143
- <pre>
2144
- (?(1) (A|B|C) | (D | (?(2)E|F) | E) )
2145
-
2146
- </PRE>
2147
- </P>
2148
- <P>
2149
- There are four kinds of condition: references to subpatterns, references to
2150
- recursion, a pseudo-condition called DEFINE, and assertions.
2151
- </P>
2152
- <br><b>
2153
- Checking for a used subpattern by number
2154
- </b><br>
2155
- <P>
2156
- If the text between the parentheses consists of a sequence of digits, the
2157
- condition is true if a capturing subpattern of that number has previously
2158
- matched. If there is more than one capturing subpattern with the same number
2159
- (see the earlier
2160
- <a href="#recursion">section about duplicate subpattern numbers),</a>
2161
- the condition is true if any of them have matched. An alternative notation is
2162
- to precede the digits with a plus or minus sign. In this case, the subpattern
2163
- number is relative rather than absolute. The most recently opened parentheses
2164
- can be referenced by (?(-1), the next most recent by (?(-2), and so on. Inside
2165
- loops it can also make sense to refer to subsequent groups. The next
2166
- parentheses to be opened can be referenced as (?(+1), and so on. (The value
2167
- zero in any of these forms is not used; it provokes a compile-time error.)
2168
- </P>
2169
- <P>
2170
- Consider the following pattern, which contains non-significant white space to
2171
- make it more readable (assume the PCRE_EXTENDED option) and to divide it into
2172
- three parts for ease of discussion:
2173
- <pre>
2174
- ( \( )? [^()]+ (?(1) \) )
2175
- </pre>
2176
- The first part matches an optional opening parenthesis, and if that
2177
- character is present, sets it as the first captured substring. The second part
2178
- matches one or more characters that are not parentheses. The third part is a
2179
- conditional subpattern that tests whether or not the first set of parentheses
2180
- matched. If they did, that is, if subject started with an opening parenthesis,
2181
- the condition is true, and so the yes-pattern is executed and a closing
2182
- parenthesis is required. Otherwise, since no-pattern is not present, the
2183
- subpattern matches nothing. In other words, this pattern matches a sequence of
2184
- non-parentheses, optionally enclosed in parentheses.
2185
- </P>
2186
- <P>
2187
- If you were embedding this pattern in a larger one, you could use a relative
2188
- reference:
2189
- <pre>
2190
- ...other stuff... ( \( )? [^()]+ (?(-1) \) ) ...
2191
- </pre>
2192
- This makes the fragment independent of the parentheses in the larger pattern.
2193
- </P>
2194
- <br><b>
2195
- Checking for a used subpattern by name
2196
- </b><br>
2197
- <P>
2198
- Perl uses the syntax (?(&#60;name&#62;)...) or (?('name')...) to test for a used
2199
- subpattern by name. For compatibility with earlier versions of PCRE, which had
2200
- this facility before Perl, the syntax (?(name)...) is also recognized. However,
2201
- there is a possible ambiguity with this syntax, because subpattern names may
2202
- consist entirely of digits. PCRE looks first for a named subpattern; if it
2203
- cannot find one and the name consists entirely of digits, PCRE looks for a
2204
- subpattern of that number, which must be greater than zero. Using subpattern
2205
- names that consist entirely of digits is not recommended.
2206
- </P>
2207
- <P>
2208
- Rewriting the above example to use a named subpattern gives this:
2209
- <pre>
2210
- (?&#60;OPEN&#62; \( )? [^()]+ (?(&#60;OPEN&#62;) \) )
2211
- </pre>
2212
- If the name used in a condition of this kind is a duplicate, the test is
2213
- applied to all subpatterns of the same name, and is true if any one of them has
2214
- matched.
2215
- </P>
2216
- <br><b>
2217
- Checking for pattern recursion
2218
- </b><br>
2219
- <P>
2220
- If the condition is the string (R), and there is no subpattern with the name R,
2221
- the condition is true if a recursive call to the whole pattern or any
2222
- subpattern has been made. If digits or a name preceded by ampersand follow the
2223
- letter R, for example:
2224
- <pre>
2225
- (?(R3)...) or (?(R&name)...)
2226
- </pre>
2227
- the condition is true if the most recent recursion is into a subpattern whose
2228
- number or name is given. This condition does not check the entire recursion
2229
- stack. If the name used in a condition of this kind is a duplicate, the test is
2230
- applied to all subpatterns of the same name, and is true if any one of them is
2231
- the most recent recursion.
2232
- </P>
2233
- <P>
2234
- At "top level", all these recursion test conditions are false.
2235
- <a href="#recursion">The syntax for recursive patterns</a>
2236
- is described below.
2237
- <a name="subdefine"></a></P>
2238
- <br><b>
2239
- Defining subpatterns for use by reference only
2240
- </b><br>
2241
- <P>
2242
- If the condition is the string (DEFINE), and there is no subpattern with the
2243
- name DEFINE, the condition is always false. In this case, there may be only one
2244
- alternative in the subpattern. It is always skipped if control reaches this
2245
- point in the pattern; the idea of DEFINE is that it can be used to define
2246
- subroutines that can be referenced from elsewhere. (The use of
2247
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">subroutines</a>
2248
- is described below.) For example, a pattern to match an IPv4 address such as
2249
- "192.168.23.245" could be written like this (ignore white space and line
2250
- breaks):
2251
- <pre>
2252
- (?(DEFINE) (?&#60;byte&#62; 2[0-4]\d | 25[0-5] | 1\d\d | [1-9]?\d) )
2253
- \b (?&byte) (\.(?&byte)){3} \b
2254
- </pre>
2255
- The first part of the pattern is a DEFINE group inside which a another group
2256
- named "byte" is defined. This matches an individual component of an IPv4
2257
- address (a number less than 256). When matching takes place, this part of the
2258
- pattern is skipped because DEFINE acts like a false condition. The rest of the
2259
- pattern uses references to the named group to match the four dot-separated
2260
- components of an IPv4 address, insisting on a word boundary at each end.
2261
- </P>
2262
- <br><b>
2263
- Assertion conditions
2264
- </b><br>
2265
- <P>
2266
- If the condition is not in any of the above formats, it must be an assertion.
2267
- This may be a positive or negative lookahead or lookbehind assertion. Consider
2268
- this pattern, again containing non-significant white space, and with the two
2269
- alternatives on the second line:
2270
- <pre>
2271
- (?(?=[^a-z]*[a-z])
2272
- \d{2}-[a-z]{3}-\d{2} | \d{2}-\d{2}-\d{2} )
2273
- </pre>
2274
- The condition is a positive lookahead assertion that matches an optional
2275
- sequence of non-letters followed by a letter. In other words, it tests for the
2276
- presence of at least one letter in the subject. If a letter is found, the
2277
- subject is matched against the first alternative; otherwise it is matched
2278
- against the second. This pattern matches strings in one of the two forms
2279
- dd-aaa-dd or dd-dd-dd, where aaa are letters and dd are digits.
2280
- <a name="comments"></a></P>
2281
- <br><a name="SEC21" href="#TOC1">COMMENTS</a><br>
2282
- <P>
2283
- There are two ways of including comments in patterns that are processed by
2284
- PCRE. In both cases, the start of the comment must not be in a character class,
2285
- nor in the middle of any other sequence of related characters such as (?: or a
2286
- subpattern name or number. The characters that make up a comment play no part
2287
- in the pattern matching.
2288
- </P>
2289
- <P>
2290
- The sequence (?# marks the start of a comment that continues up to the next
2291
- closing parenthesis. Nested parentheses are not permitted. If the PCRE_EXTENDED
2292
- option is set, an unescaped # character also introduces a comment, which in
2293
- this case continues to immediately after the next newline character or
2294
- character sequence in the pattern. Which characters are interpreted as newlines
2295
- is controlled by the options passed to a compiling function or by a special
2296
- sequence at the start of the pattern, as described in the section entitled
2297
- <a href="#newlines">"Newline conventions"</a>
2298
- above. Note that the end of this type of comment is a literal newline sequence
2299
- in the pattern; escape sequences that happen to represent a newline do not
2300
- count. For example, consider this pattern when PCRE_EXTENDED is set, and the
2301
- default newline convention is in force:
2302
- <pre>
2303
- abc #comment \n still comment
2304
- </pre>
2305
- On encountering the # character, <b>pcre_compile()</b> skips along, looking for
2306
- a newline in the pattern. The sequence \n is still literal at this stage, so
2307
- it does not terminate the comment. Only an actual character with the code value
2308
- 0x0a (the default newline) does so.
2309
- <a name="recursion"></a></P>
2310
- <br><a name="SEC22" href="#TOC1">RECURSIVE PATTERNS</a><br>
2311
- <P>
2312
- Consider the problem of matching a string in parentheses, allowing for
2313
- unlimited nested parentheses. Without the use of recursion, the best that can
2314
- be done is to use a pattern that matches up to some fixed depth of nesting. It
2315
- is not possible to handle an arbitrary nesting depth.
2316
- </P>
2317
- <P>
2318
- For some time, Perl has provided a facility that allows regular expressions to
2319
- recurse (amongst other things). It does this by interpolating Perl code in the
2320
- expression at run time, and the code can refer to the expression itself. A Perl
2321
- pattern using code interpolation to solve the parentheses problem can be
2322
- created like this:
2323
- <pre>
2324
- $re = qr{\( (?: (?&#62;[^()]+) | (?p{$re}) )* \)}x;
2325
- </pre>
2326
- The (?p{...}) item interpolates Perl code at run time, and in this case refers
2327
- recursively to the pattern in which it appears.
2328
- </P>
2329
- <P>
2330
- Obviously, PCRE cannot support the interpolation of Perl code. Instead, it
2331
- supports special syntax for recursion of the entire pattern, and also for
2332
- individual subpattern recursion. After its introduction in PCRE and Python,
2333
- this kind of recursion was subsequently introduced into Perl at release 5.10.
2334
- </P>
2335
- <P>
2336
- A special item that consists of (? followed by a number greater than zero and a
2337
- closing parenthesis is a recursive subroutine call of the subpattern of the
2338
- given number, provided that it occurs inside that subpattern. (If not, it is a
2339
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">non-recursive subroutine</a>
2340
- call, which is described in the next section.) The special item (?R) or (?0) is
2341
- a recursive call of the entire regular expression.
2342
- </P>
2343
- <P>
2344
- This PCRE pattern solves the nested parentheses problem (assume the
2345
- PCRE_EXTENDED option is set so that white space is ignored):
2346
- <pre>
2347
- \( ( [^()]++ | (?R) )* \)
2348
- </pre>
2349
- First it matches an opening parenthesis. Then it matches any number of
2350
- substrings which can either be a sequence of non-parentheses, or a recursive
2351
- match of the pattern itself (that is, a correctly parenthesized substring).
2352
- Finally there is a closing parenthesis. Note the use of a possessive quantifier
2353
- to avoid backtracking into sequences of non-parentheses.
2354
- </P>
2355
- <P>
2356
- If this were part of a larger pattern, you would not want to recurse the entire
2357
- pattern, so instead you could use this:
2358
- <pre>
2359
- ( \( ( [^()]++ | (?1) )* \) )
2360
- </pre>
2361
- We have put the pattern into parentheses, and caused the recursion to refer to
2362
- them instead of the whole pattern.
2363
- </P>
2364
- <P>
2365
- In a larger pattern, keeping track of parenthesis numbers can be tricky. This
2366
- is made easier by the use of relative references. Instead of (?1) in the
2367
- pattern above you can write (?-2) to refer to the second most recently opened
2368
- parentheses preceding the recursion. In other words, a negative number counts
2369
- capturing parentheses leftwards from the point at which it is encountered.
2370
- </P>
2371
- <P>
2372
- It is also possible to refer to subsequently opened parentheses, by writing
2373
- references such as (?+2). However, these cannot be recursive because the
2374
- reference is not inside the parentheses that are referenced. They are always
2375
- <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">non-recursive subroutine</a>
2376
- calls, as described in the next section.
2377
- </P>
2378
- <P>
2379
- An alternative approach is to use named parentheses instead. The Perl syntax
2380
- for this is (?&name); PCRE's earlier syntax (?P&#62;name) is also supported. We
2381
- could rewrite the above example as follows:
2382
- <pre>
2383
- (?&#60;pn&#62; \( ( [^()]++ | (?&pn) )* \) )
2384
- </pre>
2385
- If there is more than one subpattern with the same name, the earliest one is
2386
- used.
2387
- </P>
2388
- <P>
2389
- This particular example pattern that we have been looking at contains nested
2390
- unlimited repeats, and so the use of a possessive quantifier for matching
2391
- strings of non-parentheses is important when applying the pattern to strings
2392
- that do not match. For example, when this pattern is applied to
2393
- <pre>
2394
- (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa()
2395
- </pre>
2396
- it yields "no match" quickly. However, if a possessive quantifier is not used,
2397
- the match runs for a very long time indeed because there are so many different
2398
- ways the + and * repeats can carve up the subject, and all have to be tested
2399
- before failure can be reported.
2400
- </P>
2401
- <P>
2402
- At the end of a match, the values of capturing parentheses are those from
2403
- the outermost level. If you want to obtain intermediate values, a callout
2404
- function can be used (see below and the
2405
- <a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
2406
- documentation). If the pattern above is matched against
2407
- <pre>
2408
- (ab(cd)ef)
2409
- </pre>
2410
- the value for the inner capturing parentheses (numbered 2) is "ef", which is
2411
- the last value taken on at the top level. If a capturing subpattern is not
2412
- matched at the top level, its final captured value is unset, even if it was
2413
- (temporarily) set at a deeper level during the matching process.
2414
- </P>
2415
- <P>
2416
- If there are more than 15 capturing parentheses in a pattern, PCRE has to
2417
- obtain extra memory to store data during a recursion, which it does by using
2418
- <b>pcre_malloc</b>, freeing it via <b>pcre_free</b> afterwards. If no memory can
2419
- be obtained, the match fails with the PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY error.
2420
- </P>
2421
- <P>
2422
- Do not confuse the (?R) item with the condition (R), which tests for recursion.
2423
- Consider this pattern, which matches text in angle brackets, allowing for
2424
- arbitrary nesting. Only digits are allowed in nested brackets (that is, when
2425
- recursing), whereas any characters are permitted at the outer level.
2426
- <pre>
2427
- &#60; (?: (?(R) \d++ | [^&#60;&#62;]*+) | (?R)) * &#62;
2428
- </pre>
2429
- In this pattern, (?(R) is the start of a conditional subpattern, with two
2430
- different alternatives for the recursive and non-recursive cases. The (?R) item
2431
- is the actual recursive call.
2432
- <a name="recursiondifference"></a></P>
2433
- <br><b>
2434
- Differences in recursion processing between PCRE and Perl
2435
- </b><br>
2436
- <P>
2437
- Recursion processing in PCRE differs from Perl in two important ways. In PCRE
2438
- (like Python, but unlike Perl), a recursive subpattern call is always treated
2439
- as an atomic group. That is, once it has matched some of the subject string, it
2440
- is never re-entered, even if it contains untried alternatives and there is a
2441
- subsequent matching failure. This can be illustrated by the following pattern,
2442
- which purports to match a palindromic string that contains an odd number of
2443
- characters (for example, "a", "aba", "abcba", "abcdcba"):
2444
- <pre>
2445
- ^(.|(.)(?1)\2)$
2446
- </pre>
2447
- The idea is that it either matches a single character, or two identical
2448
- characters surrounding a sub-palindrome. In Perl, this pattern works; in PCRE
2449
- it does not if the pattern is longer than three characters. Consider the
2450
- subject string "abcba":
2451
- </P>
2452
- <P>
2453
- At the top level, the first character is matched, but as it is not at the end
2454
- of the string, the first alternative fails; the second alternative is taken
2455
- and the recursion kicks in. The recursive call to subpattern 1 successfully
2456
- matches the next character ("b"). (Note that the beginning and end of line
2457
- tests are not part of the recursion).
2458
- </P>
2459
- <P>
2460
- Back at the top level, the next character ("c") is compared with what
2461
- subpattern 2 matched, which was "a". This fails. Because the recursion is
2462
- treated as an atomic group, there are now no backtracking points, and so the
2463
- entire match fails. (Perl is able, at this point, to re-enter the recursion and
2464
- try the second alternative.) However, if the pattern is written with the
2465
- alternatives in the other order, things are different:
2466
- <pre>
2467
- ^((.)(?1)\2|.)$
2468
- </pre>
2469
- This time, the recursing alternative is tried first, and continues to recurse
2470
- until it runs out of characters, at which point the recursion fails. But this
2471
- time we do have another alternative to try at the higher level. That is the big
2472
- difference: in the previous case the remaining alternative is at a deeper
2473
- recursion level, which PCRE cannot use.
2474
- </P>
2475
- <P>
2476
- To change the pattern so that it matches all palindromic strings, not just
2477
- those with an odd number of characters, it is tempting to change the pattern to
2478
- this:
2479
- <pre>
2480
- ^((.)(?1)\2|.?)$
2481
- </pre>
2482
- Again, this works in Perl, but not in PCRE, and for the same reason. When a
2483
- deeper recursion has matched a single character, it cannot be entered again in
2484
- order to match an empty string. The solution is to separate the two cases, and
2485
- write out the odd and even cases as alternatives at the higher level:
2486
- <pre>
2487
- ^(?:((.)(?1)\2|)|((.)(?3)\4|.))
2488
- </pre>
2489
- If you want to match typical palindromic phrases, the pattern has to ignore all
2490
- non-word characters, which can be done like this:
2491
- <pre>
2492
- ^\W*+(?:((.)\W*+(?1)\W*+\2|)|((.)\W*+(?3)\W*+\4|\W*+.\W*+))\W*+$
2493
- </pre>
2494
- If run with the PCRE_CASELESS option, this pattern matches phrases such as "A
2495
- man, a plan, a canal: Panama!" and it works well in both PCRE and Perl. Note
2496
- the use of the possessive quantifier *+ to avoid backtracking into sequences of
2497
- non-word characters. Without this, PCRE takes a great deal longer (ten times or
2498
- more) to match typical phrases, and Perl takes so long that you think it has
2499
- gone into a loop.
2500
- </P>
2501
- <P>
2502
- <b>WARNING</b>: The palindrome-matching patterns above work only if the subject
2503
- string does not start with a palindrome that is shorter than the entire string.
2504
- For example, although "abcba" is correctly matched, if the subject is "ababa",
2505
- PCRE finds the palindrome "aba" at the start, then fails at top level because
2506
- the end of the string does not follow. Once again, it cannot jump back into the
2507
- recursion to try other alternatives, so the entire match fails.
2508
- </P>
2509
- <P>
2510
- The second way in which PCRE and Perl differ in their recursion processing is
2511
- in the handling of captured values. In Perl, when a subpattern is called
2512
- recursively or as a subpattern (see the next section), it has no access to any
2513
- values that were captured outside the recursion, whereas in PCRE these values
2514
- can be referenced. Consider this pattern:
2515
- <pre>
2516
- ^(.)(\1|a(?2))
2517
- </pre>
2518
- In PCRE, this pattern matches "bab". The first capturing parentheses match "b",
2519
- then in the second group, when the back reference \1 fails to match "b", the
2520
- second alternative matches "a" and then recurses. In the recursion, \1 does
2521
- now match "b" and so the whole match succeeds. In Perl, the pattern fails to
2522
- match because inside the recursive call \1 cannot access the externally set
2523
- value.
2524
- <a name="subpatternsassubroutines"></a></P>
2525
- <br><a name="SEC23" href="#TOC1">SUBPATTERNS AS SUBROUTINES</a><br>
2526
- <P>
2527
- If the syntax for a recursive subpattern call (either by number or by
2528
- name) is used outside the parentheses to which it refers, it operates like a
2529
- subroutine in a programming language. The called subpattern may be defined
2530
- before or after the reference. A numbered reference can be absolute or
2531
- relative, as in these examples:
2532
- <pre>
2533
- (...(absolute)...)...(?2)...
2534
- (...(relative)...)...(?-1)...
2535
- (...(?+1)...(relative)...
2536
- </pre>
2537
- An earlier example pointed out that the pattern
2538
- <pre>
2539
- (sens|respons)e and \1ibility
2540
- </pre>
2541
- matches "sense and sensibility" and "response and responsibility", but not
2542
- "sense and responsibility". If instead the pattern
2543
- <pre>
2544
- (sens|respons)e and (?1)ibility
2545
- </pre>
2546
- is used, it does match "sense and responsibility" as well as the other two
2547
- strings. Another example is given in the discussion of DEFINE above.
2548
- </P>
2549
- <P>
2550
- All subroutine calls, whether recursive or not, are always treated as atomic
2551
- groups. That is, once a subroutine has matched some of the subject string, it
2552
- is never re-entered, even if it contains untried alternatives and there is a
2553
- subsequent matching failure. Any capturing parentheses that are set during the
2554
- subroutine call revert to their previous values afterwards.
2555
- </P>
2556
- <P>
2557
- Processing options such as case-independence are fixed when a subpattern is
2558
- defined, so if it is used as a subroutine, such options cannot be changed for
2559
- different calls. For example, consider this pattern:
2560
- <pre>
2561
- (abc)(?i:(?-1))
2562
- </pre>
2563
- It matches "abcabc". It does not match "abcABC" because the change of
2564
- processing option does not affect the called subpattern.
2565
- <a name="onigurumasubroutines"></a></P>
2566
- <br><a name="SEC24" href="#TOC1">ONIGURUMA SUBROUTINE SYNTAX</a><br>
2567
- <P>
2568
- For compatibility with Oniguruma, the non-Perl syntax \g followed by a name or
2569
- a number enclosed either in angle brackets or single quotes, is an alternative
2570
- syntax for referencing a subpattern as a subroutine, possibly recursively. Here
2571
- are two of the examples used above, rewritten using this syntax:
2572
- <pre>
2573
- (?&#60;pn&#62; \( ( (?&#62;[^()]+) | \g&#60;pn&#62; )* \) )
2574
- (sens|respons)e and \g'1'ibility
2575
- </pre>
2576
- PCRE supports an extension to Oniguruma: if a number is preceded by a
2577
- plus or a minus sign it is taken as a relative reference. For example:
2578
- <pre>
2579
- (abc)(?i:\g&#60;-1&#62;)
2580
- </pre>
2581
- Note that \g{...} (Perl syntax) and \g&#60;...&#62; (Oniguruma syntax) are <i>not</i>
2582
- synonymous. The former is a back reference; the latter is a subroutine call.
2583
- </P>
2584
- <br><a name="SEC25" href="#TOC1">CALLOUTS</a><br>
2585
- <P>
2586
- Perl has a feature whereby using the sequence (?{...}) causes arbitrary Perl
2587
- code to be obeyed in the middle of matching a regular expression. This makes it
2588
- possible, amongst other things, to extract different substrings that match the
2589
- same pair of parentheses when there is a repetition.
2590
- </P>
2591
- <P>
2592
- PCRE provides a similar feature, but of course it cannot obey arbitrary Perl
2593
- code. The feature is called "callout". The caller of PCRE provides an external
2594
- function by putting its entry point in the global variable <i>pcre_callout</i>
2595
- (8-bit library) or <i>pcre[16|32]_callout</i> (16-bit or 32-bit library).
2596
- By default, this variable contains NULL, which disables all calling out.
2597
- </P>
2598
- <P>
2599
- Within a regular expression, (?C) indicates the points at which the external
2600
- function is to be called. If you want to identify different callout points, you
2601
- can put a number less than 256 after the letter C. The default value is zero.
2602
- For example, this pattern has two callout points:
2603
- <pre>
2604
- (?C1)abc(?C2)def
2605
- </pre>
2606
- If the PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT flag is passed to a compiling function, callouts are
2607
- automatically installed before each item in the pattern. They are all numbered
2608
- 255.
2609
- </P>
2610
- <P>
2611
- During matching, when PCRE reaches a callout point, the external function is
2612
- called. It is provided with the number of the callout, the position in the
2613
- pattern, and, optionally, one item of data originally supplied by the caller of
2614
- the matching function. The callout function may cause matching to proceed, to
2615
- backtrack, or to fail altogether. A complete description of the interface to
2616
- the callout function is given in the
2617
- <a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
2618
- documentation.
2619
- <a name="backtrackcontrol"></a></P>
2620
- <br><a name="SEC26" href="#TOC1">BACKTRACKING CONTROL</a><br>
2621
- <P>
2622
- Perl 5.10 introduced a number of "Special Backtracking Control Verbs", which
2623
- are described in the Perl documentation as "experimental and subject to change
2624
- or removal in a future version of Perl". It goes on to say: "Their usage in
2625
- production code should be noted to avoid problems during upgrades." The same
2626
- remarks apply to the PCRE features described in this section.
2627
- </P>
2628
- <P>
2629
- Since these verbs are specifically related to backtracking, most of them can be
2630
- used only when the pattern is to be matched using one of the traditional
2631
- matching functions, which use a backtracking algorithm. With the exception of
2632
- (*FAIL), which behaves like a failing negative assertion, they cause an error
2633
- if encountered by a DFA matching function.
2634
- </P>
2635
- <P>
2636
- If any of these verbs are used in an assertion or in a subpattern that is
2637
- called as a subroutine (whether or not recursively), their effect is confined
2638
- to that subpattern; it does not extend to the surrounding pattern, with one
2639
- exception: the name from a *(MARK), (*PRUNE), or (*THEN) that is encountered in
2640
- a successful positive assertion <i>is</i> passed back when a match succeeds
2641
- (compare capturing parentheses in assertions). Note that such subpatterns are
2642
- processed as anchored at the point where they are tested. Note also that Perl's
2643
- treatment of subroutines and assertions is different in some cases.
2644
- </P>
2645
- <P>
2646
- The new verbs make use of what was previously invalid syntax: an opening
2647
- parenthesis followed by an asterisk. They are generally of the form
2648
- (*VERB) or (*VERB:NAME). Some may take either form, with differing behaviour,
2649
- depending on whether or not an argument is present. A name is any sequence of
2650
- characters that does not include a closing parenthesis. The maximum length of
2651
- name is 255 in the 8-bit library and 65535 in the 16-bit and 32-bit library.
2652
- If the name is empty, that is, if the closing parenthesis immediately follows
2653
- the colon, the effect is as if the colon were not there. Any number of these
2654
- verbs may occur in a pattern.
2655
- <a name="nooptimize"></a></P>
2656
- <br><b>
2657
- Optimizations that affect backtracking verbs
2658
- </b><br>
2659
- <P>
2660
- PCRE contains some optimizations that are used to speed up matching by running
2661
- some checks at the start of each match attempt. For example, it may know the
2662
- minimum length of matching subject, or that a particular character must be
2663
- present. When one of these optimizations suppresses the running of a match, any
2664
- included backtracking verbs will not, of course, be processed. You can suppress
2665
- the start-of-match optimizations by setting the PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option
2666
- when calling <b>pcre_compile()</b> or <b>pcre_exec()</b>, or by starting the
2667
- pattern with (*NO_START_OPT). There is more discussion of this option in the
2668
- section entitled
2669
- <a href="pcreapi.html#execoptions">"Option bits for <b>pcre_exec()</b>"</a>
2670
- in the
2671
- <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
2672
- documentation.
2673
- </P>
2674
- <P>
2675
- Experiments with Perl suggest that it too has similar optimizations, sometimes
2676
- leading to anomalous results.
2677
- </P>
2678
- <br><b>
2679
- Verbs that act immediately
2680
- </b><br>
2681
- <P>
2682
- The following verbs act as soon as they are encountered. They may not be
2683
- followed by a name.
2684
- <pre>
2685
- (*ACCEPT)
2686
- </pre>
2687
- This verb causes the match to end successfully, skipping the remainder of the
2688
- pattern. However, when it is inside a subpattern that is called as a
2689
- subroutine, only that subpattern is ended successfully. Matching then continues
2690
- at the outer level. If (*ACCEPT) is inside capturing parentheses, the data so
2691
- far is captured. For example:
2692
- <pre>
2693
- A((?:A|B(*ACCEPT)|C)D)
2694
- </pre>
2695
- This matches "AB", "AAD", or "ACD"; when it matches "AB", "B" is captured by
2696
- the outer parentheses.
2697
- <pre>
2698
- (*FAIL) or (*F)
2699
- </pre>
2700
- This verb causes a matching failure, forcing backtracking to occur. It is
2701
- equivalent to (?!) but easier to read. The Perl documentation notes that it is
2702
- probably useful only when combined with (?{}) or (??{}). Those are, of course,
2703
- Perl features that are not present in PCRE. The nearest equivalent is the
2704
- callout feature, as for example in this pattern:
2705
- <pre>
2706
- a+(?C)(*FAIL)
2707
- </pre>
2708
- A match with the string "aaaa" always fails, but the callout is taken before
2709
- each backtrack happens (in this example, 10 times).
2710
- </P>
2711
- <br><b>
2712
- Recording which path was taken
2713
- </b><br>
2714
- <P>
2715
- There is one verb whose main purpose is to track how a match was arrived at,
2716
- though it also has a secondary use in conjunction with advancing the match
2717
- starting point (see (*SKIP) below).
2718
- <pre>
2719
- (*MARK:NAME) or (*:NAME)
2720
- </pre>
2721
- A name is always required with this verb. There may be as many instances of
2722
- (*MARK) as you like in a pattern, and their names do not have to be unique.
2723
- </P>
2724
- <P>
2725
- When a match succeeds, the name of the last-encountered (*MARK) on the matching
2726
- path is passed back to the caller as described in the section entitled
2727
- <a href="pcreapi.html#extradata">"Extra data for <b>pcre_exec()</b>"</a>
2728
- in the
2729
- <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
2730
- documentation. Here is an example of <b>pcretest</b> output, where the /K
2731
- modifier requests the retrieval and outputting of (*MARK) data:
2732
- <pre>
2733
- re&#62; /X(*MARK:A)Y|X(*MARK:B)Z/K
2734
- data&#62; XY
2735
- 0: XY
2736
- MK: A
2737
- XZ
2738
- 0: XZ
2739
- MK: B
2740
- </pre>
2741
- The (*MARK) name is tagged with "MK:" in this output, and in this example it
2742
- indicates which of the two alternatives matched. This is a more efficient way
2743
- of obtaining this information than putting each alternative in its own
2744
- capturing parentheses.
2745
- </P>
2746
- <P>
2747
- If (*MARK) is encountered in a positive assertion, its name is recorded and
2748
- passed back if it is the last-encountered. This does not happen for negative
2749
- assertions.
2750
- </P>
2751
- <P>
2752
- After a partial match or a failed match, the name of the last encountered
2753
- (*MARK) in the entire match process is returned. For example:
2754
- <pre>
2755
- re&#62; /X(*MARK:A)Y|X(*MARK:B)Z/K
2756
- data&#62; XP
2757
- No match, mark = B
2758
- </pre>
2759
- Note that in this unanchored example the mark is retained from the match
2760
- attempt that started at the letter "X" in the subject. Subsequent match
2761
- attempts starting at "P" and then with an empty string do not get as far as the
2762
- (*MARK) item, but nevertheless do not reset it.
2763
- </P>
2764
- <P>
2765
- If you are interested in (*MARK) values after failed matches, you should
2766
- probably set the PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option
2767
- <a href="#nooptimize">(see above)</a>
2768
- to ensure that the match is always attempted.
2769
- </P>
2770
- <br><b>
2771
- Verbs that act after backtracking
2772
- </b><br>
2773
- <P>
2774
- The following verbs do nothing when they are encountered. Matching continues
2775
- with what follows, but if there is no subsequent match, causing a backtrack to
2776
- the verb, a failure is forced. That is, backtracking cannot pass to the left of
2777
- the verb. However, when one of these verbs appears inside an atomic group, its
2778
- effect is confined to that group, because once the group has been matched,
2779
- there is never any backtracking into it. In this situation, backtracking can
2780
- "jump back" to the left of the entire atomic group. (Remember also, as stated
2781
- above, that this localization also applies in subroutine calls and assertions.)
2782
- </P>
2783
- <P>
2784
- These verbs differ in exactly what kind of failure occurs when backtracking
2785
- reaches them.
2786
- <pre>
2787
- (*COMMIT)
2788
- </pre>
2789
- This verb, which may not be followed by a name, causes the whole match to fail
2790
- outright if the rest of the pattern does not match. Even if the pattern is
2791
- unanchored, no further attempts to find a match by advancing the starting point
2792
- take place. Once (*COMMIT) has been passed, <b>pcre_exec()</b> is committed to
2793
- finding a match at the current starting point, or not at all. For example:
2794
- <pre>
2795
- a+(*COMMIT)b
2796
- </pre>
2797
- This matches "xxaab" but not "aacaab". It can be thought of as a kind of
2798
- dynamic anchor, or "I've started, so I must finish." The name of the most
2799
- recently passed (*MARK) in the path is passed back when (*COMMIT) forces a
2800
- match failure.
2801
- </P>
2802
- <P>
2803
- Note that (*COMMIT) at the start of a pattern is not the same as an anchor,
2804
- unless PCRE's start-of-match optimizations are turned off, as shown in this
2805
- <b>pcretest</b> example:
2806
- <pre>
2807
- re&#62; /(*COMMIT)abc/
2808
- data&#62; xyzabc
2809
- 0: abc
2810
- xyzabc\Y
2811
- No match
2812
- </pre>
2813
- PCRE knows that any match must start with "a", so the optimization skips along
2814
- the subject to "a" before running the first match attempt, which succeeds. When
2815
- the optimization is disabled by the \Y escape in the second subject, the match
2816
- starts at "x" and so the (*COMMIT) causes it to fail without trying any other
2817
- starting points.
2818
- <pre>
2819
- (*PRUNE) or (*PRUNE:NAME)
2820
- </pre>
2821
- This verb causes the match to fail at the current starting position in the
2822
- subject if the rest of the pattern does not match. If the pattern is
2823
- unanchored, the normal "bumpalong" advance to the next starting character then
2824
- happens. Backtracking can occur as usual to the left of (*PRUNE), before it is
2825
- reached, or when matching to the right of (*PRUNE), but if there is no match to
2826
- the right, backtracking cannot cross (*PRUNE). In simple cases, the use of
2827
- (*PRUNE) is just an alternative to an atomic group or possessive quantifier,
2828
- but there are some uses of (*PRUNE) that cannot be expressed in any other way.
2829
- The behaviour of (*PRUNE:NAME) is the same as (*MARK:NAME)(*PRUNE). In an
2830
- anchored pattern (*PRUNE) has the same effect as (*COMMIT).
2831
- <pre>
2832
- (*SKIP)
2833
- </pre>
2834
- This verb, when given without a name, is like (*PRUNE), except that if the
2835
- pattern is unanchored, the "bumpalong" advance is not to the next character,
2836
- but to the position in the subject where (*SKIP) was encountered. (*SKIP)
2837
- signifies that whatever text was matched leading up to it cannot be part of a
2838
- successful match. Consider:
2839
- <pre>
2840
- a+(*SKIP)b
2841
- </pre>
2842
- If the subject is "aaaac...", after the first match attempt fails (starting at
2843
- the first character in the string), the starting point skips on to start the
2844
- next attempt at "c". Note that a possessive quantifer does not have the same
2845
- effect as this example; although it would suppress backtracking during the
2846
- first match attempt, the second attempt would start at the second character
2847
- instead of skipping on to "c".
2848
- <pre>
2849
- (*SKIP:NAME)
2850
- </pre>
2851
- When (*SKIP) has an associated name, its behaviour is modified. If the
2852
- following pattern fails to match, the previous path through the pattern is
2853
- searched for the most recent (*MARK) that has the same name. If one is found,
2854
- the "bumpalong" advance is to the subject position that corresponds to that
2855
- (*MARK) instead of to where (*SKIP) was encountered. If no (*MARK) with a
2856
- matching name is found, the (*SKIP) is ignored.
2857
- <pre>
2858
- (*THEN) or (*THEN:NAME)
2859
- </pre>
2860
- This verb causes a skip to the next innermost alternative if the rest of the
2861
- pattern does not match. That is, it cancels pending backtracking, but only
2862
- within the current alternative. Its name comes from the observation that it can
2863
- be used for a pattern-based if-then-else block:
2864
- <pre>
2865
- ( COND1 (*THEN) FOO | COND2 (*THEN) BAR | COND3 (*THEN) BAZ ) ...
2866
- </pre>
2867
- If the COND1 pattern matches, FOO is tried (and possibly further items after
2868
- the end of the group if FOO succeeds); on failure, the matcher skips to the
2869
- second alternative and tries COND2, without backtracking into COND1. The
2870
- behaviour of (*THEN:NAME) is exactly the same as (*MARK:NAME)(*THEN).
2871
- If (*THEN) is not inside an alternation, it acts like (*PRUNE).
2872
- </P>
2873
- <P>
2874
- Note that a subpattern that does not contain a | character is just a part of
2875
- the enclosing alternative; it is not a nested alternation with only one
2876
- alternative. The effect of (*THEN) extends beyond such a subpattern to the
2877
- enclosing alternative. Consider this pattern, where A, B, etc. are complex
2878
- pattern fragments that do not contain any | characters at this level:
2879
- <pre>
2880
- A (B(*THEN)C) | D
2881
- </pre>
2882
- If A and B are matched, but there is a failure in C, matching does not
2883
- backtrack into A; instead it moves to the next alternative, that is, D.
2884
- However, if the subpattern containing (*THEN) is given an alternative, it
2885
- behaves differently:
2886
- <pre>
2887
- A (B(*THEN)C | (*FAIL)) | D
2888
- </pre>
2889
- The effect of (*THEN) is now confined to the inner subpattern. After a failure
2890
- in C, matching moves to (*FAIL), which causes the whole subpattern to fail
2891
- because there are no more alternatives to try. In this case, matching does now
2892
- backtrack into A.
2893
- </P>
2894
- <P>
2895
- Note also that a conditional subpattern is not considered as having two
2896
- alternatives, because only one is ever used. In other words, the | character in
2897
- a conditional subpattern has a different meaning. Ignoring white space,
2898
- consider:
2899
- <pre>
2900
- ^.*? (?(?=a) a | b(*THEN)c )
2901
- </pre>
2902
- If the subject is "ba", this pattern does not match. Because .*? is ungreedy,
2903
- it initially matches zero characters. The condition (?=a) then fails, the
2904
- character "b" is matched, but "c" is not. At this point, matching does not
2905
- backtrack to .*? as might perhaps be expected from the presence of the |
2906
- character. The conditional subpattern is part of the single alternative that
2907
- comprises the whole pattern, and so the match fails. (If there was a backtrack
2908
- into .*?, allowing it to match "b", the match would succeed.)
2909
- </P>
2910
- <P>
2911
- The verbs just described provide four different "strengths" of control when
2912
- subsequent matching fails. (*THEN) is the weakest, carrying on the match at the
2913
- next alternative. (*PRUNE) comes next, failing the match at the current
2914
- starting position, but allowing an advance to the next character (for an
2915
- unanchored pattern). (*SKIP) is similar, except that the advance may be more
2916
- than one character. (*COMMIT) is the strongest, causing the entire match to
2917
- fail.
2918
- </P>
2919
- <P>
2920
- If more than one such verb is present in a pattern, the "strongest" one wins.
2921
- For example, consider this pattern, where A, B, etc. are complex pattern
2922
- fragments:
2923
- <pre>
2924
- (A(*COMMIT)B(*THEN)C|D)
2925
- </pre>
2926
- Once A has matched, PCRE is committed to this match, at the current starting
2927
- position. If subsequently B matches, but C does not, the normal (*THEN) action
2928
- of trying the next alternative (that is, D) does not happen because (*COMMIT)
2929
- overrides.
2930
- </P>
2931
- <br><a name="SEC27" href="#TOC1">SEE ALSO</a><br>
2932
- <P>
2933
- <b>pcreapi</b>(3), <b>pcrecallout</b>(3), <b>pcrematching</b>(3),
2934
- <b>pcresyntax</b>(3), <b>pcre</b>(3), <b>pcre16(3)</b>, <b>pcre32(3)</b>.
2935
- </P>
2936
- <br><a name="SEC28" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a><br>
2937
- <P>
2938
- Philip Hazel
2939
- <br>
2940
- University Computing Service
2941
- <br>
2942
- Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
2943
- <br>
2944
- </P>
2945
- <br><a name="SEC29" href="#TOC1">REVISION</a><br>
2946
- <P>
2947
- Last updated: 11 November 2012
2948
- <br>
2949
- Copyright &copy; 1997-2012 University of Cambridge.
2950
- <br>
2951
- <p>
2952
- Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
2953
- </p>