pcrebuild.3 19 KB

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  1. .TH PCREBUILD 3 "12 May 2013" "PCRE 8.33"
  2. .SH NAME
  3. PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
  4. .
  5. .
  6. .SH "BUILDING PCRE"
  7. .rs
  8. .sp
  9. PCRE is distributed with a \fBconfigure\fP script that can be used to build the
  10. library in Unix-like environments using the applications known as Autotools.
  11. Also in the distribution are files to support building using \fBCMake\fP
  12. instead of \fBconfigure\fP. The text file
  13. .\" HTML <a href="README.txt">
  14. .\" </a>
  15. \fBREADME\fP
  16. .\"
  17. contains general information about building with Autotools (some of which is
  18. repeated below), and also has some comments about building on various operating
  19. systems. There is a lot more information about building PCRE without using
  20. Autotools (including information about using \fBCMake\fP and building "by
  21. hand") in the text file called
  22. .\" HTML <a href="NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.txt">
  23. .\" </a>
  24. \fBNON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD\fP.
  25. .\"
  26. You should consult this file as well as the
  27. .\" HTML <a href="README.txt">
  28. .\" </a>
  29. \fBREADME\fP
  30. .\"
  31. file if you are building in a non-Unix-like environment.
  32. .
  33. .
  34. .SH "PCRE BUILD-TIME OPTIONS"
  35. .rs
  36. .sp
  37. The rest of this document describes the optional features of PCRE that can be
  38. selected when the library is compiled. It assumes use of the \fBconfigure\fP
  39. script, where the optional features are selected or deselected by providing
  40. options to \fBconfigure\fP before running the \fBmake\fP command. However, the
  41. same options can be selected in both Unix-like and non-Unix-like environments
  42. using the GUI facility of \fBcmake-gui\fP if you are using \fBCMake\fP instead
  43. of \fBconfigure\fP to build PCRE.
  44. .P
  45. If you are not using Autotools or \fBCMake\fP, option selection can be done by
  46. editing the \fBconfig.h\fP file, or by passing parameter settings to the
  47. compiler, as described in
  48. .\" HTML <a href="NON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD.txt">
  49. .\" </a>
  50. \fBNON-AUTOTOOLS-BUILD\fP.
  51. .\"
  52. .P
  53. The complete list of options for \fBconfigure\fP (which includes the standard
  54. ones such as the selection of the installation directory) can be obtained by
  55. running
  56. .sp
  57. ./configure --help
  58. .sp
  59. The following sections include descriptions of options whose names begin with
  60. --enable or --disable. These settings specify changes to the defaults for the
  61. \fBconfigure\fP command. Because of the way that \fBconfigure\fP works,
  62. --enable and --disable always come in pairs, so the complementary option always
  63. exists as well, but as it specifies the default, it is not described.
  64. .
  65. .
  66. .SH "BUILDING 8-BIT, 16-BIT AND 32-BIT LIBRARIES"
  67. .rs
  68. .sp
  69. By default, a library called \fBlibpcre\fP is built, containing functions that
  70. take string arguments contained in vectors of bytes, either as single-byte
  71. characters, or interpreted as UTF-8 strings. You can also build a separate
  72. library, called \fBlibpcre16\fP, in which strings are contained in vectors of
  73. 16-bit data units and interpreted either as single-unit characters or UTF-16
  74. strings, by adding
  75. .sp
  76. --enable-pcre16
  77. .sp
  78. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. You can also build yet another separate
  79. library, called \fBlibpcre32\fP, in which strings are contained in vectors of
  80. 32-bit data units and interpreted either as single-unit characters or UTF-32
  81. strings, by adding
  82. .sp
  83. --enable-pcre32
  84. .sp
  85. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. If you do not want the 8-bit library, add
  86. .sp
  87. --disable-pcre8
  88. .sp
  89. as well. At least one of the three libraries must be built. Note that the C++
  90. and POSIX wrappers are for the 8-bit library only, and that \fBpcregrep\fP is
  91. an 8-bit program. None of these are built if you select only the 16-bit or
  92. 32-bit libraries.
  93. .
  94. .
  95. .SH "BUILDING SHARED AND STATIC LIBRARIES"
  96. .rs
  97. .sp
  98. The Autotools PCRE building process uses \fBlibtool\fP to build both shared and
  99. static libraries by default. You can suppress one of these by adding one of
  100. .sp
  101. --disable-shared
  102. --disable-static
  103. .sp
  104. to the \fBconfigure\fP command, as required.
  105. .
  106. .
  107. .SH "C++ SUPPORT"
  108. .rs
  109. .sp
  110. By default, if the 8-bit library is being built, the \fBconfigure\fP script
  111. will search for a C++ compiler and C++ header files. If it finds them, it
  112. automatically builds the C++ wrapper library (which supports only 8-bit
  113. strings). You can disable this by adding
  114. .sp
  115. --disable-cpp
  116. .sp
  117. to the \fBconfigure\fP command.
  118. .
  119. .
  120. .SH "UTF-8, UTF-16 AND UTF-32 SUPPORT"
  121. .rs
  122. .sp
  123. To build PCRE with support for UTF Unicode character strings, add
  124. .sp
  125. --enable-utf
  126. .sp
  127. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. This setting applies to all three libraries,
  128. adding support for UTF-8 to the 8-bit library, support for UTF-16 to the 16-bit
  129. library, and support for UTF-32 to the to the 32-bit library. There are no
  130. separate options for enabling UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 independently because
  131. that would allow ridiculous settings such as requesting UTF-16 support while
  132. building only the 8-bit library. It is not possible to build one library with
  133. UTF support and another without in the same configuration. (For backwards
  134. compatibility, --enable-utf8 is a synonym of --enable-utf.)
  135. .P
  136. Of itself, this setting does not make PCRE treat strings as UTF-8, UTF-16 or
  137. UTF-32. As well as compiling PCRE with this option, you also have have to set
  138. the PCRE_UTF8, PCRE_UTF16 or PCRE_UTF32 option (as appropriate) when you call
  139. one of the pattern compiling functions.
  140. .P
  141. If you set --enable-utf when compiling in an EBCDIC environment, PCRE expects
  142. its input to be either ASCII or UTF-8 (depending on the run-time option). It is
  143. not possible to support both EBCDIC and UTF-8 codes in the same version of the
  144. library. Consequently, --enable-utf and --enable-ebcdic are mutually
  145. exclusive.
  146. .
  147. .
  148. .SH "UNICODE CHARACTER PROPERTY SUPPORT"
  149. .rs
  150. .sp
  151. UTF support allows the libraries to process character codepoints up to 0x10ffff
  152. in the strings that they handle. On its own, however, it does not provide any
  153. facilities for accessing the properties of such characters. If you want to be
  154. able to use the pattern escapes \eP, \ep, and \eX, which refer to Unicode
  155. character properties, you must add
  156. .sp
  157. --enable-unicode-properties
  158. .sp
  159. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. This implies UTF support, even if you have
  160. not explicitly requested it.
  161. .P
  162. Including Unicode property support adds around 30K of tables to the PCRE
  163. library. Only the general category properties such as \fILu\fP and \fINd\fP are
  164. supported. Details are given in the
  165. .\" HREF
  166. \fBpcrepattern\fP
  167. .\"
  168. documentation.
  169. .
  170. .
  171. .SH "JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER SUPPORT"
  172. .rs
  173. .sp
  174. Just-in-time compiler support is included in the build by specifying
  175. .sp
  176. --enable-jit
  177. .sp
  178. This support is available only for certain hardware architectures. If this
  179. option is set for an unsupported architecture, a compile time error occurs.
  180. See the
  181. .\" HREF
  182. \fBpcrejit\fP
  183. .\"
  184. documentation for a discussion of JIT usage. When JIT support is enabled,
  185. pcregrep automatically makes use of it, unless you add
  186. .sp
  187. --disable-pcregrep-jit
  188. .sp
  189. to the "configure" command.
  190. .
  191. .
  192. .SH "CODE VALUE OF NEWLINE"
  193. .rs
  194. .sp
  195. By default, PCRE interprets the linefeed (LF) character as indicating the end
  196. of a line. This is the normal newline character on Unix-like systems. You can
  197. compile PCRE to use carriage return (CR) instead, by adding
  198. .sp
  199. --enable-newline-is-cr
  200. .sp
  201. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. There is also a --enable-newline-is-lf option,
  202. which explicitly specifies linefeed as the newline character.
  203. .sp
  204. Alternatively, you can specify that line endings are to be indicated by the two
  205. character sequence CRLF. If you want this, add
  206. .sp
  207. --enable-newline-is-crlf
  208. .sp
  209. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. There is a fourth option, specified by
  210. .sp
  211. --enable-newline-is-anycrlf
  212. .sp
  213. which causes PCRE to recognize any of the three sequences CR, LF, or CRLF as
  214. indicating a line ending. Finally, a fifth option, specified by
  215. .sp
  216. --enable-newline-is-any
  217. .sp
  218. causes PCRE to recognize any Unicode newline sequence.
  219. .P
  220. Whatever line ending convention is selected when PCRE is built can be
  221. overridden when the library functions are called. At build time it is
  222. conventional to use the standard for your operating system.
  223. .
  224. .
  225. .SH "WHAT \eR MATCHES"
  226. .rs
  227. .sp
  228. By default, the sequence \eR in a pattern matches any Unicode newline sequence,
  229. whatever has been selected as the line ending sequence. If you specify
  230. .sp
  231. --enable-bsr-anycrlf
  232. .sp
  233. the default is changed so that \eR matches only CR, LF, or CRLF. Whatever is
  234. selected when PCRE is built can be overridden when the library functions are
  235. called.
  236. .
  237. .
  238. .SH "POSIX MALLOC USAGE"
  239. .rs
  240. .sp
  241. When the 8-bit library is called through the POSIX interface (see the
  242. .\" HREF
  243. \fBpcreposix\fP
  244. .\"
  245. documentation), additional working storage is required for holding the pointers
  246. to capturing substrings, because PCRE requires three integers per substring,
  247. whereas the POSIX interface provides only two. If the number of expected
  248. substrings is small, the wrapper function uses space on the stack, because this
  249. is faster than using \fBmalloc()\fP for each call. The default threshold above
  250. which the stack is no longer used is 10; it can be changed by adding a setting
  251. such as
  252. .sp
  253. --with-posix-malloc-threshold=20
  254. .sp
  255. to the \fBconfigure\fP command.
  256. .
  257. .
  258. .SH "HANDLING VERY LARGE PATTERNS"
  259. .rs
  260. .sp
  261. Within a compiled pattern, offset values are used to point from one part to
  262. another (for example, from an opening parenthesis to an alternation
  263. metacharacter). By default, in the 8-bit and 16-bit libraries, two-byte values
  264. are used for these offsets, leading to a maximum size for a compiled pattern of
  265. around 64K. This is sufficient to handle all but the most gigantic patterns.
  266. Nevertheless, some people do want to process truly enormous patterns, so it is
  267. possible to compile PCRE to use three-byte or four-byte offsets by adding a
  268. setting such as
  269. .sp
  270. --with-link-size=3
  271. .sp
  272. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. The value given must be 2, 3, or 4. For the
  273. 16-bit library, a value of 3 is rounded up to 4. In these libraries, using
  274. longer offsets slows down the operation of PCRE because it has to load
  275. additional data when handling them. For the 32-bit library the value is always
  276. 4 and cannot be overridden; the value of --with-link-size is ignored.
  277. .
  278. .
  279. .SH "AVOIDING EXCESSIVE STACK USAGE"
  280. .rs
  281. .sp
  282. When matching with the \fBpcre_exec()\fP function, PCRE implements backtracking
  283. by making recursive calls to an internal function called \fBmatch()\fP. In
  284. environments where the size of the stack is limited, this can severely limit
  285. PCRE's operation. (The Unix environment does not usually suffer from this
  286. problem, but it may sometimes be necessary to increase the maximum stack size.
  287. There is a discussion in the
  288. .\" HREF
  289. \fBpcrestack\fP
  290. .\"
  291. documentation.) An alternative approach to recursion that uses memory from the
  292. heap to remember data, instead of using recursive function calls, has been
  293. implemented to work round the problem of limited stack size. If you want to
  294. build a version of PCRE that works this way, add
  295. .sp
  296. --disable-stack-for-recursion
  297. .sp
  298. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. With this configuration, PCRE will use the
  299. \fBpcre_stack_malloc\fP and \fBpcre_stack_free\fP variables to call memory
  300. management functions. By default these point to \fBmalloc()\fP and
  301. \fBfree()\fP, but you can replace the pointers so that your own functions are
  302. used instead.
  303. .P
  304. Separate functions are provided rather than using \fBpcre_malloc\fP and
  305. \fBpcre_free\fP because the usage is very predictable: the block sizes
  306. requested are always the same, and the blocks are always freed in reverse
  307. order. A calling program might be able to implement optimized functions that
  308. perform better than \fBmalloc()\fP and \fBfree()\fP. PCRE runs noticeably more
  309. slowly when built in this way. This option affects only the \fBpcre_exec()\fP
  310. function; it is not relevant for \fBpcre_dfa_exec()\fP.
  311. .
  312. .
  313. .SH "LIMITING PCRE RESOURCE USAGE"
  314. .rs
  315. .sp
  316. Internally, PCRE has a function called \fBmatch()\fP, which it calls repeatedly
  317. (sometimes recursively) when matching a pattern with the \fBpcre_exec()\fP
  318. function. By controlling the maximum number of times this function may be
  319. called during a single matching operation, a limit can be placed on the
  320. resources used by a single call to \fBpcre_exec()\fP. The limit can be changed
  321. at run time, as described in the
  322. .\" HREF
  323. \fBpcreapi\fP
  324. .\"
  325. documentation. The default is 10 million, but this can be changed by adding a
  326. setting such as
  327. .sp
  328. --with-match-limit=500000
  329. .sp
  330. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. This setting has no effect on the
  331. \fBpcre_dfa_exec()\fP matching function.
  332. .P
  333. In some environments it is desirable to limit the depth of recursive calls of
  334. \fBmatch()\fP more strictly than the total number of calls, in order to
  335. restrict the maximum amount of stack (or heap, if --disable-stack-for-recursion
  336. is specified) that is used. A second limit controls this; it defaults to the
  337. value that is set for --with-match-limit, which imposes no additional
  338. constraints. However, you can set a lower limit by adding, for example,
  339. .sp
  340. --with-match-limit-recursion=10000
  341. .sp
  342. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. This value can also be overridden at run time.
  343. .
  344. .
  345. .SH "CREATING CHARACTER TABLES AT BUILD TIME"
  346. .rs
  347. .sp
  348. PCRE uses fixed tables for processing characters whose code values are less
  349. than 256. By default, PCRE is built with a set of tables that are distributed
  350. in the file \fIpcre_chartables.c.dist\fP. These tables are for ASCII codes
  351. only. If you add
  352. .sp
  353. --enable-rebuild-chartables
  354. .sp
  355. to the \fBconfigure\fP command, the distributed tables are no longer used.
  356. Instead, a program called \fBdftables\fP is compiled and run. This outputs the
  357. source for new set of tables, created in the default locale of your C run-time
  358. system. (This method of replacing the tables does not work if you are cross
  359. compiling, because \fBdftables\fP is run on the local host. If you need to
  360. create alternative tables when cross compiling, you will have to do so "by
  361. hand".)
  362. .
  363. .
  364. .SH "USING EBCDIC CODE"
  365. .rs
  366. .sp
  367. PCRE assumes by default that it will run in an environment where the character
  368. code is ASCII (or Unicode, which is a superset of ASCII). This is the case for
  369. most computer operating systems. PCRE can, however, be compiled to run in an
  370. EBCDIC environment by adding
  371. .sp
  372. --enable-ebcdic
  373. .sp
  374. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. This setting implies
  375. --enable-rebuild-chartables. You should only use it if you know that you are in
  376. an EBCDIC environment (for example, an IBM mainframe operating system). The
  377. --enable-ebcdic option is incompatible with --enable-utf.
  378. .P
  379. The EBCDIC character that corresponds to an ASCII LF is assumed to have the
  380. value 0x15 by default. However, in some EBCDIC environments, 0x25 is used. In
  381. such an environment you should use
  382. .sp
  383. --enable-ebcdic-nl25
  384. .sp
  385. as well as, or instead of, --enable-ebcdic. The EBCDIC character for CR has the
  386. same value as in ASCII, namely, 0x0d. Whichever of 0x15 and 0x25 is \fInot\fP
  387. chosen as LF is made to correspond to the Unicode NEL character (which, in
  388. Unicode, is 0x85).
  389. .P
  390. The options that select newline behaviour, such as --enable-newline-is-cr,
  391. and equivalent run-time options, refer to these character values in an EBCDIC
  392. environment.
  393. .
  394. .
  395. .SH "PCREGREP OPTIONS FOR COMPRESSED FILE SUPPORT"
  396. .rs
  397. .sp
  398. By default, \fBpcregrep\fP reads all files as plain text. You can build it so
  399. that it recognizes files whose names end in \fB.gz\fP or \fB.bz2\fP, and reads
  400. them with \fBlibz\fP or \fBlibbz2\fP, respectively, by adding one or both of
  401. .sp
  402. --enable-pcregrep-libz
  403. --enable-pcregrep-libbz2
  404. .sp
  405. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. These options naturally require that the
  406. relevant libraries are installed on your system. Configuration will fail if
  407. they are not.
  408. .
  409. .
  410. .SH "PCREGREP BUFFER SIZE"
  411. .rs
  412. .sp
  413. \fBpcregrep\fP uses an internal buffer to hold a "window" on the file it is
  414. scanning, in order to be able to output "before" and "after" lines when it
  415. finds a match. The size of the buffer is controlled by a parameter whose
  416. default value is 20K. The buffer itself is three times this size, but because
  417. of the way it is used for holding "before" lines, the longest line that is
  418. guaranteed to be processable is the parameter size. You can change the default
  419. parameter value by adding, for example,
  420. .sp
  421. --with-pcregrep-bufsize=50K
  422. .sp
  423. to the \fBconfigure\fP command. The caller of \fPpcregrep\fP can, however,
  424. override this value by specifying a run-time option.
  425. .
  426. .
  427. .SH "PCRETEST OPTION FOR LIBREADLINE SUPPORT"
  428. .rs
  429. .sp
  430. If you add
  431. .sp
  432. --enable-pcretest-libreadline
  433. .sp
  434. to the \fBconfigure\fP command, \fBpcretest\fP is linked with the
  435. \fBlibreadline\fP library, and when its input is from a terminal, it reads it
  436. using the \fBreadline()\fP function. This provides line-editing and history
  437. facilities. Note that \fBlibreadline\fP is GPL-licensed, so if you distribute a
  438. binary of \fBpcretest\fP linked in this way, there may be licensing issues.
  439. .P
  440. Setting this option causes the \fB-lreadline\fP option to be added to the
  441. \fBpcretest\fP build. In many operating environments with a sytem-installed
  442. \fBlibreadline\fP this is sufficient. However, in some environments (e.g.
  443. if an unmodified distribution version of readline is in use), some extra
  444. configuration may be necessary. The INSTALL file for \fBlibreadline\fP says
  445. this:
  446. .sp
  447. "Readline uses the termcap functions, but does not link with the
  448. termcap or curses library itself, allowing applications which link
  449. with readline the to choose an appropriate library."
  450. .sp
  451. If your environment has not been set up so that an appropriate library is
  452. automatically included, you may need to add something like
  453. .sp
  454. LIBS="-ncurses"
  455. .sp
  456. immediately before the \fBconfigure\fP command.
  457. .
  458. .
  459. .SH "DEBUGGING WITH VALGRIND SUPPORT"
  460. .rs
  461. .sp
  462. By adding the
  463. .sp
  464. --enable-valgrind
  465. .sp
  466. option to to the \fBconfigure\fP command, PCRE will use valgrind annotations
  467. to mark certain memory regions as unaddressable. This allows it to detect
  468. invalid memory accesses, and is mostly useful for debugging PCRE itself.
  469. .
  470. .
  471. .SH "CODE COVERAGE REPORTING"
  472. .rs
  473. .sp
  474. If your C compiler is gcc, you can build a version of PCRE that can generate a
  475. code coverage report for its test suite. To enable this, you must install
  476. \fBlcov\fP version 1.6 or above. Then specify
  477. .sp
  478. --enable-coverage
  479. .sp
  480. to the \fBconfigure\fP command and build PCRE in the usual way.
  481. .P
  482. Note that using \fBccache\fP (a caching C compiler) is incompatible with code
  483. coverage reporting. If you have configured \fBccache\fP to run automatically
  484. on your system, you must set the environment variable
  485. .sp
  486. CCACHE_DISABLE=1
  487. .sp
  488. before running \fBmake\fP to build PCRE, so that \fBccache\fP is not used.
  489. .P
  490. When --enable-coverage is used, the following addition targets are added to the
  491. \fIMakefile\fP:
  492. .sp
  493. make coverage
  494. .sp
  495. This creates a fresh coverage report for the PCRE test suite. It is equivalent
  496. to running "make coverage-reset", "make coverage-baseline", "make check", and
  497. then "make coverage-report".
  498. .sp
  499. make coverage-reset
  500. .sp
  501. This zeroes the coverage counters, but does nothing else.
  502. .sp
  503. make coverage-baseline
  504. .sp
  505. This captures baseline coverage information.
  506. .sp
  507. make coverage-report
  508. .sp
  509. This creates the coverage report.
  510. .sp
  511. make coverage-clean-report
  512. .sp
  513. This removes the generated coverage report without cleaning the coverage data
  514. itself.
  515. .sp
  516. make coverage-clean-data
  517. .sp
  518. This removes the captured coverage data without removing the coverage files
  519. created at compile time (*.gcno).
  520. .sp
  521. make coverage-clean
  522. .sp
  523. This cleans all coverage data including the generated coverage report. For more
  524. information about code coverage, see the \fBgcov\fP and \fBlcov\fP
  525. documentation.
  526. .
  527. .
  528. .SH "SEE ALSO"
  529. .rs
  530. .sp
  531. \fBpcreapi\fP(3), \fBpcre16\fP, \fBpcre32\fP, \fBpcre_config\fP(3).
  532. .
  533. .
  534. .SH AUTHOR
  535. .rs
  536. .sp
  537. .nf
  538. Philip Hazel
  539. University Computing Service
  540. Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
  541. .fi
  542. .
  543. .
  544. .SH REVISION
  545. .rs
  546. .sp
  547. .nf
  548. Last updated: 12 May 2013
  549. Copyright (c) 1997-2013 University of Cambridge.
  550. .fi