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  1. <html>
  2. <head>
  3. <title>pcrepattern specification</title>
  4. </head>
  5. <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
  6. <h1>pcrepattern man page</h1>
  7. <p>
  8. Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
  9. </p>
  10. <p>
  11. This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically
  12. from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the
  13. man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
  14. <br>
  15. <ul>
  16. <li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">PCRE REGULAR EXPRESSION DETAILS</a>
  17. <li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">NEWLINE CONVENTIONS</a>
  18. <li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">CHARACTERS AND METACHARACTERS</a>
  19. <li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">BACKSLASH</a>
  20. <li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">CIRCUMFLEX AND DOLLAR</a>
  21. <li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">FULL STOP (PERIOD, DOT)</a>
  22. <li><a name="TOC7" href="#SEC7">MATCHING A SINGLE BYTE</a>
  23. <li><a name="TOC8" href="#SEC8">SQUARE BRACKETS AND CHARACTER CLASSES</a>
  24. <li><a name="TOC9" href="#SEC9">POSIX CHARACTER CLASSES</a>
  25. <li><a name="TOC10" href="#SEC10">VERTICAL BAR</a>
  26. <li><a name="TOC11" href="#SEC11">INTERNAL OPTION SETTING</a>
  27. <li><a name="TOC12" href="#SEC12">SUBPATTERNS</a>
  28. <li><a name="TOC13" href="#SEC13">DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NUMBERS</a>
  29. <li><a name="TOC14" href="#SEC14">NAMED SUBPATTERNS</a>
  30. <li><a name="TOC15" href="#SEC15">REPETITION</a>
  31. <li><a name="TOC16" href="#SEC16">ATOMIC GROUPING AND POSSESSIVE QUANTIFIERS</a>
  32. <li><a name="TOC17" href="#SEC17">BACK REFERENCES</a>
  33. <li><a name="TOC18" href="#SEC18">ASSERTIONS</a>
  34. <li><a name="TOC19" href="#SEC19">CONDITIONAL SUBPATTERNS</a>
  35. <li><a name="TOC20" href="#SEC20">COMMENTS</a>
  36. <li><a name="TOC21" href="#SEC21">RECURSIVE PATTERNS</a>
  37. <li><a name="TOC22" href="#SEC22">SUBPATTERNS AS SUBROUTINES</a>
  38. <li><a name="TOC23" href="#SEC23">ONIGURUMA SUBROUTINE SYNTAX</a>
  39. <li><a name="TOC24" href="#SEC24">CALLOUTS</a>
  40. <li><a name="TOC25" href="#SEC25">BACKTRACKING CONTROL</a>
  41. <li><a name="TOC26" href="#SEC26">SEE ALSO</a>
  42. <li><a name="TOC27" href="#SEC27">AUTHOR</a>
  43. <li><a name="TOC28" href="#SEC28">REVISION</a>
  44. </ul>
  45. <br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">PCRE REGULAR EXPRESSION DETAILS</a><br>
  46. <P>
  47. The syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that are supported by PCRE
  48. are described in detail below. There is a quick-reference syntax summary in the
  49. <a href="pcresyntax.html"><b>pcresyntax</b></a>
  50. page. PCRE tries to match Perl syntax and semantics as closely as it can. PCRE
  51. also supports some alternative regular expression syntax (which does not
  52. conflict with the Perl syntax) in order to provide some compatibility with
  53. regular expressions in Python, .NET, and Oniguruma.
  54. </P>
  55. <P>
  56. Perl's regular expressions are described in its own documentation, and
  57. regular expressions in general are covered in a number of books, some of which
  58. have copious examples. Jeffrey Friedl's "Mastering Regular Expressions",
  59. published by O'Reilly, covers regular expressions in great detail. This
  60. description of PCRE's regular expressions is intended as reference material.
  61. </P>
  62. <P>
  63. The original operation of PCRE was on strings of one-byte characters. However,
  64. there is now also support for UTF-8 character strings. To use this, you must
  65. build PCRE to include UTF-8 support, and then call <b>pcre_compile()</b> with
  66. the PCRE_UTF8 option. How this affects pattern matching is mentioned in several
  67. places below. There is also a summary of UTF-8 features in the
  68. <a href="pcre.html#utf8support">section on UTF-8 support</a>
  69. in the main
  70. <a href="pcre.html"><b>pcre</b></a>
  71. page.
  72. </P>
  73. <P>
  74. The remainder of this document discusses the patterns that are supported by
  75. PCRE when its main matching function, <b>pcre_exec()</b>, is used.
  76. From release 6.0, PCRE offers a second matching function,
  77. <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>, which matches using a different algorithm that is not
  78. Perl-compatible. Some of the features discussed below are not available when
  79. <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> is used. The advantages and disadvantages of the
  80. alternative function, and how it differs from the normal function, are
  81. discussed in the
  82. <a href="pcrematching.html"><b>pcrematching</b></a>
  83. page.
  84. </P>
  85. <br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">NEWLINE CONVENTIONS</a><br>
  86. <P>
  87. PCRE supports five different conventions for indicating line breaks in
  88. strings: a single CR (carriage return) character, a single LF (linefeed)
  89. character, the two-character sequence CRLF, any of the three preceding, or any
  90. Unicode newline sequence. The
  91. <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
  92. page has
  93. <a href="pcreapi.html#newlines">further discussion</a>
  94. about newlines, and shows how to set the newline convention in the
  95. <i>options</i> arguments for the compiling and matching functions.
  96. </P>
  97. <P>
  98. It is also possible to specify a newline convention by starting a pattern
  99. string with one of the following five sequences:
  100. <pre>
  101. (*CR) carriage return
  102. (*LF) linefeed
  103. (*CRLF) carriage return, followed by linefeed
  104. (*ANYCRLF) any of the three above
  105. (*ANY) all Unicode newline sequences
  106. </pre>
  107. These override the default and the options given to <b>pcre_compile()</b>. For
  108. example, on a Unix system where LF is the default newline sequence, the pattern
  109. <pre>
  110. (*CR)a.b
  111. </pre>
  112. changes the convention to CR. That pattern matches "a\nb" because LF is no
  113. longer a newline. Note that these special settings, which are not
  114. Perl-compatible, are recognized only at the very start of a pattern, and that
  115. they must be in upper case. If more than one of them is present, the last one
  116. is used.
  117. </P>
  118. <P>
  119. The newline convention does not affect what the \R escape sequence matches. By
  120. default, this is any Unicode newline sequence, for Perl compatibility. However,
  121. this can be changed; see the description of \R in the section entitled
  122. <a href="#newlineseq">"Newline sequences"</a>
  123. below. A change of \R setting can be combined with a change of newline
  124. convention.
  125. </P>
  126. <br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">CHARACTERS AND METACHARACTERS</a><br>
  127. <P>
  128. A regular expression is a pattern that is matched against a subject string from
  129. left to right. Most characters stand for themselves in a pattern, and match the
  130. corresponding characters in the subject. As a trivial example, the pattern
  131. <pre>
  132. The quick brown fox
  133. </pre>
  134. matches a portion of a subject string that is identical to itself. When
  135. caseless matching is specified (the PCRE_CASELESS option), letters are matched
  136. independently of case. In UTF-8 mode, PCRE always understands the concept of
  137. case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless matching is
  138. always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of case is
  139. supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise.
  140. If you want to use caseless matching for characters 128 and above, you must
  141. ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as well as with
  142. UTF-8 support.
  143. </P>
  144. <P>
  145. The power of regular expressions comes from the ability to include alternatives
  146. and repetitions in the pattern. These are encoded in the pattern by the use of
  147. <i>metacharacters</i>, which do not stand for themselves but instead are
  148. interpreted in some special way.
  149. </P>
  150. <P>
  151. There are two different sets of metacharacters: those that are recognized
  152. anywhere in the pattern except within square brackets, and those that are
  153. recognized within square brackets. Outside square brackets, the metacharacters
  154. are as follows:
  155. <pre>
  156. \ general escape character with several uses
  157. ^ assert start of string (or line, in multiline mode)
  158. $ assert end of string (or line, in multiline mode)
  159. . match any character except newline (by default)
  160. [ start character class definition
  161. | start of alternative branch
  162. ( start subpattern
  163. ) end subpattern
  164. ? extends the meaning of (
  165. also 0 or 1 quantifier
  166. also quantifier minimizer
  167. * 0 or more quantifier
  168. + 1 or more quantifier
  169. also "possessive quantifier"
  170. { start min/max quantifier
  171. </pre>
  172. Part of a pattern that is in square brackets is called a "character class". In
  173. a character class the only metacharacters are:
  174. <pre>
  175. \ general escape character
  176. ^ negate the class, but only if the first character
  177. - indicates character range
  178. [ POSIX character class (only if followed by POSIX syntax)
  179. ] terminates the character class
  180. </pre>
  181. The following sections describe the use of each of the metacharacters.
  182. </P>
  183. <br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">BACKSLASH</a><br>
  184. <P>
  185. The backslash character has several uses. Firstly, if it is followed by a
  186. non-alphanumeric character, it takes away any special meaning that character
  187. may have. This use of backslash as an escape character applies both inside and
  188. outside character classes.
  189. </P>
  190. <P>
  191. For example, if you want to match a * character, you write \* in the pattern.
  192. This escaping action applies whether or not the following character would
  193. otherwise be interpreted as a metacharacter, so it is always safe to precede a
  194. non-alphanumeric with backslash to specify that it stands for itself. In
  195. particular, if you want to match a backslash, you write \\.
  196. </P>
  197. <P>
  198. If a pattern is compiled with the PCRE_EXTENDED option, whitespace in the
  199. pattern (other than in a character class) and characters between a # outside
  200. a character class and the next newline are ignored. An escaping backslash can
  201. be used to include a whitespace or # character as part of the pattern.
  202. </P>
  203. <P>
  204. If you want to remove the special meaning from a sequence of characters, you
  205. can do so by putting them between \Q and \E. This is different from Perl in
  206. that $ and @ are handled as literals in \Q...\E sequences in PCRE, whereas in
  207. Perl, $ and @ cause variable interpolation. Note the following examples:
  208. <pre>
  209. Pattern PCRE matches Perl matches
  210. \Qabc$xyz\E abc$xyz abc followed by the contents of $xyz
  211. \Qabc\$xyz\E abc\$xyz abc\$xyz
  212. \Qabc\E\$\Qxyz\E abc$xyz abc$xyz
  213. </pre>
  214. The \Q...\E sequence is recognized both inside and outside character classes.
  215. <a name="digitsafterbackslash"></a></P>
  216. <br><b>
  217. Non-printing characters
  218. </b><br>
  219. <P>
  220. A second use of backslash provides a way of encoding non-printing characters
  221. in patterns in a visible manner. There is no restriction on the appearance of
  222. non-printing characters, apart from the binary zero that terminates a pattern,
  223. but when a pattern is being prepared by text editing, it is usually easier to
  224. use one of the following escape sequences than the binary character it
  225. represents:
  226. <pre>
  227. \a alarm, that is, the BEL character (hex 07)
  228. \cx "control-x", where x is any character
  229. \e escape (hex 1B)
  230. \f formfeed (hex 0C)
  231. \n linefeed (hex 0A)
  232. \r carriage return (hex 0D)
  233. \t tab (hex 09)
  234. \ddd character with octal code ddd, or backreference
  235. \xhh character with hex code hh
  236. \x{hhh..} character with hex code hhh..
  237. </pre>
  238. The precise effect of \cx is as follows: if x is a lower case letter, it
  239. is converted to upper case. Then bit 6 of the character (hex 40) is inverted.
  240. Thus \cz becomes hex 1A, but \c{ becomes hex 3B, while \c; becomes hex
  241. 7B.
  242. </P>
  243. <P>
  244. After \x, from zero to two hexadecimal digits are read (letters can be in
  245. upper or lower case). Any number of hexadecimal digits may appear between \x{
  246. and }, but the value of the character code must be less than 256 in non-UTF-8
  247. mode, and less than 2**31 in UTF-8 mode. That is, the maximum value in
  248. hexadecimal is 7FFFFFFF. Note that this is bigger than the largest Unicode code
  249. point, which is 10FFFF.
  250. </P>
  251. <P>
  252. If characters other than hexadecimal digits appear between \x{ and }, or if
  253. there is no terminating }, this form of escape is not recognized. Instead, the
  254. initial \x will be interpreted as a basic hexadecimal escape, with no
  255. following digits, giving a character whose value is zero.
  256. </P>
  257. <P>
  258. Characters whose value is less than 256 can be defined by either of the two
  259. syntaxes for \x. There is no difference in the way they are handled. For
  260. example, \xdc is exactly the same as \x{dc}.
  261. </P>
  262. <P>
  263. After \0 up to two further octal digits are read. If there are fewer than two
  264. digits, just those that are present are used. Thus the sequence \0\x\07
  265. specifies two binary zeros followed by a BEL character (code value 7). Make
  266. sure you supply two digits after the initial zero if the pattern character that
  267. follows is itself an octal digit.
  268. </P>
  269. <P>
  270. The handling of a backslash followed by a digit other than 0 is complicated.
  271. Outside a character class, PCRE reads it and any following digits as a decimal
  272. number. If the number is less than 10, or if there have been at least that many
  273. previous capturing left parentheses in the expression, the entire sequence is
  274. taken as a <i>back reference</i>. A description of how this works is given
  275. <a href="#backreferences">later,</a>
  276. following the discussion of
  277. <a href="#subpattern">parenthesized subpatterns.</a>
  278. </P>
  279. <P>
  280. Inside a character class, or if the decimal number is greater than 9 and there
  281. have not been that many capturing subpatterns, PCRE re-reads up to three octal
  282. digits following the backslash, and uses them to generate a data character. Any
  283. subsequent digits stand for themselves. In non-UTF-8 mode, the value of a
  284. character specified in octal must be less than \400. In UTF-8 mode, values up
  285. to \777 are permitted. For example:
  286. <pre>
  287. \040 is another way of writing a space
  288. \40 is the same, provided there are fewer than 40 previous capturing subpatterns
  289. \7 is always a back reference
  290. \11 might be a back reference, or another way of writing a tab
  291. \011 is always a tab
  292. \0113 is a tab followed by the character "3"
  293. \113 might be a back reference, otherwise the character with octal code 113
  294. \377 might be a back reference, otherwise the byte consisting entirely of 1 bits
  295. \81 is either a back reference, or a binary zero followed by the two characters "8" and "1"
  296. </pre>
  297. Note that octal values of 100 or greater must not be introduced by a leading
  298. zero, because no more than three octal digits are ever read.
  299. </P>
  300. <P>
  301. All the sequences that define a single character value can be used both inside
  302. and outside character classes. In addition, inside a character class, the
  303. sequence \b is interpreted as the backspace character (hex 08), and the
  304. sequences \R and \X are interpreted as the characters "R" and "X",
  305. respectively. Outside a character class, these sequences have different
  306. meanings
  307. <a href="#uniextseq">(see below).</a>
  308. </P>
  309. <br><b>
  310. Absolute and relative back references
  311. </b><br>
  312. <P>
  313. The sequence \g followed by an unsigned or a negative number, optionally
  314. enclosed in braces, is an absolute or relative back reference. A named back
  315. reference can be coded as \g{name}. Back references are discussed
  316. <a href="#backreferences">later,</a>
  317. following the discussion of
  318. <a href="#subpattern">parenthesized subpatterns.</a>
  319. </P>
  320. <br><b>
  321. Absolute and relative subroutine calls
  322. </b><br>
  323. <P>
  324. For compatibility with Oniguruma, the non-Perl syntax \g followed by a name or
  325. a number enclosed either in angle brackets or single quotes, is an alternative
  326. syntax for referencing a subpattern as a "subroutine". Details are discussed
  327. <a href="#onigurumasubroutines">later.</a>
  328. Note that \g{...} (Perl syntax) and \g&#60;...&#62; (Oniguruma syntax) are <i>not</i>
  329. synonymous. The former is a back reference; the latter is a subroutine call.
  330. </P>
  331. <br><b>
  332. Generic character types
  333. </b><br>
  334. <P>
  335. Another use of backslash is for specifying generic character types. The
  336. following are always recognized:
  337. <pre>
  338. \d any decimal digit
  339. \D any character that is not a decimal digit
  340. \h any horizontal whitespace character
  341. \H any character that is not a horizontal whitespace character
  342. \s any whitespace character
  343. \S any character that is not a whitespace character
  344. \v any vertical whitespace character
  345. \V any character that is not a vertical whitespace character
  346. \w any "word" character
  347. \W any "non-word" character
  348. </pre>
  349. Each pair of escape sequences partitions the complete set of characters into
  350. two disjoint sets. Any given character matches one, and only one, of each pair.
  351. </P>
  352. <P>
  353. These character type sequences can appear both inside and outside character
  354. classes. They each match one character of the appropriate type. If the current
  355. matching point is at the end of the subject string, all of them fail, since
  356. there is no character to match.
  357. </P>
  358. <P>
  359. For compatibility with Perl, \s does not match the VT character (code 11).
  360. This makes it different from the the POSIX "space" class. The \s characters
  361. are HT (9), LF (10), FF (12), CR (13), and space (32). If "use locale;" is
  362. included in a Perl script, \s may match the VT character. In PCRE, it never
  363. does.
  364. </P>
  365. <P>
  366. In UTF-8 mode, characters with values greater than 128 never match \d, \s, or
  367. \w, and always match \D, \S, and \W. This is true even when Unicode
  368. character property support is available. These sequences retain their original
  369. meanings from before UTF-8 support was available, mainly for efficiency
  370. reasons.
  371. </P>
  372. <P>
  373. The sequences \h, \H, \v, and \V are Perl 5.10 features. In contrast to the
  374. other sequences, these do match certain high-valued codepoints in UTF-8 mode.
  375. The horizontal space characters are:
  376. <pre>
  377. U+0009 Horizontal tab
  378. U+0020 Space
  379. U+00A0 Non-break space
  380. U+1680 Ogham space mark
  381. U+180E Mongolian vowel separator
  382. U+2000 En quad
  383. U+2001 Em quad
  384. U+2002 En space
  385. U+2003 Em space
  386. U+2004 Three-per-em space
  387. U+2005 Four-per-em space
  388. U+2006 Six-per-em space
  389. U+2007 Figure space
  390. U+2008 Punctuation space
  391. U+2009 Thin space
  392. U+200A Hair space
  393. U+202F Narrow no-break space
  394. U+205F Medium mathematical space
  395. U+3000 Ideographic space
  396. </pre>
  397. The vertical space characters are:
  398. <pre>
  399. U+000A Linefeed
  400. U+000B Vertical tab
  401. U+000C Formfeed
  402. U+000D Carriage return
  403. U+0085 Next line
  404. U+2028 Line separator
  405. U+2029 Paragraph separator
  406. </PRE>
  407. </P>
  408. <P>
  409. A "word" character is an underscore or any character less than 256 that is a
  410. letter or digit. The definition of letters and digits is controlled by PCRE's
  411. low-valued character tables, and may vary if locale-specific matching is taking
  412. place (see
  413. <a href="pcreapi.html#localesupport">"Locale support"</a>
  414. in the
  415. <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
  416. page). For example, in a French locale such as "fr_FR" in Unix-like systems,
  417. or "french" in Windows, some character codes greater than 128 are used for
  418. accented letters, and these are matched by \w. The use of locales with Unicode
  419. is discouraged.
  420. <a name="newlineseq"></a></P>
  421. <br><b>
  422. Newline sequences
  423. </b><br>
  424. <P>
  425. Outside a character class, by default, the escape sequence \R matches any
  426. Unicode newline sequence. This is a Perl 5.10 feature. In non-UTF-8 mode \R is
  427. equivalent to the following:
  428. <pre>
  429. (?&#62;\r\n|\n|\x0b|\f|\r|\x85)
  430. </pre>
  431. This is an example of an "atomic group", details of which are given
  432. <a href="#atomicgroup">below.</a>
  433. This particular group matches either the two-character sequence CR followed by
  434. LF, or one of the single characters LF (linefeed, U+000A), VT (vertical tab,
  435. U+000B), FF (formfeed, U+000C), CR (carriage return, U+000D), or NEL (next
  436. line, U+0085). The two-character sequence is treated as a single unit that
  437. cannot be split.
  438. </P>
  439. <P>
  440. In UTF-8 mode, two additional characters whose codepoints are greater than 255
  441. are added: LS (line separator, U+2028) and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029).
  442. Unicode character property support is not needed for these characters to be
  443. recognized.
  444. </P>
  445. <P>
  446. It is possible to restrict \R to match only CR, LF, or CRLF (instead of the
  447. complete set of Unicode line endings) by setting the option PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
  448. either at compile time or when the pattern is matched. (BSR is an abbrevation
  449. for "backslash R".) This can be made the default when PCRE is built; if this is
  450. the case, the other behaviour can be requested via the PCRE_BSR_UNICODE option.
  451. It is also possible to specify these settings by starting a pattern string with
  452. one of the following sequences:
  453. <pre>
  454. (*BSR_ANYCRLF) CR, LF, or CRLF only
  455. (*BSR_UNICODE) any Unicode newline sequence
  456. </pre>
  457. These override the default and the options given to <b>pcre_compile()</b>, but
  458. they can be overridden by options given to <b>pcre_exec()</b>. Note that these
  459. special settings, which are not Perl-compatible, are recognized only at the
  460. very start of a pattern, and that they must be in upper case. If more than one
  461. of them is present, the last one is used. They can be combined with a change of
  462. newline convention, for example, a pattern can start with:
  463. <pre>
  464. (*ANY)(*BSR_ANYCRLF)
  465. </pre>
  466. Inside a character class, \R matches the letter "R".
  467. <a name="uniextseq"></a></P>
  468. <br><b>
  469. Unicode character properties
  470. </b><br>
  471. <P>
  472. When PCRE is built with Unicode character property support, three additional
  473. escape sequences that match characters with specific properties are available.
  474. When not in UTF-8 mode, these sequences are of course limited to testing
  475. characters whose codepoints are less than 256, but they do work in this mode.
  476. The extra escape sequences are:
  477. <pre>
  478. \p{<i>xx</i>} a character with the <i>xx</i> property
  479. \P{<i>xx</i>} a character without the <i>xx</i> property
  480. \X an extended Unicode sequence
  481. </pre>
  482. The property names represented by <i>xx</i> above are limited to the Unicode
  483. script names, the general category properties, and "Any", which matches any
  484. character (including newline). Other properties such as "InMusicalSymbols" are
  485. not currently supported by PCRE. Note that \P{Any} does not match any
  486. characters, so always causes a match failure.
  487. </P>
  488. <P>
  489. Sets of Unicode characters are defined as belonging to certain scripts. A
  490. character from one of these sets can be matched using a script name. For
  491. example:
  492. <pre>
  493. \p{Greek}
  494. \P{Han}
  495. </pre>
  496. Those that are not part of an identified script are lumped together as
  497. "Common". The current list of scripts is:
  498. </P>
  499. <P>
  500. Arabic,
  501. Armenian,
  502. Balinese,
  503. Bengali,
  504. Bopomofo,
  505. Braille,
  506. Buginese,
  507. Buhid,
  508. Canadian_Aboriginal,
  509. Cherokee,
  510. Common,
  511. Coptic,
  512. Cuneiform,
  513. Cypriot,
  514. Cyrillic,
  515. Deseret,
  516. Devanagari,
  517. Ethiopic,
  518. Georgian,
  519. Glagolitic,
  520. Gothic,
  521. Greek,
  522. Gujarati,
  523. Gurmukhi,
  524. Han,
  525. Hangul,
  526. Hanunoo,
  527. Hebrew,
  528. Hiragana,
  529. Inherited,
  530. Kannada,
  531. Katakana,
  532. Kharoshthi,
  533. Khmer,
  534. Lao,
  535. Latin,
  536. Limbu,
  537. Linear_B,
  538. Malayalam,
  539. Mongolian,
  540. Myanmar,
  541. New_Tai_Lue,
  542. Nko,
  543. Ogham,
  544. Old_Italic,
  545. Old_Persian,
  546. Oriya,
  547. Osmanya,
  548. Phags_Pa,
  549. Phoenician,
  550. Runic,
  551. Shavian,
  552. Sinhala,
  553. Syloti_Nagri,
  554. Syriac,
  555. Tagalog,
  556. Tagbanwa,
  557. Tai_Le,
  558. Tamil,
  559. Telugu,
  560. Thaana,
  561. Thai,
  562. Tibetan,
  563. Tifinagh,
  564. Ugaritic,
  565. Yi.
  566. </P>
  567. <P>
  568. Each character has exactly one general category property, specified by a
  569. two-letter abbreviation. For compatibility with Perl, negation can be specified
  570. by including a circumflex between the opening brace and the property name. For
  571. example, \p{^Lu} is the same as \P{Lu}.
  572. </P>
  573. <P>
  574. If only one letter is specified with \p or \P, it includes all the general
  575. category properties that start with that letter. In this case, in the absence
  576. of negation, the curly brackets in the escape sequence are optional; these two
  577. examples have the same effect:
  578. <pre>
  579. \p{L}
  580. \pL
  581. </pre>
  582. The following general category property codes are supported:
  583. <pre>
  584. C Other
  585. Cc Control
  586. Cf Format
  587. Cn Unassigned
  588. Co Private use
  589. Cs Surrogate
  590. L Letter
  591. Ll Lower case letter
  592. Lm Modifier letter
  593. Lo Other letter
  594. Lt Title case letter
  595. Lu Upper case letter
  596. M Mark
  597. Mc Spacing mark
  598. Me Enclosing mark
  599. Mn Non-spacing mark
  600. N Number
  601. Nd Decimal number
  602. Nl Letter number
  603. No Other number
  604. P Punctuation
  605. Pc Connector punctuation
  606. Pd Dash punctuation
  607. Pe Close punctuation
  608. Pf Final punctuation
  609. Pi Initial punctuation
  610. Po Other punctuation
  611. Ps Open punctuation
  612. S Symbol
  613. Sc Currency symbol
  614. Sk Modifier symbol
  615. Sm Mathematical symbol
  616. So Other symbol
  617. Z Separator
  618. Zl Line separator
  619. Zp Paragraph separator
  620. Zs Space separator
  621. </pre>
  622. The special property L& is also supported: it matches a character that has
  623. the Lu, Ll, or Lt property, in other words, a letter that is not classified as
  624. a modifier or "other".
  625. </P>
  626. <P>
  627. The Cs (Surrogate) property applies only to characters in the range U+D800 to
  628. U+DFFF. Such characters are not valid in UTF-8 strings (see RFC 3629) and so
  629. cannot be tested by PCRE, unless UTF-8 validity checking has been turned off
  630. (see the discussion of PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK in the
  631. <a href="pcreapi.html"><b>pcreapi</b></a>
  632. page).
  633. </P>
  634. <P>
  635. The long synonyms for these properties that Perl supports (such as \p{Letter})
  636. are not supported by PCRE, nor is it permitted to prefix any of these
  637. properties with "Is".
  638. </P>
  639. <P>
  640. No character that is in the Unicode table has the Cn (unassigned) property.
  641. Instead, this property is assumed for any code point that is not in the
  642. Unicode table.
  643. </P>
  644. <P>
  645. Specifying caseless matching does not affect these escape sequences. For
  646. example, \p{Lu} always matches only upper case letters.
  647. </P>
  648. <P>
  649. The \X escape matches any number of Unicode characters that form an extended
  650. Unicode sequence. \X is equivalent to
  651. <pre>
  652. (?&#62;\PM\pM*)
  653. </pre>
  654. That is, it matches a character without the "mark" property, followed by zero
  655. or more characters with the "mark" property, and treats the sequence as an
  656. atomic group
  657. <a href="#atomicgroup">(see below).</a>
  658. Characters with the "mark" property are typically accents that affect the
  659. preceding character. None of them have codepoints less than 256, so in
  660. non-UTF-8 mode \X matches any one character.
  661. </P>
  662. <P>
  663. Matching characters by Unicode property is not fast, because PCRE has to search
  664. a structure that contains data for over fifteen thousand characters. That is
  665. why the traditional escape sequences such as \d and \w do not use Unicode
  666. properties in PCRE.
  667. <a name="resetmatchstart"></a></P>
  668. <br><b>
  669. Resetting the match start
  670. </b><br>
  671. <P>
  672. The escape sequence \K, which is a Perl 5.10 feature, causes any previously
  673. matched characters not to be included in the final matched sequence. For
  674. example, the pattern:
  675. <pre>
  676. foo\Kbar
  677. </pre>
  678. matches "foobar", but reports that it has matched "bar". This feature is
  679. similar to a lookbehind assertion
  680. <a href="#lookbehind">(described below).</a>
  681. However, in this case, the part of the subject before the real match does not
  682. have to be of fixed length, as lookbehind assertions do. The use of \K does
  683. not interfere with the setting of
  684. <a href="#subpattern">captured substrings.</a>
  685. For example, when the pattern
  686. <pre>
  687. (foo)\Kbar
  688. </pre>
  689. matches "foobar", the first substring is still set to "foo".
  690. <a name="smallassertions"></a></P>
  691. <br><b>
  692. Simple assertions
  693. </b><br>
  694. <P>
  695. The final use of backslash is for certain simple assertions. An assertion
  696. specifies a condition that has to be met at a particular point in a match,
  697. without consuming any characters from the subject string. The use of
  698. subpatterns for more complicated assertions is described
  699. <a href="#bigassertions">below.</a>
  700. The backslashed assertions are:
  701. <pre>
  702. \b matches at a word boundary
  703. \B matches when not at a word boundary
  704. \A matches at the start of the subject
  705. \Z matches at the end of the subject
  706. also matches before a newline at the end of the subject
  707. \z matches only at the end of the subject
  708. \G matches at the first matching position in the subject
  709. </pre>
  710. These assertions may not appear in character classes (but note that \b has a
  711. different meaning, namely the backspace character, inside a character class).
  712. </P>
  713. <P>
  714. A word boundary is a position in the subject string where the current character
  715. and the previous character do not both match \w or \W (i.e. one matches
  716. \w and the other matches \W), or the start or end of the string if the
  717. first or last character matches \w, respectively.
  718. </P>
  719. <P>
  720. The \A, \Z, and \z assertions differ from the traditional circumflex and
  721. dollar (described in the next section) in that they only ever match at the very
  722. start and end of the subject string, whatever options are set. Thus, they are
  723. independent of multiline mode. These three assertions are not affected by the
  724. PCRE_NOTBOL or PCRE_NOTEOL options, which affect only the behaviour of the
  725. circumflex and dollar metacharacters. However, if the <i>startoffset</i>
  726. argument of <b>pcre_exec()</b> is non-zero, indicating that matching is to start
  727. at a point other than the beginning of the subject, \A can never match. The
  728. difference between \Z and \z is that \Z matches before a newline at the end
  729. of the string as well as at the very end, whereas \z matches only at the end.
  730. </P>
  731. <P>
  732. The \G assertion is true only when the current matching position is at the
  733. start point of the match, as specified by the <i>startoffset</i> argument of
  734. <b>pcre_exec()</b>. It differs from \A when the value of <i>startoffset</i> is
  735. non-zero. By calling <b>pcre_exec()</b> multiple times with appropriate
  736. arguments, you can mimic Perl's /g option, and it is in this kind of
  737. implementation where \G can be useful.
  738. </P>
  739. <P>
  740. Note, however, that PCRE's interpretation of \G, as the start of the current
  741. match, is subtly different from Perl's, which defines it as the end of the
  742. previous match. In Perl, these can be different when the previously matched
  743. string was empty. Because PCRE does just one match at a time, it cannot
  744. reproduce this behaviour.
  745. </P>
  746. <P>
  747. If all the alternatives of a pattern begin with \G, the expression is anchored
  748. to the starting match position, and the "anchored" flag is set in the compiled
  749. regular expression.
  750. </P>
  751. <br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">CIRCUMFLEX AND DOLLAR</a><br>
  752. <P>
  753. Outside a character class, in the default matching mode, the circumflex
  754. character is an assertion that is true only if the current matching point is
  755. at the start of the subject string. If the <i>startoffset</i> argument of
  756. <b>pcre_exec()</b> is non-zero, circumflex can never match if the PCRE_MULTILINE
  757. option is unset. Inside a character class, circumflex has an entirely different
  758. meaning
  759. <a href="#characterclass">(see below).</a>
  760. </P>
  761. <P>
  762. Circumflex need not be the first character of the pattern if a number of
  763. alternatives are involved, but it should be the first thing in each alternative
  764. in which it appears if the pattern is ever to match that branch. If all
  765. possible alternatives start with a circumflex, that is, if the pattern is
  766. constrained to match only at the start of the subject, it is said to be an
  767. "anchored" pattern. (There are also other constructs that can cause a pattern
  768. to be anchored.)
  769. </P>
  770. <P>
  771. A dollar character is an assertion that is true only if the current matching
  772. point is at the end of the subject string, or immediately before a newline
  773. at the end of the string (by default). Dollar need not be the last character of
  774. the pattern if a number of alternatives are involved, but it should be the last
  775. item in any branch in which it appears. Dollar has no special meaning in a
  776. character class.
  777. </P>
  778. <P>
  779. The meaning of dollar can be changed so that it matches only at the very end of
  780. the string, by setting the PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option at compile time. This
  781. does not affect the \Z assertion.
  782. </P>
  783. <P>
  784. The meanings of the circumflex and dollar characters are changed if the
  785. PCRE_MULTILINE option is set. When this is the case, a circumflex matches
  786. immediately after internal newlines as well as at the start of the subject
  787. string. It does not match after a newline that ends the string. A dollar
  788. matches before any newlines in the string, as well as at the very end, when
  789. PCRE_MULTILINE is set. When newline is specified as the two-character
  790. sequence CRLF, isolated CR and LF characters do not indicate newlines.
  791. </P>
  792. <P>
  793. For example, the pattern /^abc$/ matches the subject string "def\nabc" (where
  794. \n represents a newline) in multiline mode, but not otherwise. Consequently,
  795. patterns that are anchored in single line mode because all branches start with
  796. ^ are not anchored in multiline mode, and a match for circumflex is possible
  797. when the <i>startoffset</i> argument of <b>pcre_exec()</b> is non-zero. The
  798. PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY option is ignored if PCRE_MULTILINE is set.
  799. </P>
  800. <P>
  801. Note that the sequences \A, \Z, and \z can be used to match the start and
  802. end of the subject in both modes, and if all branches of a pattern start with
  803. \A it is always anchored, whether or not PCRE_MULTILINE is set.
  804. </P>
  805. <br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">FULL STOP (PERIOD, DOT)</a><br>
  806. <P>
  807. Outside a character class, a dot in the pattern matches any one character in
  808. the subject string except (by default) a character that signifies the end of a
  809. line. In UTF-8 mode, the matched character may be more than one byte long.
  810. </P>
  811. <P>
  812. When a line ending is defined as a single character, dot never matches that
  813. character; when the two-character sequence CRLF is used, dot does not match CR
  814. if it is immediately followed by LF, but otherwise it matches all characters
  815. (including isolated CRs and LFs). When any Unicode line endings are being
  816. recognized, dot does not match CR or LF or any of the other line ending
  817. characters.
  818. </P>
  819. <P>
  820. The behaviour of dot with regard to newlines can be changed. If the PCRE_DOTALL
  821. option is set, a dot matches any one character, without exception. If the
  822. two-character sequence CRLF is present in the subject string, it takes two dots
  823. to match it.
  824. </P>
  825. <P>
  826. The handling of dot is entirely independent of the handling of circumflex and
  827. dollar, the only relationship being that they both involve newlines. Dot has no
  828. special meaning in a character class.
  829. </P>
  830. <br><a name="SEC7" href="#TOC1">MATCHING A SINGLE BYTE</a><br>
  831. <P>
  832. Outside a character class, the escape sequence \C matches any one byte, both
  833. in and out of UTF-8 mode. Unlike a dot, it always matches any line-ending
  834. characters. The feature is provided in Perl in order to match individual bytes
  835. in UTF-8 mode. Because it breaks up UTF-8 characters into individual bytes,
  836. what remains in the string may be a malformed UTF-8 string. For this reason,
  837. the \C escape sequence is best avoided.
  838. </P>
  839. <P>
  840. PCRE does not allow \C to appear in lookbehind assertions
  841. <a href="#lookbehind">(described below),</a>
  842. because in UTF-8 mode this would make it impossible to calculate the length of
  843. the lookbehind.
  844. <a name="characterclass"></a></P>
  845. <br><a name="SEC8" href="#TOC1">SQUARE BRACKETS AND CHARACTER CLASSES</a><br>
  846. <P>
  847. An opening square bracket introduces a character class, terminated by a closing
  848. square bracket. A closing square bracket on its own is not special. If a
  849. closing square bracket is required as a member of the class, it should be the
  850. first data character in the class (after an initial circumflex, if present) or
  851. escaped with a backslash.
  852. </P>
  853. <P>
  854. A character class matches a single character in the subject. In UTF-8 mode, the
  855. character may occupy more than one byte. A matched character must be in the set
  856. of characters defined by the class, unless the first character in the class
  857. definition is a circumflex, in which case the subject character must not be in
  858. the set defined by the class. If a circumflex is actually required as a member
  859. of the class, ensure it is not the first character, or escape it with a
  860. backslash.
  861. </P>
  862. <P>
  863. For example, the character class [aeiou] matches any lower case vowel, while
  864. [^aeiou] matches any character that is not a lower case vowel. Note that a
  865. circumflex is just a convenient notation for specifying the characters that
  866. are in the class by enumerating those that are not. A class that starts with a
  867. circumflex is not an assertion: it still consumes a character from the subject
  868. string, and therefore it fails if the current pointer is at the end of the
  869. string.
  870. </P>
  871. <P>
  872. In UTF-8 mode, characters with values greater than 255 can be included in a
  873. class as a literal string of bytes, or by using the \x{ escaping mechanism.
  874. </P>
  875. <P>
  876. When caseless matching is set, any letters in a class represent both their
  877. upper case and lower case versions, so for example, a caseless [aeiou] matches
  878. "A" as well as "a", and a caseless [^aeiou] does not match "A", whereas a
  879. caseful version would. In UTF-8 mode, PCRE always understands the concept of
  880. case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless matching is
  881. always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of case is
  882. supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not otherwise.
  883. If you want to use caseless matching for characters 128 and above, you must
  884. ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as well as with
  885. UTF-8 support.
  886. </P>
  887. <P>
  888. Characters that might indicate line breaks are never treated in any special way
  889. when matching character classes, whatever line-ending sequence is in use, and
  890. whatever setting of the PCRE_DOTALL and PCRE_MULTILINE options is used. A class
  891. such as [^a] always matches one of these characters.
  892. </P>
  893. <P>
  894. The minus (hyphen) character can be used to specify a range of characters in a
  895. character class. For example, [d-m] matches any letter between d and m,
  896. inclusive. If a minus character is required in a class, it must be escaped with
  897. a backslash or appear in a position where it cannot be interpreted as
  898. indicating a range, typically as the first or last character in the class.
  899. </P>
  900. <P>
  901. It is not possible to have the literal character "]" as the end character of a
  902. range. A pattern such as [W-]46] is interpreted as a class of two characters
  903. ("W" and "-") followed by a literal string "46]", so it would match "W46]" or
  904. "-46]". However, if the "]" is escaped with a backslash it is interpreted as
  905. the end of range, so [W-\]46] is interpreted as a class containing a range
  906. followed by two other characters. The octal or hexadecimal representation of
  907. "]" can also be used to end a range.
  908. </P>
  909. <P>
  910. Ranges operate in the collating sequence of character values. They can also be
  911. used for characters specified numerically, for example [\000-\037]. In UTF-8
  912. mode, ranges can include characters whose values are greater than 255, for
  913. example [\x{100}-\x{2ff}].
  914. </P>
  915. <P>
  916. If a range that includes letters is used when caseless matching is set, it
  917. matches the letters in either case. For example, [W-c] is equivalent to
  918. [][\\^_`wxyzabc], matched caselessly, and in non-UTF-8 mode, if character
  919. tables for a French locale are in use, [\xc8-\xcb] matches accented E
  920. characters in both cases. In UTF-8 mode, PCRE supports the concept of case for
  921. characters with values greater than 128 only when it is compiled with Unicode
  922. property support.
  923. </P>
  924. <P>
  925. The character types \d, \D, \p, \P, \s, \S, \w, and \W may also appear
  926. in a character class, and add the characters that they match to the class. For
  927. example, [\dABCDEF] matches any hexadecimal digit. A circumflex can
  928. conveniently be used with the upper case character types to specify a more
  929. restricted set of characters than the matching lower case type. For example,
  930. the class [^\W_] matches any letter or digit, but not underscore.
  931. </P>
  932. <P>
  933. The only metacharacters that are recognized in character classes are backslash,
  934. hyphen (only where it can be interpreted as specifying a range), circumflex
  935. (only at the start), opening square bracket (only when it can be interpreted as
  936. introducing a POSIX class name - see the next section), and the terminating
  937. closing square bracket. However, escaping other non-alphanumeric characters
  938. does no harm.
  939. </P>
  940. <br><a name="SEC9" href="#TOC1">POSIX CHARACTER CLASSES</a><br>
  941. <P>
  942. Perl supports the POSIX notation for character classes. This uses names
  943. enclosed by [: and :] within the enclosing square brackets. PCRE also supports
  944. this notation. For example,
  945. <pre>
  946. [01[:alpha:]%]
  947. </pre>
  948. matches "0", "1", any alphabetic character, or "%". The supported class names
  949. are
  950. <pre>
  951. alnum letters and digits
  952. alpha letters
  953. ascii character codes 0 - 127
  954. blank space or tab only
  955. cntrl control characters
  956. digit decimal digits (same as \d)
  957. graph printing characters, excluding space
  958. lower lower case letters
  959. print printing characters, including space
  960. punct printing characters, excluding letters and digits
  961. space white space (not quite the same as \s)
  962. upper upper case letters
  963. word "word" characters (same as \w)
  964. xdigit hexadecimal digits
  965. </pre>
  966. The "space" characters are HT (9), LF (10), VT (11), FF (12), CR (13), and
  967. space (32). Notice that this list includes the VT character (code 11). This
  968. makes "space" different to \s, which does not include VT (for Perl
  969. compatibility).
  970. </P>
  971. <P>
  972. The name "word" is a Perl extension, and "blank" is a GNU extension from Perl
  973. 5.8. Another Perl extension is negation, which is indicated by a ^ character
  974. after the colon. For example,
  975. <pre>
  976. [12[:^digit:]]
  977. </pre>
  978. matches "1", "2", or any non-digit. PCRE (and Perl) also recognize the POSIX
  979. syntax [.ch.] and [=ch=] where "ch" is a "collating element", but these are not
  980. supported, and an error is given if they are encountered.
  981. </P>
  982. <P>
  983. In UTF-8 mode, characters with values greater than 128 do not match any of
  984. the POSIX character classes.
  985. </P>
  986. <br><a name="SEC10" href="#TOC1">VERTICAL BAR</a><br>
  987. <P>
  988. Vertical bar characters are used to separate alternative patterns. For example,
  989. the pattern
  990. <pre>
  991. gilbert|sullivan
  992. </pre>
  993. matches either "gilbert" or "sullivan". Any number of alternatives may appear,
  994. and an empty alternative is permitted (matching the empty string). The matching
  995. process tries each alternative in turn, from left to right, and the first one
  996. that succeeds is used. If the alternatives are within a subpattern
  997. <a href="#subpattern">(defined below),</a>
  998. "succeeds" means matching the rest of the main pattern as well as the
  999. alternative in the subpattern.
  1000. </P>
  1001. <br><a name="SEC11" href="#TOC1">INTERNAL OPTION SETTING</a><br>
  1002. <P>
  1003. The settings of the PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE, PCRE_DOTALL, and
  1004. PCRE_EXTENDED options (which are Perl-compatible) can be changed from within
  1005. the pattern by a sequence of Perl option letters enclosed between "(?" and ")".
  1006. The option letters are
  1007. <pre>
  1008. i for PCRE_CASELESS
  1009. m for PCRE_MULTILINE
  1010. s for PCRE_DOTALL
  1011. x for PCRE_EXTENDED
  1012. </pre>
  1013. For example, (?im) sets caseless, multiline matching. It is also possible to
  1014. unset these options by preceding the letter with a hyphen, and a combined
  1015. setting and unsetting such as (?im-sx), which sets PCRE_CASELESS and
  1016. PCRE_MULTILINE while unsetting PCRE_DOTALL and PCRE_EXTENDED, is also
  1017. permitted. If a letter appears both before and after the hyphen, the option is
  1018. unset.
  1019. </P>
  1020. <P>
  1021. The PCRE-specific options PCRE_DUPNAMES, PCRE_UNGREEDY, and PCRE_EXTRA can be
  1022. changed in the same way as the Perl-compatible options by using the characters
  1023. J, U and X respectively.
  1024. </P>
  1025. <P>
  1026. When an option change occurs at top level (that is, not inside subpattern
  1027. parentheses), the change applies to the remainder of the pattern that follows.
  1028. If the change is placed right at the start of a pattern, PCRE extracts it into
  1029. the global options (and it will therefore show up in data extracted by the
  1030. <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> function).
  1031. </P>
  1032. <P>
  1033. An option change within a subpattern (see below for a description of
  1034. subpatterns) affects only that part of the current pattern that follows it, so
  1035. <pre>
  1036. (a(?i)b)c
  1037. </pre>
  1038. matches abc and aBc and no other strings (assuming PCRE_CASELESS is not used).
  1039. By this means, options can be made to have different settings in different
  1040. parts of the pattern. Any changes made in one alternative do carry on
  1041. into subsequent branches within the same subpattern. For example,
  1042. <pre>
  1043. (a(?i)b|c)
  1044. </pre>
  1045. matches "ab", "aB", "c", and "C", even though when matching "C" the first
  1046. branch is abandoned before the option setting. This is because the effects of
  1047. option settings happen at compile time. There would be some very weird
  1048. behaviour otherwise.
  1049. </P>
  1050. <P>
  1051. <b>Note:</b> There are other PCRE-specific options that can be set by the
  1052. application when the compile or match functions are called. In some cases the
  1053. pattern can contain special leading sequences to override what the application
  1054. has set or what has been defaulted. Details are given in the section entitled
  1055. <a href="#newlineseq">"Newline sequences"</a>
  1056. above.
  1057. <a name="subpattern"></a></P>
  1058. <br><a name="SEC12" href="#TOC1">SUBPATTERNS</a><br>
  1059. <P>
  1060. Subpatterns are delimited by parentheses (round brackets), which can be nested.
  1061. Turning part of a pattern into a subpattern does two things:
  1062. <br>
  1063. <br>
  1064. 1. It localizes a set of alternatives. For example, the pattern
  1065. <pre>
  1066. cat(aract|erpillar|)
  1067. </pre>
  1068. matches one of the words "cat", "cataract", or "caterpillar". Without the
  1069. parentheses, it would match "cataract", "erpillar" or an empty string.
  1070. <br>
  1071. <br>
  1072. 2. It sets up the subpattern as a capturing subpattern. This means that, when
  1073. the whole pattern matches, that portion of the subject string that matched the
  1074. subpattern is passed back to the caller via the <i>ovector</i> argument of
  1075. <b>pcre_exec()</b>. Opening parentheses are counted from left to right (starting
  1076. from 1) to obtain numbers for the capturing subpatterns.
  1077. </P>
  1078. <P>
  1079. For example, if the string "the red king" is matched against the pattern
  1080. <pre>
  1081. the ((red|white) (king|queen))
  1082. </pre>
  1083. the captured substrings are "red king", "red", and "king", and are numbered 1,
  1084. 2, and 3, respectively.
  1085. </P>
  1086. <P>
  1087. The fact that plain parentheses fulfil two functions is not always helpful.
  1088. There are often times when a grouping subpattern is required without a
  1089. capturing requirement. If an opening parenthesis is followed by a question mark
  1090. and a colon, the subpattern does not do any capturing, and is not counted when
  1091. computing the number of any subsequent capturing subpatterns. For example, if
  1092. the string "the white queen" is matched against the pattern
  1093. <pre>
  1094. the ((?:red|white) (king|queen))
  1095. </pre>
  1096. the captured substrings are "white queen" and "queen", and are numbered 1 and
  1097. 2. The maximum number of capturing subpatterns is 65535.
  1098. </P>
  1099. <P>
  1100. As a convenient shorthand, if any option settings are required at the start of
  1101. a non-capturing subpattern, the option letters may appear between the "?" and
  1102. the ":". Thus the two patterns
  1103. <pre>
  1104. (?i:saturday|sunday)
  1105. (?:(?i)saturday|sunday)
  1106. </pre>
  1107. match exactly the same set of strings. Because alternative branches are tried
  1108. from left to right, and options are not reset until the end of the subpattern
  1109. is reached, an option setting in one branch does affect subsequent branches, so
  1110. the above patterns match "SUNDAY" as well as "Saturday".
  1111. </P>
  1112. <br><a name="SEC13" href="#TOC1">DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NUMBERS</a><br>
  1113. <P>
  1114. Perl 5.10 introduced a feature whereby each alternative in a subpattern uses
  1115. the same numbers for its capturing parentheses. Such a subpattern starts with
  1116. (?| and is itself a non-capturing subpattern. For example, consider this
  1117. pattern:
  1118. <pre>
  1119. (?|(Sat)ur|(Sun))day
  1120. </pre>
  1121. Because the two alternatives are inside a (?| group, both sets of capturing
  1122. parentheses are numbered one. Thus, when the pattern matches, you can look
  1123. at captured substring number one, whichever alternative matched. This construct
  1124. is useful when you want to capture part, but not all, of one of a number of
  1125. alternatives. Inside a (?| group, parentheses are numbered as usual, but the
  1126. number is reset at the start of each branch. The numbers of any capturing
  1127. buffers that follow the subpattern start after the highest number used in any
  1128. branch. The following example is taken from the Perl documentation.
  1129. The numbers underneath show in which buffer the captured content will be
  1130. stored.
  1131. <pre>
  1132. # before ---------------branch-reset----------- after
  1133. / ( a ) (?| x ( y ) z | (p (q) r) | (t) u (v) ) ( z ) /x
  1134. # 1 2 2 3 2 3 4
  1135. </pre>
  1136. A backreference or a recursive call to a numbered subpattern always refers to
  1137. the first one in the pattern with the given number.
  1138. </P>
  1139. <P>
  1140. An alternative approach to using this "branch reset" feature is to use
  1141. duplicate named subpatterns, as described in the next section.
  1142. </P>
  1143. <br><a name="SEC14" href="#TOC1">NAMED SUBPATTERNS</a><br>
  1144. <P>
  1145. Identifying capturing parentheses by number is simple, but it can be very hard
  1146. to keep track of the numbers in complicated regular expressions. Furthermore,
  1147. if an expression is modified, the numbers may change. To help with this
  1148. difficulty, PCRE supports the naming of subpatterns. This feature was not
  1149. added to Perl until release 5.10. Python had the feature earlier, and PCRE
  1150. introduced it at release 4.0, using the Python syntax. PCRE now supports both
  1151. the Perl and the Python syntax.
  1152. </P>
  1153. <P>
  1154. In PCRE, a subpattern can be named in one of three ways: (?&#60;name&#62;...) or
  1155. (?'name'...) as in Perl, or (?P&#60;name&#62;...) as in Python. References to capturing
  1156. parentheses from other parts of the pattern, such as
  1157. <a href="#backreferences">backreferences,</a>
  1158. <a href="#recursion">recursion,</a>
  1159. and
  1160. <a href="#conditions">conditions,</a>
  1161. can be made by name as well as by number.
  1162. </P>
  1163. <P>
  1164. Names consist of up to 32 alphanumeric characters and underscores. Named
  1165. capturing parentheses are still allocated numbers as well as names, exactly as
  1166. if the names were not present. The PCRE API provides function calls for
  1167. extracting the name-to-number translation table from a compiled pattern. There
  1168. is also a convenience function for extracting a captured substring by name.
  1169. </P>
  1170. <P>
  1171. By default, a name must be unique within a pattern, but it is possible to relax
  1172. this constraint by setting the PCRE_DUPNAMES option at compile time. This can
  1173. be useful for patterns where only one instance of the named parentheses can
  1174. match. Suppose you want to match the name of a weekday, either as a 3-letter
  1175. abbreviation or as the full name, and in both cases you want to extract the
  1176. abbreviation. This pattern (ignoring the line breaks) does the job:
  1177. <pre>
  1178. (?&#60;DN&#62;Mon|Fri|Sun)(?:day)?|
  1179. (?&#60;DN&#62;Tue)(?:sday)?|
  1180. (?&#60;DN&#62;Wed)(?:nesday)?|
  1181. (?&#60;DN&#62;Thu)(?:rsday)?|
  1182. (?&#60;DN&#62;Sat)(?:urday)?
  1183. </pre>
  1184. There are five capturing substrings, but only one is…