REGEX(3) Linux Programmer's Manual REGEX(3)
NAME
regcomp, regexec, regerror, regfree - POSIX regex functions
SYNOPSIS
#include
#include
int regcomp(regex_t *preg, const char *regex, int cflags);
int regexec(const regex_t *preg, const char *string, size_t nmatch,
regmatch_t pmatch[], int eflags);
size_t regerror(int errcode, const regex_t *preg, char *errbuf,
size_t errbuf_size);
void regfree(regex_t *preg);
DESCRIPTION
POSIX Regex Compiling
regcomp() is used to compile a regular expression into a form that is suitable for subsequent regexec() searches.
regcomp() is supplied with preg, a pointer to a pattern buffer storage area; regex, a pointer to the null-terminated string
and cflags, flags used to determine the type of compilation.
All regular expression searching must be done via a compiled pattern buffer, thus regexec() must always be supplied with
the address of a regcomp() initialized pattern buffer.
cflags may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
REG_EXTENDED
Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting regex. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression
syntax is used.
REG_ICASE
Do not differentiate case. Subsequent regexec() searches using this pattern buffer will be case insensitive.
REG_NOSUB
Support for substring addressing of matches is not required. The nmatch and pmatch arguments to regexec() are
ignored if the pattern buffer supplied was compiled with this flag set.
REG_NEWLINE
Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
A nonmatching list ([^...]) not containing a newline does not match a newline.
Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string immediately after a newline, regardless of whether
eflags, the execution flags of regexec(), contains REG_NOTBOL.
Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string immediately before a newline, regardless of whether eflags
contains REG_NOTEOL.
POSIX Regex Matching
regexec() is used to match a null-terminated string against the precompiled pattern buffer, preg. nmatch and pmatch are
used to provide information regarding the location of any matches. eflags may be the bitwise-or of one or both of REG_NOT‐
BOL and REG_NOTEOL which cause changes in matching behavior described below.
REG_NOTBOL
The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the compilation flag REG_NEWLINE above) This
flag may be used when different portions of a string are passed to regexec() and the beginning of the string should
not be interpreted as the beginning of the line.
REG_NOTEOL
The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the compilation flag REG_NEWLINE above)
Byte Offsets
Unless REG_NOSUB was set for the compilation of the pattern buffer, it is possible to obtain substring match addressing
information. pmatch must be dimensioned to have at least nmatch elements. These are filled in by regexec() with substring
match addresses. Any unused structure elements will contain the value -1.
The regmatch_t structure which is the type of pmatch is defined in .
typedef struct {
regoff_t rm_so;
regoff_t rm_eo;
} regmatch_t;
Each rm_so element that is not -1 indicates the start offset of the next largest substring match within the string. The
relative rm_eo element indicates the end offset of the match, which is the offset of the first character after the matching
text.
Posix Error Reporting
regerror() is used to turn the error codes that can be returned by both regcomp() and regexec() into error message strings.
regerror() is passed the error code, errcode, the pattern buffer, preg, a pointer to a character string buffer, errbuf, and
the size of the string buffer, errbuf_size. It returns the size of the errbuf required to contain the null-terminated
error message string. If both errbuf and errbuf_size are nonzero, errbuf is filled in with the first errbuf_size - 1 char‐
acters of the error message and a terminating null byte ('\0').
POSIX Pattern Buffer Freeing
Supplying regfree() with a precompiled pattern buffer, preg will free the memory allocated to the pattern buffer by the
compiling process, regcomp().
RETURN VALUE
regcomp() returns zero for a successful compilation or an error code for failure.
regexec() returns zero for a successful match or REG_NOMATCH for failure.
ERRORS
The following errors can be returned by regcomp():
REG_BADBR
Invalid use of back reference operator.
REG_BADPAT
Invalid use of pattern operators such as group or list.
REG_BADRPT
Invalid use of repetition operators such as using '*' as the first character.
REG_EBRACE
Un-matched brace interval operators.
REG_EBRACK
Un-matched bracket list operators.
REG_ECOLLATE
Invalid collating element.
REG_ECTYPE
Unknown character class name.
REG_EEND
Non specific error. This is not defined by POSIX.2.
REG_EESCAPE
Trailing backslash.
REG_EPAREN
Un-matched parenthesis group operators.
REG_ERANGE
Invalid use of the range operator, e.g., the ending point of the range occurs prior to the starting point.
REG_ESIZE
Compiled regular expression requires a pattern buffer larger than 64Kb. This is not defined by POSIX.2.
REG_ESPACE
The regex routines ran out of memory.
REG_ESUBREG
Invalid back reference to a subexpression.
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001.
SEE ALSO
grep(1), regex(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.40 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about
reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
GNU 2011-09-27 REGEX(3)
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