esruby 0.0.0 → 0.0.2

data/resources/mruby/build/mrbgems/mruby-regexp-pcre/pcre/doc/pcrepattern.3

@@ -1,2983 +0,0 @@
-.TH PCREPATTERN 3 "11 November 2012" "PCRE 8.32"
-.SH NAME
-PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
-.SH "PCRE REGULAR EXPRESSION DETAILS"
-.rs
-.sp
-The syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that are supported by PCRE
-are described in detail below. There is a quick-reference syntax summary in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcresyntax\fP
-.\"
-page. PCRE tries to match Perl syntax and semantics as closely as it can. PCRE
-also supports some alternative regular expression syntax (which does not
-conflict with the Perl syntax) in order to provide some compatibility with
-regular expressions in Python, .NET, and Oniguruma.
-.P
-Perl's regular expressions are described in its own documentation, and
-regular expressions in general are covered in a number of books, some of which
-have copious examples. Jeffrey Friedl's "Mastering Regular Expressions",
-published by O'Reilly, covers regular expressions in great detail. This
-description of PCRE's regular expressions is intended as reference material.
-.P
-The original operation of PCRE was on strings of one-byte characters. However,
-there is now also support for UTF-8 strings in the original library, an
-extra library that supports 16-bit and UTF-16 character strings, and a
-third library that supports 32-bit and UTF-32 character strings. To use these
-features, PCRE must be built to include appropriate support. When using UTF
-strings you must either call the compiling function with the PCRE_UTF8,
-PCRE_UTF16, or PCRE_UTF32 option, or the pattern must start with one of
-these special sequences:
-.sp
-  (*UTF8)
-  (*UTF16)
-  (*UTF32)
-  (*UTF)
-.sp
-(*UTF) is a generic sequence that can be used with any of the libraries.
-Starting a pattern with such a sequence is equivalent to setting the relevant
-option. This feature is not Perl-compatible. How setting a UTF mode affects
-pattern matching is mentioned in several places below. There is also a summary
-of features in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreunicode\fP
-.\"
-page.
-.P
-Another special sequence that may appear at the start of a pattern or in
-combination with (*UTF8), (*UTF16), (*UTF32) or (*UTF) is:
-.sp
-  (*UCP)
-.sp
-This has the same effect as setting the PCRE_UCP option: it causes sequences
-such as \ed and \ew to use Unicode properties to determine character types,
-instead of recognizing only characters with codes less than 128 via a lookup
-table.
-.P
-If a pattern starts with (*NO_START_OPT), it has the same effect as setting the
-PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option either at compile or matching time. There are
-also some more of these special sequences that are concerned with the handling
-of newlines; they are described below.
-.P
-The remainder of this document discusses the patterns that are supported by
-PCRE when one its main matching functions, \fBpcre_exec()\fP (8-bit) or
-\fBpcre[16|32]_exec()\fP (16- or 32-bit), is used. PCRE also has alternative
-matching functions, \fBpcre_dfa_exec()\fP and \fBpcre[16|32_dfa_exec()\fP,
-which match using a different algorithm that is not Perl-compatible. Some of
-the features discussed below are not available when DFA matching is used. The
-advantages and disadvantages of the alternative functions, and how they differ
-from the normal functions, are discussed in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrematching\fP
-.\"
-page.
-.
-.
-.SH "EBCDIC CHARACTER CODES"
-.rs
-.sp
-PCRE can be compiled to run in an environment that uses EBCDIC as its character
-code rather than ASCII or Unicode (typically a mainframe system). In the
-sections below, character code values are ASCII or Unicode; in an EBCDIC
-environment these characters may have different code values, and there are no
-code points greater than 255.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="newlines"></a>
-.SH "NEWLINE CONVENTIONS"
-.rs
-.sp
-PCRE supports five different conventions for indicating line breaks in
-strings: a single CR (carriage return) character, a single LF (linefeed)
-character, the two-character sequence CRLF, any of the three preceding, or any
-Unicode newline sequence. The
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreapi\fP
-.\"
-page has
-.\" HTML <a href="pcreapi.html#newlines">
-.\" </a>
-further discussion
-.\"
-about newlines, and shows how to set the newline convention in the
-\fIoptions\fP arguments for the compiling and matching functions.
-.P
-It is also possible to specify a newline convention by starting a pattern
-string with one of the following five sequences:
-.sp
-  (*CR)        carriage return
-  (*LF)        linefeed
-  (*CRLF)      carriage return, followed by linefeed
-  (*ANYCRLF)   any of the three above
-  (*ANY)       all Unicode newline sequences
-.sp
-These override the default and the options given to the compiling function. For
-example, on a Unix system where LF is the default newline sequence, the pattern
-.sp
-  (*CR)a.b
-.sp
-changes the convention to CR. That pattern matches "a\enb" because LF is no
-longer a newline. Note that these special settings, which are not
-Perl-compatible, are recognized only at the very start of a pattern, and that
-they must be in upper case. If more than one of them is present, the last one
-is used.
-.P
-The newline convention affects where the circumflex and dollar assertions are
-true. It also affects the interpretation of the dot metacharacter when
-PCRE_DOTALL is not set, and the behaviour of \eN. However, it does not affect
-what the \eR escape sequence matches. By default, this is any Unicode newline
-sequence, for Perl compatibility. However, this can be changed; see the
-description of \eR in the section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="#newlineseq">
-.\" </a>
-"Newline sequences"
-.\"
-below. A change of \eR setting can be combined with a change of newline
-convention.
-.
-.
-.SH "CHARACTERS AND METACHARACTERS"
-.rs
-.sp
-A regular expression is a pattern that is matched against a subject string from
-left to right. Most characters stand for themselves in a pattern, and match the
-corresponding characters in the subject. As a trivial example, the pattern
-.sp
-  The quick brown fox
-.sp
-matches a portion of a subject string that is identical to itself. When
-caseless matching is specified (the PCRE_CASELESS option), letters are matched
-independently of case. In a UTF mode, PCRE always understands the concept of
-case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless matching is
-always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of case is
-supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise.
-If you want to use caseless matching for characters 128 and above, you must
-ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as well as with
-UTF support.
-.P
-The power of regular expressions comes from the ability to include alternatives
-and repetitions in the pattern. These are encoded in the pattern by the use of
-\fImetacharacters\fP, which do not stand for themselves but instead are
-interpreted in some special way.
-.P
-There are two different sets of metacharacters: those that are recognized
-anywhere in the pattern except within square brackets, and those that are
-recognized within square brackets. Outside square brackets, the metacharacters
-are as follows:
-.sp
-  \e      general escape character with several uses
-  ^      assert start of string (or line, in multiline mode)
-  $      assert end of string (or line, in multiline mode)
-  .      match any character except newline (by default)
-  [      start character class definition
-  |      start of alternative branch
-  (      start subpattern
-  )      end subpattern
-  ?      extends the meaning of (
-         also 0 or 1 quantifier
-         also quantifier minimizer
-  *      0 or more quantifier
-  +      1 or more quantifier
-         also "possessive quantifier"
-  {      start min/max quantifier
-.sp
-Part of a pattern that is in square brackets is called a "character class". In
-a character class the only metacharacters are:
-.sp
-  \e      general escape character
-  ^      negate the class, but only if the first character
-  -      indicates character range
-.\" JOIN
-  [      POSIX character class (only if followed by POSIX
-           syntax)
-  ]      terminates the character class
-.sp
-The following sections describe the use of each of the metacharacters.
-.
-.
-.SH BACKSLASH
-.rs
-.sp
-The backslash character has several uses. Firstly, if it is followed by a
-character that is not a number or a letter, it takes away any special meaning
-that character may have. This use of backslash as an escape character applies
-both inside and outside character classes.
-.P
-For example, if you want to match a * character, you write \e* in the pattern.
-This escaping action applies whether or not the following character would
-otherwise be interpreted as a metacharacter, so it is always safe to precede a
-non-alphanumeric with backslash to specify that it stands for itself. In
-particular, if you want to match a backslash, you write \e\e.
-.P
-In a UTF mode, only ASCII numbers and letters have any special meaning after a
-backslash. All other characters (in particular, those whose codepoints are
-greater than 127) are treated as literals.
-.P
-If a pattern is compiled with the PCRE_EXTENDED option, white space in the
-pattern (other than in a character class) and characters between a # outside
-a character class and the next newline are ignored. An escaping backslash can
-be used to include a white space or # character as part of the pattern.
-.P
-If you want to remove the special meaning from a sequence of characters, you
-can do so by putting them between \eQ and \eE. This is different from Perl in
-that $ and @ are handled as literals in \eQ...\eE sequences in PCRE, whereas in
-Perl, $ and @ cause variable interpolation. Note the following examples:
-.sp
-  Pattern            PCRE matches   Perl matches
-.sp
-.\" JOIN
-  \eQabc$xyz\eE        abc$xyz        abc followed by the
-                                      contents of $xyz
-  \eQabc\e$xyz\eE       abc\e$xyz       abc\e$xyz
-  \eQabc\eE\e$\eQxyz\eE   abc$xyz        abc$xyz
-.sp
-The \eQ...\eE sequence is recognized both inside and outside character classes.
-An isolated \eE that is not preceded by \eQ is ignored. If \eQ is not followed
-by \eE later in the pattern, the literal interpretation continues to the end of
-the pattern (that is, \eE is assumed at the end). If the isolated \eQ is inside
-a character class, this causes an error, because the character class is not
-terminated.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="digitsafterbackslash"></a>
-.SS "Non-printing characters"
-.rs
-.sp
-A second use of backslash provides a way of encoding non-printing characters
-in patterns in a visible manner. There is no restriction on the appearance of
-non-printing characters, apart from the binary zero that terminates a pattern,
-but when a pattern is being prepared by text editing, it is often easier to use
-one of the following escape sequences than the binary character it represents:
-.sp
-  \ea        alarm, that is, the BEL character (hex 07)
-  \ecx       "control-x", where x is any ASCII character
-  \ee        escape (hex 1B)
-  \ef        form feed (hex 0C)
-  \en        linefeed (hex 0A)
-  \er        carriage return (hex 0D)
-  \et        tab (hex 09)
-  \eddd      character with octal code ddd, or back reference
-  \exhh      character with hex code hh
-  \ex{hhh..} character with hex code hhh.. (non-JavaScript mode)
-  \euhhhh    character with hex code hhhh (JavaScript mode only)
-.sp
-The precise effect of \ecx on ASCII characters is as follows: if x is a lower
-case letter, it is converted to upper case. Then bit 6 of the character (hex
-40) is inverted. Thus \ecA to \ecZ become hex 01 to hex 1A (A is 41, Z is 5A),
-but \ec{ becomes hex 3B ({ is 7B), and \ec; becomes hex 7B (; is 3B). If the
-data item (byte or 16-bit value) following \ec has a value greater than 127, a
-compile-time error occurs. This locks out non-ASCII characters in all modes.
-.P
-The \ec facility was designed for use with ASCII characters, but with the
-extension to Unicode it is even less useful than it once was. It is, however,
-recognized when PCRE is compiled in EBCDIC mode, where data items are always
-bytes. In this mode, all values are valid after \ec. If the next character is a
-lower case letter, it is converted to upper case. Then the 0xc0 bits of the
-byte are inverted. Thus \ecA becomes hex 01, as in ASCII (A is C1), but because
-the EBCDIC letters are disjoint, \ecZ becomes hex 29 (Z is E9), and other
-characters also generate different values.
-.P
-By default, after \ex, from zero to two hexadecimal digits are read (letters
-can be in upper or lower case). Any number of hexadecimal digits may appear
-between \ex{ and }, but the character code is constrained as follows:
-.sp
-  8-bit non-UTF mode    less than 0x100
-  8-bit UTF-8 mode      less than 0x10ffff and a valid codepoint
-  16-bit non-UTF mode   less than 0x10000
-  16-bit UTF-16 mode    less than 0x10ffff and a valid codepoint
-  32-bit non-UTF mode   less than 0x80000000
-  32-bit UTF-32 mode    less than 0x10ffff and a valid codepoint
-.sp
-Invalid Unicode codepoints are the range 0xd800 to 0xdfff (the so-called
-"surrogate" codepoints), and 0xffef.
-.P
-If characters other than hexadecimal digits appear between \ex{ and }, or if
-there is no terminating }, this form of escape is not recognized. Instead, the
-initial \ex will be interpreted as a basic hexadecimal escape, with no
-following digits, giving a character whose value is zero.
-.P
-If the PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT option is set, the interpretation of \ex is
-as just described only when it is followed by two hexadecimal digits.
-Otherwise, it matches a literal "x" character. In JavaScript mode, support for
-code points greater than 256 is provided by \eu, which must be followed by
-four hexadecimal digits; otherwise it matches a literal "u" character.
-Character codes specified by \eu in JavaScript mode are constrained in the same
-was as those specified by \ex in non-JavaScript mode.
-.P
-Characters whose value is less than 256 can be defined by either of the two
-syntaxes for \ex (or by \eu in JavaScript mode). There is no difference in the
-way they are handled. For example, \exdc is exactly the same as \ex{dc} (or
-\eu00dc in JavaScript mode).
-.P
-After \e0 up to two further octal digits are read. If there are fewer than two
-digits, just those that are present are used. Thus the sequence \e0\ex\e07
-specifies two binary zeros followed by a BEL character (code value 7). Make
-sure you supply two digits after the initial zero if the pattern character that
-follows is itself an octal digit.
-.P
-The handling of a backslash followed by a digit other than 0 is complicated.
-Outside a character class, PCRE reads it and any following digits as a decimal
-number. If the number is less than 10, or if there have been at least that many
-previous capturing left parentheses in the expression, the entire sequence is
-taken as a \fIback reference\fP. A description of how this works is given
-.\" HTML <a href="#backreferences">
-.\" </a>
-later,
-.\"
-following the discussion of
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpattern">
-.\" </a>
-parenthesized subpatterns.
-.\"
-.P
-Inside a character class, or if the decimal number is greater than 9 and there
-have not been that many capturing subpatterns, PCRE re-reads up to three octal
-digits following the backslash, and uses them to generate a data character. Any
-subsequent digits stand for themselves. The value of the character is
-constrained in the same way as characters specified in hexadecimal.
-For example:
-.sp
-  \e040   is another way of writing an ASCII space
-.\" JOIN
-  \e40    is the same, provided there are fewer than 40
-            previous capturing subpatterns
-  \e7     is always a back reference
-.\" JOIN
-  \e11    might be a back reference, or another way of
-            writing a tab
-  \e011   is always a tab
-  \e0113  is a tab followed by the character "3"
-.\" JOIN
-  \e113   might be a back reference, otherwise the
-            character with octal code 113
-.\" JOIN
-  \e377   might be a back reference, otherwise
-            the value 255 (decimal)
-.\" JOIN
-  \e81    is either a back reference, or a binary zero
-            followed by the two characters "8" and "1"
-.sp
-Note that octal values of 100 or greater must not be introduced by a leading
-zero, because no more than three octal digits are ever read.
-.P
-All the sequences that define a single character value can be used both inside
-and outside character classes. In addition, inside a character class, \eb is
-interpreted as the backspace character (hex 08).
-.P
-\eN is not allowed in a character class. \eB, \eR, and \eX are not special
-inside a character class. Like other unrecognized escape sequences, they are
-treated as the literal characters "B", "R", and "X" by default, but cause an
-error if the PCRE_EXTRA option is set. Outside a character class, these
-sequences have different meanings.
-.
-.
-.SS "Unsupported escape sequences"
-.rs
-.sp
-In Perl, the sequences \el, \eL, \eu, and \eU are recognized by its string
-handler and used to modify the case of following characters. By default, PCRE
-does not support these escape sequences. However, if the PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT
-option is set, \eU matches a "U" character, and \eu can be used to define a
-character by code point, as described in the previous section.
-.
-.
-.SS "Absolute and relative back references"
-.rs
-.sp
-The sequence \eg followed by an unsigned or a negative number, optionally
-enclosed in braces, is an absolute or relative back reference. A named back
-reference can be coded as \eg{name}. Back references are discussed
-.\" HTML <a href="#backreferences">
-.\" </a>
-later,
-.\"
-following the discussion of
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpattern">
-.\" </a>
-parenthesized subpatterns.
-.\"
-.
-.
-.SS "Absolute and relative subroutine calls"
-.rs
-.sp
-For compatibility with Oniguruma, the non-Perl syntax \eg followed by a name or
-a number enclosed either in angle brackets or single quotes, is an alternative
-syntax for referencing a subpattern as a "subroutine". Details are discussed
-.\" HTML <a href="#onigurumasubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-later.
-.\"
-Note that \eg{...} (Perl syntax) and \eg<...> (Oniguruma syntax) are \fInot\fP
-synonymous. The former is a back reference; the latter is a
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-subroutine
-.\"
-call.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="genericchartypes"></a>
-.SS "Generic character types"
-.rs
-.sp
-Another use of backslash is for specifying generic character types:
-.sp
-  \ed     any decimal digit
-  \eD     any character that is not a decimal digit
-  \eh     any horizontal white space character
-  \eH     any character that is not a horizontal white space character
-  \es     any white space character
-  \eS     any character that is not a white space character
-  \ev     any vertical white space character
-  \eV     any character that is not a vertical white space character
-  \ew     any "word" character
-  \eW     any "non-word" character
-.sp
-There is also the single sequence \eN, which matches a non-newline character.
-This is the same as
-.\" HTML <a href="#fullstopdot">
-.\" </a>
-the "." metacharacter
-.\"
-when PCRE_DOTALL is not set. Perl also uses \eN to match characters by name;
-PCRE does not support this.
-.P
-Each pair of lower and upper case escape sequences partitions the complete set
-of characters into two disjoint sets. Any given character matches one, and only
-one, of each pair. The sequences can appear both inside and outside character
-classes. They each match one character of the appropriate type. If the current
-matching point is at the end of the subject string, all of them fail, because
-there is no character to match.
-.P
-For compatibility with Perl, \es does not match the VT character (code 11).
-This makes it different from the the POSIX "space" class. The \es characters
-are HT (9), LF (10), FF (12), CR (13), and space (32). If "use locale;" is
-included in a Perl script, \es may match the VT character. In PCRE, it never
-does.
-.P
-A "word" character is an underscore or any character that is a letter or digit.
-By default, the definition of letters and digits is controlled by PCRE's
-low-valued character tables, and may vary if locale-specific matching is taking
-place (see
-.\" HTML <a href="pcreapi.html#localesupport">
-.\" </a>
-"Locale support"
-.\"
-in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreapi\fP
-.\"
-page). For example, in a French locale such as "fr_FR" in Unix-like systems,
-or "french" in Windows, some character codes greater than 128 are used for
-accented letters, and these are then matched by \ew. The use of locales with
-Unicode is discouraged.
-.P
-By default, in a UTF mode, characters with values greater than 128 never match
-\ed, \es, or \ew, and always match \eD, \eS, and \eW. These sequences retain
-their original meanings from before UTF support was available, mainly for
-efficiency reasons. However, if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support,
-and the PCRE_UCP option is set, the behaviour is changed so that Unicode
-properties are used to determine character types, as follows:
-.sp
-  \ed  any character that \ep{Nd} matches (decimal digit)
-  \es  any character that \ep{Z} matches, plus HT, LF, FF, CR
-  \ew  any character that \ep{L} or \ep{N} matches, plus underscore
-.sp
-The upper case escapes match the inverse sets of characters. Note that \ed
-matches only decimal digits, whereas \ew matches any Unicode digit, as well as
-any Unicode letter, and underscore. Note also that PCRE_UCP affects \eb, and
-\eB because they are defined in terms of \ew and \eW. Matching these sequences
-is noticeably slower when PCRE_UCP is set.
-.P
-The sequences \eh, \eH, \ev, and \eV are features that were added to Perl at
-release 5.10. In contrast to the other sequences, which match only ASCII
-characters by default, these always match certain high-valued codepoints,
-whether or not PCRE_UCP is set. The horizontal space characters are:
-.sp
-  U+0009     Horizontal tab (HT)
-  U+0020     Space
-  U+00A0     Non-break space
-  U+1680     Ogham space mark
-  U+180E     Mongolian vowel separator
-  U+2000     En quad
-  U+2001     Em quad
-  U+2002     En space
-  U+2003     Em space
-  U+2004     Three-per-em space
-  U+2005     Four-per-em space
-  U+2006     Six-per-em space
-  U+2007     Figure space
-  U+2008     Punctuation space
-  U+2009     Thin space
-  U+200A     Hair space
-  U+202F     Narrow no-break space
-  U+205F     Medium mathematical space
-  U+3000     Ideographic space
-.sp
-The vertical space characters are:
-.sp
-  U+000A     Linefeed (LF)
-  U+000B     Vertical tab (VT)
-  U+000C     Form feed (FF)
-  U+000D     Carriage return (CR)
-  U+0085     Next line (NEL)
-  U+2028     Line separator
-  U+2029     Paragraph separator
-.sp
-In 8-bit, non-UTF-8 mode, only the characters with codepoints less than 256 are
-relevant.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="newlineseq"></a>
-.SS "Newline sequences"
-.rs
-.sp
-Outside a character class, by default, the escape sequence \eR matches any
-Unicode newline sequence. In 8-bit non-UTF-8 mode \eR is equivalent to the
-following:
-.sp
-  (?>\er\en|\en|\ex0b|\ef|\er|\ex85)
-.sp
-This is an example of an "atomic group", details of which are given
-.\" HTML <a href="#atomicgroup">
-.\" </a>
-below.
-.\"
-This particular group matches either the two-character sequence CR followed by
-LF, or one of the single characters LF (linefeed, U+000A), VT (vertical tab,
-U+000B), FF (form feed, U+000C), CR (carriage return, U+000D), or NEL (next
-line, U+0085). The two-character sequence is treated as a single unit that
-cannot be split.
-.P
-In other modes, two additional characters whose codepoints are greater than 255
-are added: LS (line separator, U+2028) and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029).
-Unicode character property support is not needed for these characters to be
-recognized.
-.P
-It is possible to restrict \eR to match only CR, LF, or CRLF (instead of the
-complete set of Unicode line endings) by setting the option PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
-either at compile time or when the pattern is matched. (BSR is an abbrevation
-for "backslash R".) This can be made the default when PCRE is built; if this is
-the case, the other behaviour can be requested via the PCRE_BSR_UNICODE option.
-It is also possible to specify these settings by starting a pattern string with
-one of the following sequences:
-.sp
-  (*BSR_ANYCRLF)   CR, LF, or CRLF only
-  (*BSR_UNICODE)   any Unicode newline sequence
-.sp
-These override the default and the options given to the compiling function, but
-they can themselves be overridden by options given to a matching function. Note
-that these special settings, which are not Perl-compatible, are recognized only
-at the very start of a pattern, and that they must be in upper case. If more
-than one of them is present, the last one is used. They can be combined with a
-change of newline convention; for example, a pattern can start with:
-.sp
-  (*ANY)(*BSR_ANYCRLF)
-.sp
-They can also be combined with the (*UTF8), (*UTF16), (*UTF32), (*UTF) or
-(*UCP) special sequences. Inside a character class, \eR is treated as an
-unrecognized escape sequence, and so matches the letter "R" by default, but
-causes an error if PCRE_EXTRA is set.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="uniextseq"></a>
-.SS Unicode character properties
-.rs
-.sp
-When PCRE is built with Unicode character property support, three additional
-escape sequences that match characters with specific properties are available.
-When in 8-bit non-UTF-8 mode, these sequences are of course limited to testing
-characters whose codepoints are less than 256, but they do work in this mode.
-The extra escape sequences are:
-.sp
-  \ep{\fIxx\fP}   a character with the \fIxx\fP property
-  \eP{\fIxx\fP}   a character without the \fIxx\fP property
-  \eX       a Unicode extended grapheme cluster
-.sp
-The property names represented by \fIxx\fP above are limited to the Unicode
-script names, the general category properties, "Any", which matches any
-character (including newline), and some special PCRE properties (described
-in the
-.\" HTML <a href="#extraprops">
-.\" </a>
-next section).
-.\"
-Other Perl properties such as "InMusicalSymbols" are not currently supported by
-PCRE. Note that \eP{Any} does not match any characters, so always causes a
-match failure.
-.P
-Sets of Unicode characters are defined as belonging to certain scripts. A
-character from one of these sets can be matched using a script name. For
-example:
-.sp
-  \ep{Greek}
-  \eP{Han}
-.sp
-Those that are not part of an identified script are lumped together as
-"Common". The current list of scripts is:
-.P
-Arabic,
-Armenian,
-Avestan,
-Balinese,
-Bamum,
-Batak,
-Bengali,
-Bopomofo,
-Brahmi,
-Braille,
-Buginese,
-Buhid,
-Canadian_Aboriginal,
-Carian,
-Chakma,
-Cham,
-Cherokee,
-Common,
-Coptic,
-Cuneiform,
-Cypriot,
-Cyrillic,
-Deseret,
-Devanagari,
-Egyptian_Hieroglyphs,
-Ethiopic,
-Georgian,
-Glagolitic,
-Gothic,
-Greek,
-Gujarati,
-Gurmukhi,
-Han,
-Hangul,
-Hanunoo,
-Hebrew,
-Hiragana,
-Imperial_Aramaic,
-Inherited,
-Inscriptional_Pahlavi,
-Inscriptional_Parthian,
-Javanese,
-Kaithi,
-Kannada,
-Katakana,
-Kayah_Li,
-Kharoshthi,
-Khmer,
-Lao,
-Latin,
-Lepcha,
-Limbu,
-Linear_B,
-Lisu,
-Lycian,
-Lydian,
-Malayalam,
-Mandaic,
-Meetei_Mayek,
-Meroitic_Cursive,
-Meroitic_Hieroglyphs,
-Miao,
-Mongolian,
-Myanmar,
-New_Tai_Lue,
-Nko,
-Ogham,
-Old_Italic,
-Old_Persian,
-Old_South_Arabian,
-Old_Turkic,
-Ol_Chiki,
-Oriya,
-Osmanya,
-Phags_Pa,
-Phoenician,
-Rejang,
-Runic,
-Samaritan,
-Saurashtra,
-Sharada,
-Shavian,
-Sinhala,
-Sora_Sompeng,
-Sundanese,
-Syloti_Nagri,
-Syriac,
-Tagalog,
-Tagbanwa,
-Tai_Le,
-Tai_Tham,
-Tai_Viet,
-Takri,
-Tamil,
-Telugu,
-Thaana,
-Thai,
-Tibetan,
-Tifinagh,
-Ugaritic,
-Vai,
-Yi.
-.P
-Each character has exactly one Unicode general category property, specified by
-a two-letter abbreviation. For compatibility with Perl, negation can be
-specified by including a circumflex between the opening brace and the property
-name. For example, \ep{^Lu} is the same as \eP{Lu}.
-.P
-If only one letter is specified with \ep or \eP, it includes all the general
-category properties that start with that letter. In this case, in the absence
-of negation, the curly brackets in the escape sequence are optional; these two
-examples have the same effect:
-.sp
-  \ep{L}
-  \epL
-.sp
-The following general category property codes are supported:
-.sp
-  C     Other
-  Cc    Control
-  Cf    Format
-  Cn    Unassigned
-  Co    Private use
-  Cs    Surrogate
-.sp
-  L     Letter
-  Ll    Lower case letter
-  Lm    Modifier letter
-  Lo    Other letter
-  Lt    Title case letter
-  Lu    Upper case letter
-.sp
-  M     Mark
-  Mc    Spacing mark
-  Me    Enclosing mark
-  Mn    Non-spacing mark
-.sp
-  N     Number
-  Nd    Decimal number
-  Nl    Letter number
-  No    Other number
-.sp
-  P     Punctuation
-  Pc    Connector punctuation
-  Pd    Dash punctuation
-  Pe    Close punctuation
-  Pf    Final punctuation
-  Pi    Initial punctuation
-  Po    Other punctuation
-  Ps    Open punctuation
-.sp
-  S     Symbol
-  Sc    Currency symbol
-  Sk    Modifier symbol
-  Sm    Mathematical symbol
-  So    Other symbol
-.sp
-  Z     Separator
-  Zl    Line separator
-  Zp    Paragraph separator
-  Zs    Space separator
-.sp
-The special property L& is also supported: it matches a character that has
-the Lu, Ll, or Lt property, in other words, a letter that is not classified as
-a modifier or "other".
-.P
-The Cs (Surrogate) property applies only to characters in the range U+D800 to
-U+DFFF. Such characters are not valid in Unicode strings and so
-cannot be tested by PCRE, unless UTF validity checking has been turned off
-(see the discussion of PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK and
-PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreapi\fP
-.\"
-page). Perl does not support the Cs property.
-.P
-The long synonyms for property names that Perl supports (such as \ep{Letter})
-are not supported by PCRE, nor is it permitted to prefix any of these
-properties with "Is".
-.P
-No character that is in the Unicode table has the Cn (unassigned) property.
-Instead, this property is assumed for any code point that is not in the
-Unicode table.
-.P
-Specifying caseless matching does not affect these escape sequences. For
-example, \ep{Lu} always matches only upper case letters.
-.P
-Matching characters by Unicode property is not fast, because PCRE has to do a
-multistage table lookup in order to find a character's property. That is why
-the traditional escape sequences such as \ed and \ew do not use Unicode
-properties in PCRE by default, though you can make them do so by setting the
-PCRE_UCP option or by starting the pattern with (*UCP).
-.
-.
-.SS Extended grapheme clusters
-.rs
-.sp
-The \eX escape matches any number of Unicode characters that form an "extended
-grapheme cluster", and treats the sequence as an atomic group
-.\" HTML <a href="#atomicgroup">
-.\" </a>
-(see below).
-.\"
-Up to and including release 8.31, PCRE matched an earlier, simpler definition
-that was equivalent to
-.sp
-  (?>\ePM\epM*)
-.sp
-That is, it matched a character without the "mark" property, followed by zero
-or more characters with the "mark" property. Characters with the "mark"
-property are typically non-spacing accents that affect the preceding character.
-.P
-This simple definition was extended in Unicode to include more complicated
-kinds of composite character by giving each character a grapheme breaking
-property, and creating rules that use these properties to define the boundaries
-of extended grapheme clusters. In releases of PCRE later than 8.31, \eX matches
-one of these clusters.
-.P
-\eX always matches at least one character. Then it decides whether to add
-additional characters according to the following rules for ending a cluster:
-.P
-1. End at the end of the subject string.
-.P
-2. Do not end between CR and LF; otherwise end after any control character.
-.P
-3. Do not break Hangul (a Korean script) syllable sequences. Hangul characters
-are of five types: L, V, T, LV, and LVT. An L character may be followed by an
-L, V, LV, or LVT character; an LV or V character may be followed by a V or T
-character; an LVT or T character may be follwed only by a T character.
-.P
-4. Do not end before extending characters or spacing marks. Characters with
-the "mark" property always have the "extend" grapheme breaking property.
-.P
-5. Do not end after prepend characters.
-.P
-6. Otherwise, end the cluster.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="extraprops"></a>
-.SS PCRE's additional properties
-.rs
-.sp
-As well as the standard Unicode properties described above, PCRE supports four
-more that make it possible to convert traditional escape sequences such as \ew
-and \es and POSIX character classes to use Unicode properties. PCRE uses these
-non-standard, non-Perl properties internally when PCRE_UCP is set. They are:
-.sp
-  Xan   Any alphanumeric character
-  Xps   Any POSIX space character
-  Xsp   Any Perl space character
-  Xwd   Any Perl "word" character
-.sp
-Xan matches characters that have either the L (letter) or the N (number)
-property. Xps matches the characters tab, linefeed, vertical tab, form feed, or
-carriage return, and any other character that has the Z (separator) property.
-Xsp is the same as Xps, except that vertical tab is excluded. Xwd matches the
-same characters as Xan, plus underscore.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="resetmatchstart"></a>
-.SS "Resetting the match start"
-.rs
-.sp
-The escape sequence \eK causes any previously matched characters not to be
-included in the final matched sequence. For example, the pattern:
-.sp
-  foo\eKbar
-.sp
-matches "foobar", but reports that it has matched "bar". This feature is
-similar to a lookbehind assertion
-.\" HTML <a href="#lookbehind">
-.\" </a>
-(described below).
-.\"
-However, in this case, the part of the subject before the real match does not
-have to be of fixed length, as lookbehind assertions do. The use of \eK does
-not interfere with the setting of
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpattern">
-.\" </a>
-captured substrings.
-.\"
-For example, when the pattern
-.sp
-  (foo)\eKbar
-.sp
-matches "foobar", the first substring is still set to "foo".
-.P
-Perl documents that the use of \eK within assertions is "not well defined". In
-PCRE, \eK is acted upon when it occurs inside positive assertions, but is
-ignored in negative assertions.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="smallassertions"></a>
-.SS "Simple assertions"
-.rs
-.sp
-The final use of backslash is for certain simple assertions. An assertion
-specifies a condition that has to be met at a particular point in a match,
-without consuming any characters from the subject string. The use of
-subpatterns for more complicated assertions is described
-.\" HTML <a href="#bigassertions">
-.\" </a>
-below.
-.\"
-The backslashed assertions are:
-.sp
-  \eb     matches at a word boundary
-  \eB     matches when not at a word boundary
-  \eA     matches at the start of the subject
-  \eZ     matches at the end of the subject
-          also matches before a newline at the end of the subject
-  \ez     matches only at the end of the subject
-  \eG     matches at the first matching position in the subject
-.sp
-Inside a character class, \eb has a different meaning; it matches the backspace
-character. If any other of these assertions appears in a character class, by
-default it matches the corresponding literal character (for example, \eB
-matches the letter B). However, if the PCRE_EXTRA option is set, an "invalid
-escape sequence" error is generated instead.
-.P
-A word boundary is a position in the subject string where the current character
-and the previous character do not both match \ew or \eW (i.e. one matches
-\ew and the other matches \eW), or the start or end of the string if the
-first or last character matches \ew, respectively. In a UTF mode, the meanings
-of \ew and \eW can be changed by setting the PCRE_UCP option. When this is
-done, it also affects \eb and \eB. Neither PCRE nor Perl has a separate "start
-of word" or "end of word" metasequence. However, whatever follows \eb normally
-determines which it is. For example, the fragment \eba matches "a" at the start
-of a word.
-.P
-The \eA, \eZ, and \ez assertions differ from the traditional circumflex and
-dollar (described in the next section) in that they only ever match at the very
-start and end of the subject string, whatever options are set. Thus, they are
-independent of multiline mode. These three assertions are not affected by the
-PCRE_NOTBOL or PCRE_NOTEOL options, which affect only the behaviour of the
-circumflex and dollar metacharacters. However, if the \fIstartoffset\fP
-argument of \fBpcre_exec()\fP is non-zero, indicating that matching is to start
-at a point other than the beginning of the subject, \eA can never match. The
-difference between \eZ and \ez is that \eZ matches before a newline at the end
-of the string as well as at the very end, whereas \ez matches only at the end.
-.P
-The \eG assertion is true only when the current matching position is at the
-start point of the match, as specified by the \fIstartoffset\fP argument of
-\fBpcre_exec()\fP. It differs from \eA when the value of \fIstartoffset\fP is
-non-zero. By calling \fBpcre_exec()\fP multiple times with appropriate
-arguments, you can mimic Perl's /g option, and it is in this kind of
-implementation where \eG can be useful.
-.P
-Note, however, that PCRE's interpretation of \eG, as the start of the current
-match, is subtly different from Perl's, which defines it as the end of the
-previous match. In Perl, these can be different when the previously matched
-string was empty. Because PCRE does just one match at a time, it cannot
-reproduce this behaviour.
-.P
-If all the alternatives of a pattern begin with \eG, the expression is anchored
-to the starting match position, and the "anchored" flag is set in the compiled
-regular expression.
-.
-.
-.SH "CIRCUMFLEX AND DOLLAR"
-.rs
-.sp
-The circumflex and dollar metacharacters are zero-width assertions. That is,
-they test for a particular condition being true without consuming any
-characters from the subject string.
-.P
-Outside a character class, in the default matching mode, the circumflex
-character is an assertion that is true only if the current matching point is at
-the start of the subject string. If the \fIstartoffset\fP argument of
-\fBpcre_exec()\fP is non-zero, circumflex can never match if the PCRE_MULTILINE
-option is unset. Inside a character class, circumflex has an entirely different
-meaning
-.\" HTML <a href="#characterclass">
-.\" </a>
-(see below).
-.\"
-.P
-Circumflex need not be the first character of the pattern if a number of
-alternatives are involved, but it should be the first thing in each alternative
-in which it appears if the pattern is ever to match that branch. If all
-possible alternatives start with a circumflex, that is, if the pattern is
-constrained to match only at the start of the subject, it is said to be an
-"anchored" pattern. (There are also other constructs that can cause a pattern
-to be anchored.)
-.P
-The dollar character is an assertion that is true only if the current matching
-point is at the end of the subject string, or immediately before a newline at
-the end of the string (by default). Note, however, that it does not actually
-match the newline. Dollar need not be the last character of the pattern if a
-number of alternatives are involved, but it should be the last item in any
-branch in which it appears. Dollar has no special meaning in a character class.
-.P
-The meaning of dollar can be changed so that it matches only at the very end of
-the string, by setting the PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option at compile time. This
-does not affect the \eZ assertion.
-.P
-The meanings of the circumflex and dollar characters are changed if the
-PCRE_MULTILINE option is set. When this is the case, a circumflex matches
-immediately after internal newlines as well as at the start of the subject
-string. It does not match after a newline that ends the string. A dollar
-matches before any newlines in the string, as well as at the very end, when
-PCRE_MULTILINE is set. When newline is specified as the two-character
-sequence CRLF, isolated CR and LF characters do not indicate newlines.
-.P
-For example, the pattern /^abc$/ matches the subject string "def\enabc" (where
-\en represents a newline) in multiline mode, but not otherwise. Consequently,
-patterns that are anchored in single line mode because all branches start with
-^ are not anchored in multiline mode, and a match for circumflex is possible
-when the \fIstartoffset\fP argument of \fBpcre_exec()\fP is non-zero. The
-PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option is ignored if PCRE_MULTILINE is set.
-.P
-Note that the sequences \eA, \eZ, and \ez can be used to match the start and
-end of the subject in both modes, and if all branches of a pattern start with
-\eA it is always anchored, whether or not PCRE_MULTILINE is set.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="fullstopdot"></a>
-.SH "FULL STOP (PERIOD, DOT) AND \eN"
-.rs
-.sp
-Outside a character class, a dot in the pattern matches any one character in
-the subject string except (by default) a character that signifies the end of a
-line.
-.P
-When a line ending is defined as a single character, dot never matches that
-character; when the two-character sequence CRLF is used, dot does not match CR
-if it is immediately followed by LF, but otherwise it matches all characters
-(including isolated CRs and LFs). When any Unicode line endings are being
-recognized, dot does not match CR or LF or any of the other line ending
-characters.
-.P
-The behaviour of dot with regard to newlines can be changed. If the PCRE_DOTALL
-option is set, a dot matches any one character, without exception. If the
-two-character sequence CRLF is present in the subject string, it takes two dots
-to match it.
-.P
-The handling of dot is entirely independent of the handling of circumflex and
-dollar, the only relationship being that they both involve newlines. Dot has no
-special meaning in a character class.
-.P
-The escape sequence \eN behaves like a dot, except that it is not affected by
-the PCRE_DOTALL option. In other words, it matches any character except one
-that signifies the end of a line. Perl also uses \eN to match characters by
-name; PCRE does not support this.
-.
-.
-.SH "MATCHING A SINGLE DATA UNIT"
-.rs
-.sp
-Outside a character class, the escape sequence \eC matches any one data unit,
-whether or not a UTF mode is set. In the 8-bit library, one data unit is one
-byte; in the 16-bit library it is a 16-bit unit; in the 32-bit library it is
-a 32-bit unit. Unlike a dot, \eC always
-matches line-ending characters. The feature is provided in Perl in order to
-match individual bytes in UTF-8 mode, but it is unclear how it can usefully be
-used. Because \eC breaks up characters into individual data units, matching one
-unit with \eC in a UTF mode means that the rest of the string may start with a
-malformed UTF character. This has undefined results, because PCRE assumes that
-it is dealing with valid UTF strings (and by default it checks this at the
-start of processing unless the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK or
-PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK option is used).
-.P
-PCRE does not allow \eC to appear in lookbehind assertions
-.\" HTML <a href="#lookbehind">
-.\" </a>
-(described below)
-.\"
-in a UTF mode, because this would make it impossible to calculate the length of
-the lookbehind.
-.P
-In general, the \eC escape sequence is best avoided. However, one
-way of using it that avoids the problem of malformed UTF characters is to use a
-lookahead to check the length of the next character, as in this pattern, which
-could be used with a UTF-8 string (ignore white space and line breaks):
-.sp
-  (?| (?=[\ex00-\ex7f])(\eC) |
-      (?=[\ex80-\ex{7ff}])(\eC)(\eC) |
-      (?=[\ex{800}-\ex{ffff}])(\eC)(\eC)(\eC) |
-      (?=[\ex{10000}-\ex{1fffff}])(\eC)(\eC)(\eC)(\eC))
-.sp
-A group that starts with (?| resets the capturing parentheses numbers in each
-alternative (see
-.\" HTML <a href="#dupsubpatternnumber">
-.\" </a>
-"Duplicate Subpattern Numbers"
-.\"
-below). The assertions at the start of each branch check the next UTF-8
-character for values whose encoding uses 1, 2, 3, or 4 bytes, respectively. The
-character's individual bytes are then captured by the appropriate number of
-groups.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="characterclass"></a>
-.SH "SQUARE BRACKETS AND CHARACTER CLASSES"
-.rs
-.sp
-An opening square bracket introduces a character class, terminated by a closing
-square bracket. A closing square bracket on its own is not special by default.
-However, if the PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT option is set, a lone closing square
-bracket causes a compile-time error. If a closing square bracket is required as
-a member of the class, it should be the first data character in the class
-(after an initial circumflex, if present) or escaped with a backslash.
-.P
-A character class matches a single character in the subject. In a UTF mode, the
-character may be more than one data unit long. A matched character must be in
-the set of characters defined by the class, unless the first character in the
-class definition is a circumflex, in which case the subject character must not
-be in the set defined by the class. If a circumflex is actually required as a
-member of the class, ensure it is not the first character, or escape it with a
-backslash.
-.P
-For example, the character class [aeiou] matches any lower case vowel, while
-[^aeiou] matches any character that is not a lower case vowel. Note that a
-circumflex is just a convenient notation for specifying the characters that
-are in the class by enumerating those that are not. A class that starts with a
-circumflex is not an assertion; it still consumes a character from the subject
-string, and therefore it fails if the current pointer is at the end of the
-string.
-.P
-In UTF-8 (UTF-16, UTF-32) mode, characters with values greater than 255 (0xffff)
-can be included in a class as a literal string of data units, or by using the
-\ex{ escaping mechanism.
-.P
-When caseless matching is set, any letters in a class represent both their
-upper case and lower case versions, so for example, a caseless [aeiou] matches
-"A" as well as "a", and a caseless [^aeiou] does not match "A", whereas a
-caseful version would. In a UTF mode, PCRE always understands the concept of
-case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless matching is
-always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of case is
-supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise.
-If you want to use caseless matching in a UTF mode for characters 128 and
-above, you must ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as
-well as with UTF support.
-.P
-Characters that might indicate line breaks are never treated in any special way
-when matching character classes, whatever line-ending sequence is in use, and
-whatever setting of the PCRE_DOTALL and PCRE_MULTILINE options is used. A class
-such as [^a] always matches one of these characters.
-.P
-The minus (hyphen) character can be used to specify a range of characters in a
-character class. For example, [d-m] matches any letter between d and m,
-inclusive. If a minus character is required in a class, it must be escaped with
-a backslash or appear in a position where it cannot be interpreted as
-indicating a range, typically as the first or last character in the class.
-.P
-It is not possible to have the literal character "]" as the end character of a
-range. A pattern such as [W-]46] is interpreted as a class of two characters
-("W" and "-") followed by a literal string "46]", so it would match "W46]" or
-"-46]". However, if the "]" is escaped with a backslash it is interpreted as
-the end of range, so [W-\e]46] is interpreted as a class containing a range
-followed by two other characters. The octal or hexadecimal representation of
-"]" can also be used to end a range.
-.P
-Ranges operate in the collating sequence of character values. They can also be
-used for characters specified numerically, for example [\e000-\e037]. Ranges
-can include any characters that are valid for the current mode.
-.P
-If a range that includes letters is used when caseless matching is set, it
-matches the letters in either case. For example, [W-c] is equivalent to
-[][\e\e^_`wxyzabc], matched caselessly, and in a non-UTF mode, if character
-tables for a French locale are in use, [\exc8-\excb] matches accented E
-characters in both cases. In UTF modes, PCRE supports the concept of case for
-characters with values greater than 128 only when it is compiled with Unicode
-property support.
-.P
-The character escape sequences \ed, \eD, \eh, \eH, \ep, \eP, \es, \eS, \ev,
-\eV, \ew, and \eW may appear in a character class, and add the characters that
-they match to the class. For example, [\edABCDEF] matches any hexadecimal
-digit. In UTF modes, the PCRE_UCP option affects the meanings of \ed, \es, \ew
-and their upper case partners, just as it does when they appear outside a
-character class, as described in the section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="#genericchartypes">
-.\" </a>
-"Generic character types"
-.\"
-above. The escape sequence \eb has a different meaning inside a character
-class; it matches the backspace character. The sequences \eB, \eN, \eR, and \eX
-are not special inside a character class. Like any other unrecognized escape
-sequences, they are treated as the literal characters "B", "N", "R", and "X" by
-default, but cause an error if the PCRE_EXTRA option is set.
-.P
-A circumflex can conveniently be used with the upper case character types to
-specify a more restricted set of characters than the matching lower case type.
-For example, the class [^\eW_] matches any letter or digit, but not underscore,
-whereas [\ew] includes underscore. A positive character class should be read as
-"something OR something OR ..." and a negative class as "NOT something AND NOT
-something AND NOT ...".
-.P
-The only metacharacters that are recognized in character classes are backslash,
-hyphen (only where it can be interpreted as specifying a range), circumflex
-(only at the start), opening square bracket (only when it can be interpreted as
-introducing a POSIX class name - see the next section), and the terminating
-closing square bracket. However, escaping other non-alphanumeric characters
-does no harm.
-.
-.
-.SH "POSIX CHARACTER CLASSES"
-.rs
-.sp
-Perl supports the POSIX notation for character classes. This uses names
-enclosed by [: and :] within the enclosing square brackets. PCRE also supports
-this notation. For example,
-.sp
-  [01[:alpha:]%]
-.sp
-matches "0", "1", any alphabetic character, or "%". The supported class names
-are:
-.sp
-  alnum    letters and digits
-  alpha    letters
-  ascii    character codes 0 - 127
-  blank    space or tab only
-  cntrl    control characters
-  digit    decimal digits (same as \ed)
-  graph    printing characters, excluding space
-  lower    lower case letters
-  print    printing characters, including space
-  punct    printing characters, excluding letters and digits and space
-  space    white space (not quite the same as \es)
-  upper    upper case letters
-  word     "word" characters (same as \ew)
-  xdigit   hexadecimal digits
-.sp
-The "space" characters are HT (9), LF (10), VT (11), FF (12), CR (13), and
-space (32). Notice that this list includes the VT character (code 11). This
-makes "space" different to \es, which does not include VT (for Perl
-compatibility).
-.P
-The name "word" is a Perl extension, and "blank" is a GNU extension from Perl
-5.8. Another Perl extension is negation, which is indicated by a ^ character
-after the colon. For example,
-.sp
-  [12[:^digit:]]
-.sp
-matches "1", "2", or any non-digit. PCRE (and Perl) also recognize the POSIX
-syntax [.ch.] and [=ch=] where "ch" is a "collating element", but these are not
-supported, and an error is given if they are encountered.
-.P
-By default, in UTF modes, characters with values greater than 128 do not match
-any of the POSIX character classes. However, if the PCRE_UCP option is passed
-to \fBpcre_compile()\fP, some of the classes are changed so that Unicode
-character properties are used. This is achieved by replacing the POSIX classes
-by other sequences, as follows:
-.sp
-  [:alnum:]  becomes  \ep{Xan}
-  [:alpha:]  becomes  \ep{L}
-  [:blank:]  becomes  \eh
-  [:digit:]  becomes  \ep{Nd}
-  [:lower:]  becomes  \ep{Ll}
-  [:space:]  becomes  \ep{Xps}
-  [:upper:]  becomes  \ep{Lu}
-  [:word:]   becomes  \ep{Xwd}
-.sp
-Negated versions, such as [:^alpha:] use \eP instead of \ep. The other POSIX
-classes are unchanged, and match only characters with code points less than
-128.
-.
-.
-.SH "VERTICAL BAR"
-.rs
-.sp
-Vertical bar characters are used to separate alternative patterns. For example,
-the pattern
-.sp
-  gilbert|sullivan
-.sp
-matches either "gilbert" or "sullivan". Any number of alternatives may appear,
-and an empty alternative is permitted (matching the empty string). The matching
-process tries each alternative in turn, from left to right, and the first one
-that succeeds is used. If the alternatives are within a subpattern
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpattern">
-.\" </a>
-(defined below),
-.\"
-"succeeds" means matching the rest of the main pattern as well as the
-alternative in the subpattern.
-.
-.
-.SH "INTERNAL OPTION SETTING"
-.rs
-.sp
-The settings of the PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE, PCRE_DOTALL, and
-PCRE_EXTENDED options (which are Perl-compatible) can be changed from within
-the pattern by a sequence of Perl option letters enclosed between "(?" and ")".
-The option letters are
-.sp
-  i  for PCRE_CASELESS
-  m  for PCRE_MULTILINE
-  s  for PCRE_DOTALL
-  x  for PCRE_EXTENDED
-.sp
-For example, (?im) sets caseless, multiline matching. It is also possible to
-unset these options by preceding the letter with a hyphen, and a combined
-setting and unsetting such as (?im-sx), which sets PCRE_CASELESS and
-PCRE_MULTILINE while unsetting PCRE_DOTALL and PCRE_EXTENDED, is also
-permitted. If a letter appears both before and after the hyphen, the option is
-unset.
-.P
-The PCRE-specific options PCRE_DUPNAMES, PCRE_UNGREEDY, and PCRE_EXTRA can be
-changed in the same way as the Perl-compatible options by using the characters
-J, U and X respectively.
-.P
-When one of these option changes occurs at top level (that is, not inside
-subpattern parentheses), the change applies to the remainder of the pattern
-that follows. If the change is placed right at the start of a pattern, PCRE
-extracts it into the global options (and it will therefore show up in data
-extracted by the \fBpcre_fullinfo()\fP function).
-.P
-An option change within a subpattern (see below for a description of
-subpatterns) affects only that part of the subpattern that follows it, so
-.sp
-  (a(?i)b)c
-.sp
-matches abc and aBc and no other strings (assuming PCRE_CASELESS is not used).
-By this means, options can be made to have different settings in different
-parts of the pattern. Any changes made in one alternative do carry on
-into subsequent branches within the same subpattern. For example,
-.sp
-  (a(?i)b|c)
-.sp
-matches "ab", "aB", "c", and "C", even though when matching "C" the first
-branch is abandoned before the option setting. This is because the effects of
-option settings happen at compile time. There would be some very weird
-behaviour otherwise.
-.P
-\fBNote:\fP There are other PCRE-specific options that can be set by the
-application when the compiling or matching functions are called. In some cases
-the pattern can contain special leading sequences such as (*CRLF) to override
-what the application has set or what has been defaulted. Details are given in
-the section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="#newlineseq">
-.\" </a>
-"Newline sequences"
-.\"
-above. There are also the (*UTF8), (*UTF16),(*UTF32), and (*UCP) leading
-sequences that can be used to set UTF and Unicode property modes; they are
-equivalent to setting the PCRE_UTF8, PCRE_UTF16, PCRE_UTF32 and the PCRE_UCP
-options, respectively. The (*UTF) sequence is a generic version that can be
-used with any of the libraries.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="subpattern"></a>
-.SH SUBPATTERNS
-.rs
-.sp
-Subpatterns are delimited by parentheses (round brackets), which can be nested.
-Turning part of a pattern into a subpattern does two things:
-.sp
-1. It localizes a set of alternatives. For example, the pattern
-.sp
-  cat(aract|erpillar|)
-.sp
-matches "cataract", "caterpillar", or "cat". Without the parentheses, it would
-match "cataract", "erpillar" or an empty string.
-.sp
-2. It sets up the subpattern as a capturing subpattern. This means that, when
-the whole pattern matches, that portion of the subject string that matched the
-subpattern is passed back to the caller via the \fIovector\fP argument of the
-matching function. (This applies only to the traditional matching functions;
-the DFA matching functions do not support capturing.)
-.P
-Opening parentheses are counted from left to right (starting from 1) to obtain
-numbers for the capturing subpatterns. For example, if the string "the red
-king" is matched against the pattern
-.sp
-  the ((red|white) (king|queen))
-.sp
-the captured substrings are "red king", "red", and "king", and are numbered 1,
-2, and 3, respectively.
-.P
-The fact that plain parentheses fulfil two functions is not always helpful.
-There are often times when a grouping subpattern is required without a
-capturing requirement. If an opening parenthesis is followed by a question mark
-and a colon, the subpattern does not do any capturing, and is not counted when
-computing the number of any subsequent capturing subpatterns. For example, if
-the string "the white queen" is matched against the pattern
-.sp
-  the ((?:red|white) (king|queen))
-.sp
-the captured substrings are "white queen" and "queen", and are numbered 1 and
-2. The maximum number of capturing subpatterns is 65535.
-.P
-As a convenient shorthand, if any option settings are required at the start of
-a non-capturing subpattern, the option letters may appear between the "?" and
-the ":". Thus the two patterns
-.sp
-  (?i:saturday|sunday)
-  (?:(?i)saturday|sunday)
-.sp
-match exactly the same set of strings. Because alternative branches are tried
-from left to right, and options are not reset until the end of the subpattern
-is reached, an option setting in one branch does affect subsequent branches, so
-the above patterns match "SUNDAY" as well as "Saturday".
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="dupsubpatternnumber"></a>
-.SH "DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NUMBERS"
-.rs
-.sp
-Perl 5.10 introduced a feature whereby each alternative in a subpattern uses
-the same numbers for its capturing parentheses. Such a subpattern starts with
-(?| and is itself a non-capturing subpattern. For example, consider this
-pattern:
-.sp
-  (?|(Sat)ur|(Sun))day
-.sp
-Because the two alternatives are inside a (?| group, both sets of capturing
-parentheses are numbered one. Thus, when the pattern matches, you can look
-at captured substring number one, whichever alternative matched. This construct
-is useful when you want to capture part, but not all, of one of a number of
-alternatives. Inside a (?| group, parentheses are numbered as usual, but the
-number is reset at the start of each branch. The numbers of any capturing
-parentheses that follow the subpattern start after the highest number used in
-any branch. The following example is taken from the Perl documentation. The
-numbers underneath show in which buffer the captured content will be stored.
-.sp
-  # before  ---------------branch-reset----------- after
-  / ( a )  (?| x ( y ) z | (p (q) r) | (t) u (v) ) ( z ) /x
-  # 1            2         2  3        2     3     4
-.sp
-A back reference to a numbered subpattern uses the most recent value that is
-set for that number by any subpattern. The following pattern matches "abcabc"
-or "defdef":
-.sp
-  /(?|(abc)|(def))\e1/
-.sp
-In contrast, a subroutine call to a numbered subpattern always refers to the
-first one in the pattern with the given number. The following pattern matches
-"abcabc" or "defabc":
-.sp
-  /(?|(abc)|(def))(?1)/
-.sp
-If a
-.\" HTML <a href="#conditions">
-.\" </a>
-condition test
-.\"
-for a subpattern's having matched refers to a non-unique number, the test is
-true if any of the subpatterns of that number have matched.
-.P
-An alternative approach to using this "branch reset" feature is to use
-duplicate named subpatterns, as described in the next section.
-.
-.
-.SH "NAMED SUBPATTERNS"
-.rs
-.sp
-Identifying capturing parentheses by number is simple, but it can be very hard
-to keep track of the numbers in complicated regular expressions. Furthermore,
-if an expression is modified, the numbers may change. To help with this
-difficulty, PCRE supports the naming of subpatterns. This feature was not
-added to Perl until release 5.10. Python had the feature earlier, and PCRE
-introduced it at release 4.0, using the Python syntax. PCRE now supports both
-the Perl and the Python syntax. Perl allows identically numbered subpatterns to
-have different names, but PCRE does not.
-.P
-In PCRE, a subpattern can be named in one of three ways: (?<name>...) or
-(?'name'...) as in Perl, or (?P<name>...) as in Python. References to capturing
-parentheses from other parts of the pattern, such as
-.\" HTML <a href="#backreferences">
-.\" </a>
-back references,
-.\"
-.\" HTML <a href="#recursion">
-.\" </a>
-recursion,
-.\"
-and
-.\" HTML <a href="#conditions">
-.\" </a>
-conditions,
-.\"
-can be made by name as well as by number.
-.P
-Names consist of up to 32 alphanumeric characters and underscores. Named
-capturing parentheses are still allocated numbers as well as names, exactly as
-if the names were not present. The PCRE API provides function calls for
-extracting the name-to-number translation table from a compiled pattern. There
-is also a convenience function for extracting a captured substring by name.
-.P
-By default, a name must be unique within a pattern, but it is possible to relax
-this constraint by setting the PCRE_DUPNAMES option at compile time. (Duplicate
-names are also always permitted for subpatterns with the same number, set up as
-described in the previous section.) Duplicate names can be useful for patterns
-where only one instance of the named parentheses can match. Suppose you want to
-match the name of a weekday, either as a 3-letter abbreviation or as the full
-name, and in both cases you want to extract the abbreviation. This pattern
-(ignoring the line breaks) does the job:
-.sp
-  (?<DN>Mon|Fri|Sun)(?:day)?|
-  (?<DN>Tue)(?:sday)?|
-  (?<DN>Wed)(?:nesday)?|
-  (?<DN>Thu)(?:rsday)?|
-  (?<DN>Sat)(?:urday)?
-.sp
-There are five capturing substrings, but only one is ever set after a match.
-(An alternative way of solving this problem is to use a "branch reset"
-subpattern, as described in the previous section.)
-.P
-The convenience function for extracting the data by name returns the substring
-for the first (and in this example, the only) subpattern of that name that
-matched. This saves searching to find which numbered subpattern it was.
-.P
-If you make a back reference to a non-unique named subpattern from elsewhere in
-the pattern, the one that corresponds to the first occurrence of the name is
-used. In the absence of duplicate numbers (see the previous section) this is
-the one with the lowest number. If you use a named reference in a condition
-test (see the
-.\"
-.\" HTML <a href="#conditions">
-.\" </a>
-section about conditions
-.\"
-below), either to check whether a subpattern has matched, or to check for
-recursion, all subpatterns with the same name are tested. If the condition is
-true for any one of them, the overall condition is true. This is the same
-behaviour as testing by number. For further details of the interfaces for
-handling named subpatterns, see the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreapi\fP
-.\"
-documentation.
-.P
-\fBWarning:\fP You cannot use different names to distinguish between two
-subpatterns with the same number because PCRE uses only the numbers when
-matching. For this reason, an error is given at compile time if different names
-are given to subpatterns with the same number. However, you can give the same
-name to subpatterns with the same number, even when PCRE_DUPNAMES is not set.
-.
-.
-.SH REPETITION
-.rs
-.sp
-Repetition is specified by quantifiers, which can follow any of the following
-items:
-.sp
-  a literal data character
-  the dot metacharacter
-  the \eC escape sequence
-  the \eX escape sequence
-  the \eR escape sequence
-  an escape such as \ed or \epL that matches a single character
-  a character class
-  a back reference (see next section)
-  a parenthesized subpattern (including assertions)
-  a subroutine call to a subpattern (recursive or otherwise)
-.sp
-The general repetition quantifier specifies a minimum and maximum number of
-permitted matches, by giving the two numbers in curly brackets (braces),
-separated by a comma. The numbers must be less than 65536, and the first must
-be less than or equal to the second. For example:
-.sp
-  z{2,4}
-.sp
-matches "zz", "zzz", or "zzzz". A closing brace on its own is not a special
-character. If the second number is omitted, but the comma is present, there is
-no upper limit; if the second number and the comma are both omitted, the
-quantifier specifies an exact number of required matches. Thus
-.sp
-  [aeiou]{3,}
-.sp
-matches at least 3 successive vowels, but may match many more, while
-.sp
-  \ed{8}
-.sp
-matches exactly 8 digits. An opening curly bracket that appears in a position
-where a quantifier is not allowed, or one that does not match the syntax of a
-quantifier, is taken as a literal character. For example, {,6} is not a
-quantifier, but a literal string of four characters.
-.P
-In UTF modes, quantifiers apply to characters rather than to individual data
-units. Thus, for example, \ex{100}{2} matches two characters, each of
-which is represented by a two-byte sequence in a UTF-8 string. Similarly,
-\eX{3} matches three Unicode extended grapheme clusters, each of which may be
-several data units long (and they may be of different lengths).
-.P
-The quantifier {0} is permitted, causing the expression to behave as if the
-previous item and the quantifier were not present. This may be useful for
-subpatterns that are referenced as
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-subroutines
-.\"
-from elsewhere in the pattern (but see also the section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="#subdefine">
-.\" </a>
-"Defining subpatterns for use by reference only"
-.\"
-below). Items other than subpatterns that have a {0} quantifier are omitted
-from the compiled pattern.
-.P
-For convenience, the three most common quantifiers have single-character
-abbreviations:
-.sp
-  *    is equivalent to {0,}
-  +    is equivalent to {1,}
-  ?    is equivalent to {0,1}
-.sp
-It is possible to construct infinite loops by following a subpattern that can
-match no characters with a quantifier that has no upper limit, for example:
-.sp
-  (a?)*
-.sp
-Earlier versions of Perl and PCRE used to give an error at compile time for
-such patterns. However, because there are cases where this can be useful, such
-patterns are now accepted, but if any repetition of the subpattern does in fact
-match no characters, the loop is forcibly broken.
-.P
-By default, the quantifiers are "greedy", that is, they match as much as
-possible (up to the maximum number of permitted times), without causing the
-rest of the pattern to fail. The classic example of where this gives problems
-is in trying to match comments in C programs. These appear between /* and */
-and within the comment, individual * and / characters may appear. An attempt to
-match C comments by applying the pattern
-.sp
-  /\e*.*\e*/
-.sp
-to the string
-.sp
-  /* first comment */  not comment  /* second comment */
-.sp
-fails, because it matches the entire string owing to the greediness of the .*
-item.
-.P
-However, if a quantifier is followed by a question mark, it ceases to be
-greedy, and instead matches the minimum number of times possible, so the
-pattern
-.sp
-  /\e*.*?\e*/
-.sp
-does the right thing with the C comments. The meaning of the various
-quantifiers is not otherwise changed, just the preferred number of matches.
-Do not confuse this use of question mark with its use as a quantifier in its
-own right. Because it has two uses, it can sometimes appear doubled, as in
-.sp
-  \ed??\ed
-.sp
-which matches one digit by preference, but can match two if that is the only
-way the rest of the pattern matches.
-.P
-If the PCRE_UNGREEDY option is set (an option that is not available in Perl),
-the quantifiers are not greedy by default, but individual ones can be made
-greedy by following them with a question mark. In other words, it inverts the
-default behaviour.
-.P
-When a parenthesized subpattern is quantified with a minimum repeat count that
-is greater than 1 or with a limited maximum, more memory is required for the
-compiled pattern, in proportion to the size of the minimum or maximum.
-.P
-If a pattern starts with .* or .{0,} and the PCRE_DOTALL option (equivalent
-to Perl's /s) is set, thus allowing the dot to match newlines, the pattern is
-implicitly anchored, because whatever follows will be tried against every
-character position in the subject string, so there is no point in retrying the
-overall match at any position after the first. PCRE normally treats such a
-pattern as though it were preceded by \eA.
-.P
-In cases where it is known that the subject string contains no newlines, it is
-worth setting PCRE_DOTALL in order to obtain this optimization, or
-alternatively using ^ to indicate anchoring explicitly.
-.P
-However, there are some cases where the optimization cannot be used. When .*
-is inside capturing parentheses that are the subject of a back reference
-elsewhere in the pattern, a match at the start may fail where a later one
-succeeds. Consider, for example:
-.sp
-  (.*)abc\e1
-.sp
-If the subject is "xyz123abc123" the match point is the fourth character. For
-this reason, such a pattern is not implicitly anchored.
-.P
-Another case where implicit anchoring is not applied is when the leading .* is
-inside an atomic group. Once again, a match at the start may fail where a later
-one succeeds. Consider this pattern:
-.sp
-  (?>.*?a)b
-.sp
-It matches "ab" in the subject "aab". The use of the backtracking control verbs
-(*PRUNE) and (*SKIP) also disable this optimization.
-.P
-When a capturing subpattern is repeated, the value captured is the substring
-that matched the final iteration. For example, after
-.sp
-  (tweedle[dume]{3}\es*)+
-.sp
-has matched "tweedledum tweedledee" the value of the captured substring is
-"tweedledee". However, if there are nested capturing subpatterns, the
-corresponding captured values may have been set in previous iterations. For
-example, after
-.sp
-  /(a|(b))+/
-.sp
-matches "aba" the value of the second captured substring is "b".
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="atomicgroup"></a>
-.SH "ATOMIC GROUPING AND POSSESSIVE QUANTIFIERS"
-.rs
-.sp
-With both maximizing ("greedy") and minimizing ("ungreedy" or "lazy")
-repetition, failure of what follows normally causes the repeated item to be
-re-evaluated to see if a different number of repeats allows the rest of the
-pattern to match. Sometimes it is useful to prevent this, either to change the
-nature of the match, or to cause it fail earlier than it otherwise might, when
-the author of the pattern knows there is no point in carrying on.
-.P
-Consider, for example, the pattern \ed+foo when applied to the subject line
-.sp
-  123456bar
-.sp
-After matching all 6 digits and then failing to match "foo", the normal
-action of the matcher is to try again with only 5 digits matching the \ed+
-item, and then with 4, and so on, before ultimately failing. "Atomic grouping"
-(a term taken from Jeffrey Friedl's book) provides the means for specifying
-that once a subpattern has matched, it is not to be re-evaluated in this way.
-.P
-If we use atomic grouping for the previous example, the matcher gives up
-immediately on failing to match "foo" the first time. The notation is a kind of
-special parenthesis, starting with (?> as in this example:
-.sp
-  (?>\ed+)foo
-.sp
-This kind of parenthesis "locks up" the  part of the pattern it contains once
-it has matched, and a failure further into the pattern is prevented from
-backtracking into it. Backtracking past it to previous items, however, works as
-normal.
-.P
-An alternative description is that a subpattern of this type matches the string
-of characters that an identical standalone pattern would match, if anchored at
-the current point in the subject string.
-.P
-Atomic grouping subpatterns are not capturing subpatterns. Simple cases such as
-the above example can be thought of as a maximizing repeat that must swallow
-everything it can. So, while both \ed+ and \ed+? are prepared to adjust the
-number of digits they match in order to make the rest of the pattern match,
-(?>\ed+) can only match an entire sequence of digits.
-.P
-Atomic groups in general can of course contain arbitrarily complicated
-subpatterns, and can be nested. However, when the subpattern for an atomic
-group is just a single repeated item, as in the example above, a simpler
-notation, called a "possessive quantifier" can be used. This consists of an
-additional + character following a quantifier. Using this notation, the
-previous example can be rewritten as
-.sp
-  \ed++foo
-.sp
-Note that a possessive quantifier can be used with an entire group, for
-example:
-.sp
-  (abc|xyz){2,3}+
-.sp
-Possessive quantifiers are always greedy; the setting of the PCRE_UNGREEDY
-option is ignored. They are a convenient notation for the simpler forms of
-atomic group. However, there is no difference in the meaning of a possessive
-quantifier and the equivalent atomic group, though there may be a performance
-difference; possessive quantifiers should be slightly faster.
-.P
-The possessive quantifier syntax is an extension to the Perl 5.8 syntax.
-Jeffrey Friedl originated the idea (and the name) in the first edition of his
-book. Mike McCloskey liked it, so implemented it when he built Sun's Java
-package, and PCRE copied it from there. It ultimately found its way into Perl
-at release 5.10.
-.P
-PCRE has an optimization that automatically "possessifies" certain simple
-pattern constructs. For example, the sequence A+B is treated as A++B because
-there is no point in backtracking into a sequence of A's when B must follow.
-.P
-When a pattern contains an unlimited repeat inside a subpattern that can itself
-be repeated an unlimited number of times, the use of an atomic group is the
-only way to avoid some failing matches taking a very long time indeed. The
-pattern
-.sp
-  (\eD+|<\ed+>)*[!?]
-.sp
-matches an unlimited number of substrings that either consist of non-digits, or
-digits enclosed in <>, followed by either ! or ?. When it matches, it runs
-quickly. However, if it is applied to
-.sp
-  aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
-.sp
-it takes a long time before reporting failure. This is because the string can
-be divided between the internal \eD+ repeat and the external * repeat in a
-large number of ways, and all have to be tried. (The example uses [!?] rather
-than a single character at the end, because both PCRE and Perl have an
-optimization that allows for fast failure when a single character is used. They
-remember the last single character that is required for a match, and fail early
-if it is not present in the string.) If the pattern is changed so that it uses
-an atomic group, like this:
-.sp
-  ((?>\eD+)|<\ed+>)*[!?]
-.sp
-sequences of non-digits cannot be broken, and failure happens quickly.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="backreferences"></a>
-.SH "BACK REFERENCES"
-.rs
-.sp
-Outside a character class, a backslash followed by a digit greater than 0 (and
-possibly further digits) is a back reference to a capturing subpattern earlier
-(that is, to its left) in the pattern, provided there have been that many
-previous capturing left parentheses.
-.P
-However, if the decimal number following the backslash is less than 10, it is
-always taken as a back reference, and causes an error only if there are not
-that many capturing left parentheses in the entire pattern. In other words, the
-parentheses that are referenced need not be to the left of the reference for
-numbers less than 10. A "forward back reference" of this type can make sense
-when a repetition is involved and the subpattern to the right has participated
-in an earlier iteration.
-.P
-It is not possible to have a numerical "forward back reference" to a subpattern
-whose number is 10 or more using this syntax because a sequence such as \e50 is
-interpreted as a character defined in octal. See the subsection entitled
-"Non-printing characters"
-.\" HTML <a href="#digitsafterbackslash">
-.\" </a>
-above
-.\"
-for further details of the handling of digits following a backslash. There is
-no such problem when named parentheses are used. A back reference to any
-subpattern is possible using named parentheses (see below).
-.P
-Another way of avoiding the ambiguity inherent in the use of digits following a
-backslash is to use the \eg escape sequence. This escape must be followed by an
-unsigned number or a negative number, optionally enclosed in braces. These
-examples are all identical:
-.sp
-  (ring), \e1
-  (ring), \eg1
-  (ring), \eg{1}
-.sp
-An unsigned number specifies an absolute reference without the ambiguity that
-is present in the older syntax. It is also useful when literal digits follow
-the reference. A negative number is a relative reference. Consider this
-example:
-.sp
-  (abc(def)ghi)\eg{-1}
-.sp
-The sequence \eg{-1} is a reference to the most recently started capturing
-subpattern before \eg, that is, is it equivalent to \e2 in this example.
-Similarly, \eg{-2} would be equivalent to \e1. The use of relative references
-can be helpful in long patterns, and also in patterns that are created by
-joining together fragments that contain references within themselves.
-.P
-A back reference matches whatever actually matched the capturing subpattern in
-the current subject string, rather than anything matching the subpattern
-itself (see
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-"Subpatterns as subroutines"
-.\"
-below for a way of doing that). So the pattern
-.sp
-  (sens|respons)e and \e1ibility
-.sp
-matches "sense and sensibility" and "response and responsibility", but not
-"sense and responsibility". If caseful matching is in force at the time of the
-back reference, the case of letters is relevant. For example,
-.sp
-  ((?i)rah)\es+\e1
-.sp
-matches "rah rah" and "RAH RAH", but not "RAH rah", even though the original
-capturing subpattern is matched caselessly.
-.P
-There are several different ways of writing back references to named
-subpatterns. The .NET syntax \ek{name} and the Perl syntax \ek<name> or
-\ek'name' are supported, as is the Python syntax (?P=name). Perl 5.10's unified
-back reference syntax, in which \eg can be used for both numeric and named
-references, is also supported. We could rewrite the above example in any of
-the following ways:
-.sp
-  (?<p1>(?i)rah)\es+\ek<p1>
-  (?'p1'(?i)rah)\es+\ek{p1}
-  (?P<p1>(?i)rah)\es+(?P=p1)
-  (?<p1>(?i)rah)\es+\eg{p1}
-.sp
-A subpattern that is referenced by name may appear in the pattern before or
-after the reference.
-.P
-There may be more than one back reference to the same subpattern. If a
-subpattern has not actually been used in a particular match, any back
-references to it always fail by default. For example, the pattern
-.sp
-  (a|(bc))\e2
-.sp
-always fails if it starts to match "a" rather than "bc". However, if the
-PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT option is set at compile time, a back reference to an
-unset value matches an empty string.
-.P
-Because there may be many capturing parentheses in a pattern, all digits
-following a backslash are taken as part of a potential back reference number.
-If the pattern continues with a digit character, some delimiter must be used to
-terminate the back reference. If the PCRE_EXTENDED option is set, this can be
-white space. Otherwise, the \eg{ syntax or an empty comment (see
-.\" HTML <a href="#comments">
-.\" </a>
-"Comments"
-.\"
-below) can be used.
-.
-.SS "Recursive back references"
-.rs
-.sp
-A back reference that occurs inside the parentheses to which it refers fails
-when the subpattern is first used, so, for example, (a\e1) never matches.
-However, such references can be useful inside repeated subpatterns. For
-example, the pattern
-.sp
-  (a|b\e1)+
-.sp
-matches any number of "a"s and also "aba", "ababbaa" etc. At each iteration of
-the subpattern, the back reference matches the character string corresponding
-to the previous iteration. In order for this to work, the pattern must be such
-that the first iteration does not need to match the back reference. This can be
-done using alternation, as in the example above, or by a quantifier with a
-minimum of zero.
-.P
-Back references of this type cause the group that they reference to be treated
-as an
-.\" HTML <a href="#atomicgroup">
-.\" </a>
-atomic group.
-.\"
-Once the whole group has been matched, a subsequent matching failure cannot
-cause backtracking into the middle of the group.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="bigassertions"></a>
-.SH ASSERTIONS
-.rs
-.sp
-An assertion is a test on the characters following or preceding the current
-matching point that does not actually consume any characters. The simple
-assertions coded as \eb, \eB, \eA, \eG, \eZ, \ez, ^ and $ are described
-.\" HTML <a href="#smallassertions">
-.\" </a>
-above.
-.\"
-.P
-More complicated assertions are coded as subpatterns. There are two kinds:
-those that look ahead of the current position in the subject string, and those
-that look behind it. An assertion subpattern is matched in the normal way,
-except that it does not cause the current matching position to be changed.
-.P
-Assertion subpatterns are not capturing subpatterns. If such an assertion
-contains capturing subpatterns within it, these are counted for the purposes of
-numbering the capturing subpatterns in the whole pattern. However, substring
-capturing is carried out only for positive assertions, because it does not make
-sense for negative assertions.
-.P
-For compatibility with Perl, assertion subpatterns may be repeated; though
-it makes no sense to assert the same thing several times, the side effect of
-capturing parentheses may occasionally be useful. In practice, there only three
-cases:
-.sp
-(1) If the quantifier is {0}, the assertion is never obeyed during matching.
-However, it may contain internal capturing parenthesized groups that are called
-from elsewhere via the
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-subroutine mechanism.
-.\"
-.sp
-(2) If quantifier is {0,n} where n is greater than zero, it is treated as if it
-were {0,1}. At run time, the rest of the pattern match is tried with and
-without the assertion, the order depending on the greediness of the quantifier.
-.sp
-(3) If the minimum repetition is greater than zero, the quantifier is ignored.
-The assertion is obeyed just once when encountered during matching.
-.
-.
-.SS "Lookahead assertions"
-.rs
-.sp
-Lookahead assertions start with (?= for positive assertions and (?! for
-negative assertions. For example,
-.sp
-  \ew+(?=;)
-.sp
-matches a word followed by a semicolon, but does not include the semicolon in
-the match, and
-.sp
-  foo(?!bar)
-.sp
-matches any occurrence of "foo" that is not followed by "bar". Note that the
-apparently similar pattern
-.sp
-  (?!foo)bar
-.sp
-does not find an occurrence of "bar" that is preceded by something other than
-"foo"; it finds any occurrence of "bar" whatsoever, because the assertion
-(?!foo) is always true when the next three characters are "bar". A
-lookbehind assertion is needed to achieve the other effect.
-.P
-If you want to force a matching failure at some point in a pattern, the most
-convenient way to do it is with (?!) because an empty string always matches, so
-an assertion that requires there not to be an empty string must always fail.
-The backtracking control verb (*FAIL) or (*F) is a synonym for (?!).
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="lookbehind"></a>
-.SS "Lookbehind assertions"
-.rs
-.sp
-Lookbehind assertions start with (?<= for positive assertions and (?<! for
-negative assertions. For example,
-.sp
-  (?<!foo)bar
-.sp
-does find an occurrence of "bar" that is not preceded by "foo". The contents of
-a lookbehind assertion are restricted such that all the strings it matches must
-have a fixed length. However, if there are several top-level alternatives, they
-do not all have to have the same fixed length. Thus
-.sp
-  (?<=bullock|donkey)
-.sp
-is permitted, but
-.sp
-  (?<!dogs?|cats?)
-.sp
-causes an error at compile time. Branches that match different length strings
-are permitted only at the top level of a lookbehind assertion. This is an
-extension compared with Perl, which requires all branches to match the same
-length of string. An assertion such as
-.sp
-  (?<=ab(c|de))
-.sp
-is not permitted, because its single top-level branch can match two different
-lengths, but it is acceptable to PCRE if rewritten to use two top-level
-branches:
-.sp
-  (?<=abc|abde)
-.sp
-In some cases, the escape sequence \eK
-.\" HTML <a href="#resetmatchstart">
-.\" </a>
-(see above)
-.\"
-can be used instead of a lookbehind assertion to get round the fixed-length
-restriction.
-.P
-The implementation of lookbehind assertions is, for each alternative, to
-temporarily move the current position back by the fixed length and then try to
-match. If there are insufficient characters before the current position, the
-assertion fails.
-.P
-In a UTF mode, PCRE does not allow the \eC escape (which matches a single data
-unit even in a UTF mode) to appear in lookbehind assertions, because it makes
-it impossible to calculate the length of the lookbehind. The \eX and \eR
-escapes, which can match different numbers of data units, are also not
-permitted.
-.P
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-"Subroutine"
-.\"
-calls (see below) such as (?2) or (?&X) are permitted in lookbehinds, as long
-as the subpattern matches a fixed-length string.
-.\" HTML <a href="#recursion">
-.\" </a>
-Recursion,
-.\"
-however, is not supported.
-.P
-Possessive quantifiers can be used in conjunction with lookbehind assertions to
-specify efficient matching of fixed-length strings at the end of subject
-strings. Consider a simple pattern such as
-.sp
-  abcd$
-.sp
-when applied to a long string that does not match. Because matching proceeds
-from left to right, PCRE will look for each "a" in the subject and then see if
-what follows matches the rest of the pattern. If the pattern is specified as
-.sp
-  ^.*abcd$
-.sp
-the initial .* matches the entire string at first, but when this fails (because
-there is no following "a"), it backtracks to match all but the last character,
-then all but the last two characters, and so on. Once again the search for "a"
-covers the entire string, from right to left, so we are no better off. However,
-if the pattern is written as
-.sp
-  ^.*+(?<=abcd)
-.sp
-there can be no backtracking for the .*+ item; it can match only the entire
-string. The subsequent lookbehind assertion does a single test on the last four
-characters. If it fails, the match fails immediately. For long strings, this
-approach makes a significant difference to the processing time.
-.
-.
-.SS "Using multiple assertions"
-.rs
-.sp
-Several assertions (of any sort) may occur in succession. For example,
-.sp
-  (?<=\ed{3})(?<!999)foo
-.sp
-matches "foo" preceded by three digits that are not "999". Notice that each of
-the assertions is applied independently at the same point in the subject
-string. First there is a check that the previous three characters are all
-digits, and then there is a check that the same three characters are not "999".
-This pattern does \fInot\fP match "foo" preceded by six characters, the first
-of which are digits and the last three of which are not "999". For example, it
-doesn't match "123abcfoo". A pattern to do that is
-.sp
-  (?<=\ed{3}...)(?<!999)foo
-.sp
-This time the first assertion looks at the preceding six characters, checking
-that the first three are digits, and then the second assertion checks that the
-preceding three characters are not "999".
-.P
-Assertions can be nested in any combination. For example,
-.sp
-  (?<=(?<!foo)bar)baz
-.sp
-matches an occurrence of "baz" that is preceded by "bar" which in turn is not
-preceded by "foo", while
-.sp
-  (?<=\ed{3}(?!999)...)foo
-.sp
-is another pattern that matches "foo" preceded by three digits and any three
-characters that are not "999".
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="conditions"></a>
-.SH "CONDITIONAL SUBPATTERNS"
-.rs
-.sp
-It is possible to cause the matching process to obey a subpattern
-conditionally or to choose between two alternative subpatterns, depending on
-the result of an assertion, or whether a specific capturing subpattern has
-already been matched. The two possible forms of conditional subpattern are:
-.sp
-  (?(condition)yes-pattern)
-  (?(condition)yes-pattern|no-pattern)
-.sp
-If the condition is satisfied, the yes-pattern is used; otherwise the
-no-pattern (if present) is used. If there are more than two alternatives in the
-subpattern, a compile-time error occurs. Each of the two alternatives may
-itself contain nested subpatterns of any form, including conditional
-subpatterns; the restriction to two alternatives applies only at the level of
-the condition. This pattern fragment is an example where the alternatives are
-complex:
-.sp
-  (?(1) (A|B|C) | (D | (?(2)E|F) | E) )
-.sp
-.P
-There are four kinds of condition: references to subpatterns, references to
-recursion, a pseudo-condition called DEFINE, and assertions.
-.
-.SS "Checking for a used subpattern by number"
-.rs
-.sp
-If the text between the parentheses consists of a sequence of digits, the
-condition is true if a capturing subpattern of that number has previously
-matched. If there is more than one capturing subpattern with the same number
-(see the earlier
-.\"
-.\" HTML <a href="#recursion">
-.\" </a>
-section about duplicate subpattern numbers),
-.\"
-the condition is true if any of them have matched. An alternative notation is
-to precede the digits with a plus or minus sign. In this case, the subpattern
-number is relative rather than absolute. The most recently opened parentheses
-can be referenced by (?(-1), the next most recent by (?(-2), and so on. Inside
-loops it can also make sense to refer to subsequent groups. The next
-parentheses to be opened can be referenced as (?(+1), and so on. (The value
-zero in any of these forms is not used; it provokes a compile-time error.)
-.P
-Consider the following pattern, which contains non-significant white space to
-make it more readable (assume the PCRE_EXTENDED option) and to divide it into
-three parts for ease of discussion:
-.sp
-  ( \e( )?    [^()]+    (?(1) \e) )
-.sp
-The first part matches an optional opening parenthesis, and if that
-character is present, sets it as the first captured substring. The second part
-matches one or more characters that are not parentheses. The third part is a
-conditional subpattern that tests whether or not the first set of parentheses
-matched. If they did, that is, if subject started with an opening parenthesis,
-the condition is true, and so the yes-pattern is executed and a closing
-parenthesis is required. Otherwise, since no-pattern is not present, the
-subpattern matches nothing. In other words, this pattern matches a sequence of
-non-parentheses, optionally enclosed in parentheses.
-.P
-If you were embedding this pattern in a larger one, you could use a relative
-reference:
-.sp
-  ...other stuff... ( \e( )?    [^()]+    (?(-1) \e) ) ...
-.sp
-This makes the fragment independent of the parentheses in the larger pattern.
-.
-.SS "Checking for a used subpattern by name"
-.rs
-.sp
-Perl uses the syntax (?(<name>)...) or (?('name')...) to test for a used
-subpattern by name. For compatibility with earlier versions of PCRE, which had
-this facility before Perl, the syntax (?(name)...) is also recognized. However,
-there is a possible ambiguity with this syntax, because subpattern names may
-consist entirely of digits. PCRE looks first for a named subpattern; if it
-cannot find one and the name consists entirely of digits, PCRE looks for a
-subpattern of that number, which must be greater than zero. Using subpattern
-names that consist entirely of digits is not recommended.
-.P
-Rewriting the above example to use a named subpattern gives this:
-.sp
-  (?<OPEN> \e( )?    [^()]+    (?(<OPEN>) \e) )
-.sp
-If the name used in a condition of this kind is a duplicate, the test is
-applied to all subpatterns of the same name, and is true if any one of them has
-matched.
-.
-.SS "Checking for pattern recursion"
-.rs
-.sp
-If the condition is the string (R), and there is no subpattern with the name R,
-the condition is true if a recursive call to the whole pattern or any
-subpattern has been made. If digits or a name preceded by ampersand follow the
-letter R, for example:
-.sp
-  (?(R3)...) or (?(R&name)...)
-.sp
-the condition is true if the most recent recursion is into a subpattern whose
-number or name is given. This condition does not check the entire recursion
-stack. If the name used in a condition of this kind is a duplicate, the test is
-applied to all subpatterns of the same name, and is true if any one of them is
-the most recent recursion.
-.P
-At "top level", all these recursion test conditions are false.
-.\" HTML <a href="#recursion">
-.\" </a>
-The syntax for recursive patterns
-.\"
-is described below.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="subdefine"></a>
-.SS "Defining subpatterns for use by reference only"
-.rs
-.sp
-If the condition is the string (DEFINE), and there is no subpattern with the
-name DEFINE, the condition is always false. In this case, there may be only one
-alternative in the subpattern. It is always skipped if control reaches this
-point in the pattern; the idea of DEFINE is that it can be used to define
-subroutines that can be referenced from elsewhere. (The use of
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-subroutines
-.\"
-is described below.) For example, a pattern to match an IPv4 address such as
-"192.168.23.245" could be written like this (ignore white space and line
-breaks):
-.sp
-  (?(DEFINE) (?<byte> 2[0-4]\ed | 25[0-5] | 1\ed\ed | [1-9]?\ed) )
-  \eb (?&byte) (\e.(?&byte)){3} \eb
-.sp
-The first part of the pattern is a DEFINE group inside which a another group
-named "byte" is defined. This matches an individual component of an IPv4
-address (a number less than 256). When matching takes place, this part of the
-pattern is skipped because DEFINE acts like a false condition. The rest of the
-pattern uses references to the named group to match the four dot-separated
-components of an IPv4 address, insisting on a word boundary at each end.
-.
-.SS "Assertion conditions"
-.rs
-.sp
-If the condition is not in any of the above formats, it must be an assertion.
-This may be a positive or negative lookahead or lookbehind assertion. Consider
-this pattern, again containing non-significant white space, and with the two
-alternatives on the second line:
-.sp
-  (?(?=[^a-z]*[a-z])
-  \ed{2}-[a-z]{3}-\ed{2}  |  \ed{2}-\ed{2}-\ed{2} )
-.sp
-The condition is a positive lookahead assertion that matches an optional
-sequence of non-letters followed by a letter. In other words, it tests for the
-presence of at least one letter in the subject. If a letter is found, the
-subject is matched against the first alternative; otherwise it is matched
-against the second. This pattern matches strings in one of the two forms
-dd-aaa-dd or dd-dd-dd, where aaa are letters and dd are digits.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="comments"></a>
-.SH COMMENTS
-.rs
-.sp
-There are two ways of including comments in patterns that are processed by
-PCRE. In both cases, the start of the comment must not be in a character class,
-nor in the middle of any other sequence of related characters such as (?: or a
-subpattern name or number. The characters that make up a comment play no part
-in the pattern matching.
-.P
-The sequence (?# marks the start of a comment that continues up to the next
-closing parenthesis. Nested parentheses are not permitted. If the PCRE_EXTENDED
-option is set, an unescaped # character also introduces a comment, which in
-this case continues to immediately after the next newline character or
-character sequence in the pattern. Which characters are interpreted as newlines
-is controlled by the options passed to a compiling function or by a special
-sequence at the start of the pattern, as described in the section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="#newlines">
-.\" </a>
-"Newline conventions"
-.\"
-above. Note that the end of this type of comment is a literal newline sequence
-in the pattern; escape sequences that happen to represent a newline do not
-count. For example, consider this pattern when PCRE_EXTENDED is set, and the
-default newline convention is in force:
-.sp
-  abc #comment \en still comment
-.sp
-On encountering the # character, \fBpcre_compile()\fP skips along, looking for
-a newline in the pattern. The sequence \en is still literal at this stage, so
-it does not terminate the comment. Only an actual character with the code value
-0x0a (the default newline) does so.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="recursion"></a>
-.SH "RECURSIVE PATTERNS"
-.rs
-.sp
-Consider the problem of matching a string in parentheses, allowing for
-unlimited nested parentheses. Without the use of recursion, the best that can
-be done is to use a pattern that matches up to some fixed depth of nesting. It
-is not possible to handle an arbitrary nesting depth.
-.P
-For some time, Perl has provided a facility that allows regular expressions to
-recurse (amongst other things). It does this by interpolating Perl code in the
-expression at run time, and the code can refer to the expression itself. A Perl
-pattern using code interpolation to solve the parentheses problem can be
-created like this:
-.sp
-  $re = qr{\e( (?: (?>[^()]+) | (?p{$re}) )* \e)}x;
-.sp
-The (?p{...}) item interpolates Perl code at run time, and in this case refers
-recursively to the pattern in which it appears.
-.P
-Obviously, PCRE cannot support the interpolation of Perl code. Instead, it
-supports special syntax for recursion of the entire pattern, and also for
-individual subpattern recursion. After its introduction in PCRE and Python,
-this kind of recursion was subsequently introduced into Perl at release 5.10.
-.P
-A special item that consists of (? followed by a number greater than zero and a
-closing parenthesis is a recursive subroutine call of the subpattern of the
-given number, provided that it occurs inside that subpattern. (If not, it is a
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-non-recursive subroutine
-.\"
-call, which is described in the next section.) The special item (?R) or (?0) is
-a recursive call of the entire regular expression.
-.P
-This PCRE pattern solves the nested parentheses problem (assume the
-PCRE_EXTENDED option is set so that white space is ignored):
-.sp
-  \e( ( [^()]++ | (?R) )* \e)
-.sp
-First it matches an opening parenthesis. Then it matches any number of
-substrings which can either be a sequence of non-parentheses, or a recursive
-match of the pattern itself (that is, a correctly parenthesized substring).
-Finally there is a closing parenthesis. Note the use of a possessive quantifier
-to avoid backtracking into sequences of non-parentheses.
-.P
-If this were part of a larger pattern, you would not want to recurse the entire
-pattern, so instead you could use this:
-.sp
-  ( \e( ( [^()]++ | (?1) )* \e) )
-.sp
-We have put the pattern into parentheses, and caused the recursion to refer to
-them instead of the whole pattern.
-.P
-In a larger pattern, keeping track of parenthesis numbers can be tricky. This
-is made easier by the use of relative references. Instead of (?1) in the
-pattern above you can write (?-2) to refer to the second most recently opened
-parentheses preceding the recursion. In other words, a negative number counts
-capturing parentheses leftwards from the point at which it is encountered.
-.P
-It is also possible to refer to subsequently opened parentheses, by writing
-references such as (?+2). However, these cannot be recursive because the
-reference is not inside the parentheses that are referenced. They are always
-.\" HTML <a href="#subpatternsassubroutines">
-.\" </a>
-non-recursive subroutine
-.\"
-calls, as described in the next section.
-.P
-An alternative approach is to use named parentheses instead. The Perl syntax
-for this is (?&name); PCRE's earlier syntax (?P>name) is also supported. We
-could rewrite the above example as follows:
-.sp
-  (?<pn> \e( ( [^()]++ | (?&pn) )* \e) )
-.sp
-If there is more than one subpattern with the same name, the earliest one is
-used.
-.P
-This particular example pattern that we have been looking at contains nested
-unlimited repeats, and so the use of a possessive quantifier for matching
-strings of non-parentheses is important when applying the pattern to strings
-that do not match. For example, when this pattern is applied to
-.sp
-  (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa()
-.sp
-it yields "no match" quickly. However, if a possessive quantifier is not used,
-the match runs for a very long time indeed because there are so many different
-ways the + and * repeats can carve up the subject, and all have to be tested
-before failure can be reported.
-.P
-At the end of a match, the values of capturing parentheses are those from
-the outermost level. If you want to obtain intermediate values, a callout
-function can be used (see below and the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrecallout\fP
-.\"
-documentation). If the pattern above is matched against
-.sp
-  (ab(cd)ef)
-.sp
-the value for the inner capturing parentheses (numbered 2) is "ef", which is
-the last value taken on at the top level. If a capturing subpattern is not
-matched at the top level, its final captured value is unset, even if it was
-(temporarily) set at a deeper level during the matching process.
-.P
-If there are more than 15 capturing parentheses in a pattern, PCRE has to
-obtain extra memory to store data during a recursion, which it does by using
-\fBpcre_malloc\fP, freeing it via \fBpcre_free\fP afterwards. If no memory can
-be obtained, the match fails with the PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY error.
-.P
-Do not confuse the (?R) item with the condition (R), which tests for recursion.
-Consider this pattern, which matches text in angle brackets, allowing for
-arbitrary nesting. Only digits are allowed in nested brackets (that is, when
-recursing), whereas any characters are permitted at the outer level.
-.sp
-  < (?: (?(R) \ed++  | [^<>]*+) | (?R)) * >
-.sp
-In this pattern, (?(R) is the start of a conditional subpattern, with two
-different alternatives for the recursive and non-recursive cases. The (?R) item
-is the actual recursive call.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="recursiondifference"></a>
-.SS "Differences in recursion processing between PCRE and Perl"
-.rs
-.sp
-Recursion processing in PCRE differs from Perl in two important ways. In PCRE
-(like Python, but unlike Perl), a recursive subpattern call is always treated
-as an atomic group. That is, once it has matched some of the subject string, it
-is never re-entered, even if it contains untried alternatives and there is a
-subsequent matching failure. This can be illustrated by the following pattern,
-which purports to match a palindromic string that contains an odd number of
-characters (for example, "a", "aba", "abcba", "abcdcba"):
-.sp
-  ^(.|(.)(?1)\e2)$
-.sp
-The idea is that it either matches a single character, or two identical
-characters surrounding a sub-palindrome. In Perl, this pattern works; in PCRE
-it does not if the pattern is longer than three characters. Consider the
-subject string "abcba":
-.P
-At the top level, the first character is matched, but as it is not at the end
-of the string, the first alternative fails; the second alternative is taken
-and the recursion kicks in. The recursive call to subpattern 1 successfully
-matches the next character ("b"). (Note that the beginning and end of line
-tests are not part of the recursion).
-.P
-Back at the top level, the next character ("c") is compared with what
-subpattern 2 matched, which was "a". This fails. Because the recursion is
-treated as an atomic group, there are now no backtracking points, and so the
-entire match fails. (Perl is able, at this point, to re-enter the recursion and
-try the second alternative.) However, if the pattern is written with the
-alternatives in the other order, things are different:
-.sp
-  ^((.)(?1)\e2|.)$
-.sp
-This time, the recursing alternative is tried first, and continues to recurse
-until it runs out of characters, at which point the recursion fails. But this
-time we do have another alternative to try at the higher level. That is the big
-difference: in the previous case the remaining alternative is at a deeper
-recursion level, which PCRE cannot use.
-.P
-To change the pattern so that it matches all palindromic strings, not just
-those with an odd number of characters, it is tempting to change the pattern to
-this:
-.sp
-  ^((.)(?1)\e2|.?)$
-.sp
-Again, this works in Perl, but not in PCRE, and for the same reason. When a
-deeper recursion has matched a single character, it cannot be entered again in
-order to match an empty string. The solution is to separate the two cases, and
-write out the odd and even cases as alternatives at the higher level:
-.sp
-  ^(?:((.)(?1)\e2|)|((.)(?3)\e4|.))
-.sp
-If you want to match typical palindromic phrases, the pattern has to ignore all
-non-word characters, which can be done like this:
-.sp
-  ^\eW*+(?:((.)\eW*+(?1)\eW*+\e2|)|((.)\eW*+(?3)\eW*+\e4|\eW*+.\eW*+))\eW*+$
-.sp
-If run with the PCRE_CASELESS option, this pattern matches phrases such as "A
-man, a plan, a canal: Panama!" and it works well in both PCRE and Perl. Note
-the use of the possessive quantifier *+ to avoid backtracking into sequences of
-non-word characters. Without this, PCRE takes a great deal longer (ten times or
-more) to match typical phrases, and Perl takes so long that you think it has
-gone into a loop.
-.P
-\fBWARNING\fP: The palindrome-matching patterns above work only if the subject
-string does not start with a palindrome that is shorter than the entire string.
-For example, although "abcba" is correctly matched, if the subject is "ababa",
-PCRE finds the palindrome "aba" at the start, then fails at top level because
-the end of the string does not follow. Once again, it cannot jump back into the
-recursion to try other alternatives, so the entire match fails.
-.P
-The second way in which PCRE and Perl differ in their recursion processing is
-in the handling of captured values. In Perl, when a subpattern is called
-recursively or as a subpattern (see the next section), it has no access to any
-values that were captured outside the recursion, whereas in PCRE these values
-can be referenced. Consider this pattern:
-.sp
-  ^(.)(\e1|a(?2))
-.sp
-In PCRE, this pattern matches "bab". The first capturing parentheses match "b",
-then in the second group, when the back reference \e1 fails to match "b", the
-second alternative matches "a" and then recurses. In the recursion, \e1 does
-now match "b" and so the whole match succeeds. In Perl, the pattern fails to
-match because inside the recursive call \e1 cannot access the externally set
-value.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="subpatternsassubroutines"></a>
-.SH "SUBPATTERNS AS SUBROUTINES"
-.rs
-.sp
-If the syntax for a recursive subpattern call (either by number or by
-name) is used outside the parentheses to which it refers, it operates like a
-subroutine in a programming language. The called subpattern may be defined
-before or after the reference. A numbered reference can be absolute or
-relative, as in these examples:
-.sp
-  (...(absolute)...)...(?2)...
-  (...(relative)...)...(?-1)...
-  (...(?+1)...(relative)...
-.sp
-An earlier example pointed out that the pattern
-.sp
-  (sens|respons)e and \e1ibility
-.sp
-matches "sense and sensibility" and "response and responsibility", but not
-"sense and responsibility". If instead the pattern
-.sp
-  (sens|respons)e and (?1)ibility
-.sp
-is used, it does match "sense and responsibility" as well as the other two
-strings. Another example is given in the discussion of DEFINE above.
-.P
-All subroutine calls, whether recursive or not, are always treated as atomic
-groups. That is, once a subroutine has matched some of the subject string, it
-is never re-entered, even if it contains untried alternatives and there is a
-subsequent matching failure. Any capturing parentheses that are set during the
-subroutine call revert to their previous values afterwards.
-.P
-Processing options such as case-independence are fixed when a subpattern is
-defined, so if it is used as a subroutine, such options cannot be changed for
-different calls. For example, consider this pattern:
-.sp
-  (abc)(?i:(?-1))
-.sp
-It matches "abcabc". It does not match "abcABC" because the change of
-processing option does not affect the called subpattern.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="onigurumasubroutines"></a>
-.SH "ONIGURUMA SUBROUTINE SYNTAX"
-.rs
-.sp
-For compatibility with Oniguruma, the non-Perl syntax \eg followed by a name or
-a number enclosed either in angle brackets or single quotes, is an alternative
-syntax for referencing a subpattern as a subroutine, possibly recursively. Here
-are two of the examples used above, rewritten using this syntax:
-.sp
-  (?<pn> \e( ( (?>[^()]+) | \eg<pn> )* \e) )
-  (sens|respons)e and \eg'1'ibility
-.sp
-PCRE supports an extension to Oniguruma: if a number is preceded by a
-plus or a minus sign it is taken as a relative reference. For example:
-.sp
-  (abc)(?i:\eg<-1>)
-.sp
-Note that \eg{...} (Perl syntax) and \eg<...> (Oniguruma syntax) are \fInot\fP
-synonymous. The former is a back reference; the latter is a subroutine call.
-.
-.
-.SH CALLOUTS
-.rs
-.sp
-Perl has a feature whereby using the sequence (?{...}) causes arbitrary Perl
-code to be obeyed in the middle of matching a regular expression. This makes it
-possible, amongst other things, to extract different substrings that match the
-same pair of parentheses when there is a repetition.
-.P
-PCRE provides a similar feature, but of course it cannot obey arbitrary Perl
-code. The feature is called "callout". The caller of PCRE provides an external
-function by putting its entry point in the global variable \fIpcre_callout\fP
-(8-bit library) or \fIpcre[16|32]_callout\fP (16-bit or 32-bit library).
-By default, this variable contains NULL, which disables all calling out.
-.P
-Within a regular expression, (?C) indicates the points at which the external
-function is to be called. If you want to identify different callout points, you
-can put a number less than 256 after the letter C. The default value is zero.
-For example, this pattern has two callout points:
-.sp
-  (?C1)abc(?C2)def
-.sp
-If the PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT flag is passed to a compiling function, callouts are
-automatically installed before each item in the pattern. They are all numbered
-255.
-.P
-During matching, when PCRE reaches a callout point, the external function is
-called. It is provided with the number of the callout, the position in the
-pattern, and, optionally, one item of data originally supplied by the caller of
-the matching function. The callout function may cause matching to proceed, to
-backtrack, or to fail altogether. A complete description of the interface to
-the callout function is given in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcrecallout\fP
-.\"
-documentation.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="backtrackcontrol"></a>
-.SH "BACKTRACKING CONTROL"
-.rs
-.sp
-Perl 5.10 introduced a number of "Special Backtracking Control Verbs", which
-are described in the Perl documentation as "experimental and subject to change
-or removal in a future version of Perl". It goes on to say: "Their usage in
-production code should be noted to avoid problems during upgrades." The same
-remarks apply to the PCRE features described in this section.
-.P
-Since these verbs are specifically related to backtracking, most of them can be
-used only when the pattern is to be matched using one of the traditional
-matching functions, which use a backtracking algorithm. With the exception of
-(*FAIL), which behaves like a failing negative assertion, they cause an error
-if encountered by a DFA matching function.
-.P
-If any of these verbs are used in an assertion or in a subpattern that is
-called as a subroutine (whether or not recursively), their effect is confined
-to that subpattern; it does not extend to the surrounding pattern, with one
-exception: the name from a *(MARK), (*PRUNE), or (*THEN) that is encountered in
-a successful positive assertion \fIis\fP passed back when a match succeeds
-(compare capturing parentheses in assertions). Note that such subpatterns are
-processed as anchored at the point where they are tested. Note also that Perl's
-treatment of subroutines and assertions is different in some cases.
-.P
-The new verbs make use of what was previously invalid syntax: an opening
-parenthesis followed by an asterisk. They are generally of the form
-(*VERB) or (*VERB:NAME). Some may take either form, with differing behaviour,
-depending on whether or not an argument is present. A name is any sequence of
-characters that does not include a closing parenthesis. The maximum length of
-name is 255 in the 8-bit library and 65535 in the 16-bit and 32-bit library.
-If the name is empty, that is, if the closing parenthesis immediately follows
-the colon, the effect is as if the colon were not there. Any number of these
-verbs may occur in a pattern.
-.
-.
-.\" HTML <a name="nooptimize"></a>
-.SS "Optimizations that affect backtracking verbs"
-.rs
-.sp
-PCRE contains some optimizations that are used to speed up matching by running
-some checks at the start of each match attempt. For example, it may know the
-minimum length of matching subject, or that a particular character must be
-present. When one of these optimizations suppresses the running of a match, any
-included backtracking verbs will not, of course, be processed. You can suppress
-the start-of-match optimizations by setting the PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option
-when calling \fBpcre_compile()\fP or \fBpcre_exec()\fP, or by starting the
-pattern with (*NO_START_OPT). There is more discussion of this option in the
-section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="pcreapi.html#execoptions">
-.\" </a>
-"Option bits for \fBpcre_exec()\fP"
-.\"
-in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreapi\fP
-.\"
-documentation.
-.P
-Experiments with Perl suggest that it too has similar optimizations, sometimes
-leading to anomalous results.
-.
-.
-.SS "Verbs that act immediately"
-.rs
-.sp
-The following verbs act as soon as they are encountered. They may not be
-followed by a name.
-.sp
-   (*ACCEPT)
-.sp
-This verb causes the match to end successfully, skipping the remainder of the
-pattern. However, when it is inside a subpattern that is called as a
-subroutine, only that subpattern is ended successfully. Matching then continues
-at the outer level. If (*ACCEPT) is inside capturing parentheses, the data so
-far is captured. For example:
-.sp
-  A((?:A|B(*ACCEPT)|C)D)
-.sp
-This matches "AB", "AAD", or "ACD"; when it matches "AB", "B" is captured by
-the outer parentheses.
-.sp
-  (*FAIL) or (*F)
-.sp
-This verb causes a matching failure, forcing backtracking to occur. It is
-equivalent to (?!) but easier to read. The Perl documentation notes that it is
-probably useful only when combined with (?{}) or (??{}). Those are, of course,
-Perl features that are not present in PCRE. The nearest equivalent is the
-callout feature, as for example in this pattern:
-.sp
-  a+(?C)(*FAIL)
-.sp
-A match with the string "aaaa" always fails, but the callout is taken before
-each backtrack happens (in this example, 10 times).
-.
-.
-.SS "Recording which path was taken"
-.rs
-.sp
-There is one verb whose main purpose is to track how a match was arrived at,
-though it also has a secondary use in conjunction with advancing the match
-starting point (see (*SKIP) below).
-.sp
-  (*MARK:NAME) or (*:NAME)
-.sp
-A name is always required with this verb. There may be as many instances of
-(*MARK) as you like in a pattern, and their names do not have to be unique.
-.P
-When a match succeeds, the name of the last-encountered (*MARK) on the matching
-path is passed back to the caller as described in the section entitled
-.\" HTML <a href="pcreapi.html#extradata">
-.\" </a>
-"Extra data for \fBpcre_exec()\fP"
-.\"
-in the
-.\" HREF
-\fBpcreapi\fP
-.\"
-documentation. Here is an example of \fBpcretest\fP output, where the /K
-modifier requests the retrieval and outputting of (*MARK) data:
-.sp
-    re> /X(*MARK:A)Y|X(*MARK:B)Z/K
-  data> XY
-   0: XY
-  MK: A
-  XZ
-   0: XZ
-  MK: B
-.sp
-The (*MARK) name is tagged with "MK:" in this output, and in this example it
-indicates which of the two alternatives matched. This is a more efficient way
-of obtaining this information than putting each alternative in its own
-capturing parentheses.
-.P
-If (*MARK) is encountered in a positive assertion, its name is recorded and
-passed back if it is the last-encountered. This does not happen for negative
-assertions.
-.P
-After a partial match or a failed match, the name of the last encountered
-(*MARK) in the entire match process is returned. For example:
-.sp
-    re> /X(*MARK:A)Y|X(*MARK:B)Z/K
-  data> XP
-  No match, mark = B
-.sp
-Note that in this unanchored example the mark is retained from the match
-attempt that started at the letter "X" in the subject. Subsequent match
-attempts starting at "P" and then with an empty string do not get as far as the
-(*MARK) item, but nevertheless do not reset it.
-.P
-If you are interested in (*MARK) values after failed matches, you should
-probably set the PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE option
-.\" HTML <a href="#nooptimize">
-.\" </a>
-(see above)
-.\"
-to ensure that the match is always attempted.
-.
-.
-.SS "Verbs that act after backtracking"
-.rs
-.sp
-The following verbs do nothing when they are encountered. Matching continues
-with what follows, but if there is no subsequent match, causing a backtrack to
-the verb, a failure is forced. That is, backtracking cannot pass to the left of
-the verb. However, when one of these verbs appears inside an atomic group, its
-effect is confined to that group, because once the group has been matched,
-there is never any backtracking into it. In this situation, backtracking can
-"jump back" to the left of the entire atomic group. (Remember also, as stated
-above, that this localization also applies in subroutine calls and assertions.)
-.P
-These verbs differ in exactly what kind of failure occurs when backtracking
-reaches them.
-.sp
-  (*COMMIT)
-.sp
-This verb, which may not be followed by a name, causes the whole match to fail
-outright if the rest of the pattern does not match. Even if the pattern is
-unanchored, no further attempts to find a match by advancing the starting point
-take place. Once (*COMMIT) has been passed, \fBpcre_exec()\fP is committed to
-finding a match at the current starting point, or not at all. For example:
-.sp
-  a+(*COMMIT)b
-.sp
-This matches "xxaab" but not "aacaab". It can be thought of as a kind of
-dynamic anchor, or "I've started, so I must finish." The name of the most
-recently passed (*MARK) in the path is passed back when (*COMMIT) forces a
-match failure.
-.P
-Note that (*COMMIT) at the start of a pattern is not the same as an anchor,
-unless PCRE's start-of-match optimizations are turned off, as shown in this
-\fBpcretest\fP example:
-.sp
-    re> /(*COMMIT)abc/
-  data> xyzabc
-   0: abc
-  xyzabc\eY
-  No match
-.sp
-PCRE knows that any match must start with "a", so the optimization skips along
-the subject to "a" before running the first match attempt, which succeeds. When
-the optimization is disabled by the \eY escape in the second subject, the match
-starts at "x" and so the (*COMMIT) causes it to fail without trying any other
-starting points.
-.sp
-  (*PRUNE) or (*PRUNE:NAME)
-.sp
-This verb causes the match to fail at the current starting position in the
-subject if the rest of the pattern does not match. If the pattern is
-unanchored, the normal "bumpalong" advance to the next starting character then
-happens. Backtracking can occur as usual to the left of (*PRUNE), before it is
-reached, or when matching to the right of (*PRUNE), but if there is no match to
-the right, backtracking cannot cross (*PRUNE). In simple cases, the use of
-(*PRUNE) is just an alternative to an atomic group or possessive quantifier,
-but there are some uses of (*PRUNE) that cannot be expressed in any other way.
-The behaviour of (*PRUNE:NAME) is the same as (*MARK:NAME)(*PRUNE). In an
-anchored pattern (*PRUNE) has the same effect as (*COMMIT).
-.sp
-  (*SKIP)
-.sp
-This verb, when given without a name, is like (*PRUNE), except that if the
-pattern is unanchored, the "bumpalong" advance is not to the next character,
-but to the position in the subject where (*SKIP) was encountered. (*SKIP)
-signifies that whatever text was matched leading up to it cannot be part of a
-successful match. Consider:
-.sp
-  a+(*SKIP)b
-.sp
-If the subject is "aaaac...", after the first match attempt fails (starting at
-the first character in the string), the starting point skips on to start the
-next attempt at "c". Note that a possessive quantifer does not have the same
-effect as this example; although it would suppress backtracking during the
-first match attempt, the second attempt would start at the second character
-instead of skipping on to "c".
-.sp
-  (*SKIP:NAME)
-.sp
-When (*SKIP) has an associated name, its behaviour is modified. If the
-following pattern fails to match, the previous path through the pattern is
-searched for the most recent (*MARK) that has the same name. If one is found,
-the "bumpalong" advance is to the subject position that corresponds to that
-(*MARK) instead of to where (*SKIP) was encountered. If no (*MARK) with a
-matching name is found, the (*SKIP) is ignored.
-.sp
-  (*THEN) or (*THEN:NAME)
-.sp
-This verb causes a skip to the next innermost alternative if the rest of the
-pattern does not match. That is, it cancels pending backtracking, but only
-within the current alternative. Its name comes from the observation that it can
-be used for a pattern-based if-then-else block:
-.sp
-  ( COND1 (*THEN) FOO | COND2 (*THEN) BAR | COND3 (*THEN) BAZ ) ...
-.sp
-If the COND1 pattern matches, FOO is tried (and possibly further items after
-the end of the group if FOO succeeds); on failure, the matcher skips to the
-second alternative and tries COND2, without backtracking into COND1. The
-behaviour of (*THEN:NAME) is exactly the same as (*MARK:NAME)(*THEN).
-If (*THEN) is not inside an alternation, it acts like (*PRUNE).
-.P
-Note that a subpattern that does not contain a | character is just a part of
-the enclosing alternative; it is not a nested alternation with only one
-alternative. The effect of (*THEN) extends beyond such a subpattern to the
-enclosing alternative. Consider this pattern, where A, B, etc. are complex
-pattern fragments that do not contain any | characters at this level:
-.sp
-  A (B(*THEN)C) | D
-.sp
-If A and B are matched, but there is a failure in C, matching does not
-backtrack into A; instead it moves to the next alternative, that is, D.
-However, if the subpattern containing (*THEN) is given an alternative, it
-behaves differently:
-.sp
-  A (B(*THEN)C | (*FAIL)) | D
-.sp
-The effect of (*THEN) is now confined to the inner subpattern. After a failure
-in C, matching moves to (*FAIL), which causes the whole subpattern to fail
-because there are no more alternatives to try. In this case, matching does now
-backtrack into A.
-.P
-Note also that a conditional subpattern is not considered as having two
-alternatives, because only one is ever used. In other words, the | character in
-a conditional subpattern has a different meaning. Ignoring white space,
-consider:
-.sp
-  ^.*? (?(?=a) a | b(*THEN)c )
-.sp
-If the subject is "ba", this pattern does not match. Because .*? is ungreedy,
-it initially matches zero characters. The condition (?=a) then fails, the
-character "b" is matched, but "c" is not. At this point, matching does not
-backtrack to .*? as might perhaps be expected from the presence of the |
-character. The conditional subpattern is part of the single alternative that
-comprises the whole pattern, and so the match fails. (If there was a backtrack
-into .*?, allowing it to match "b", the match would succeed.)
-.P
-The verbs just described provide four different "strengths" of control when
-subsequent matching fails. (*THEN) is the weakest, carrying on the match at the
-next alternative. (*PRUNE) comes next, failing the match at the current
-starting position, but allowing an advance to the next character (for an
-unanchored pattern). (*SKIP) is similar, except that the advance may be more
-than one character. (*COMMIT) is the strongest, causing the entire match to
-fail.
-.P
-If more than one such verb is present in a pattern, the "strongest" one wins.
-For example, consider this pattern, where A, B, etc. are complex pattern
-fragments:
-.sp
-  (A(*COMMIT)B(*THEN)C|D)
-.sp
-Once A has matched, PCRE is committed to this match, at the current starting
-position. If subsequently B matches, but C does not, the normal (*THEN) action
-of trying the next alternative (that is, D) does not happen because (*COMMIT)
-overrides.
-.
-.
-.SH "SEE ALSO"
-.rs
-.sp
-\fBpcreapi\fP(3), \fBpcrecallout\fP(3), \fBpcrematching\fP(3),
-\fBpcresyntax\fP(3), \fBpcre\fP(3), \fBpcre16(3)\fP, \fBpcre32(3)\fP.
-.
-.
-.SH AUTHOR
-.rs
-.sp
-.nf
-Philip Hazel
-University Computing Service
-Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
-.fi
-.
-.
-.SH REVISION
-.rs
-.sp
-.nf
-Last updated: 11 November 2012
-Copyright (c) 1997-2012 University of Cambridge.
-.fi