pcretest — a program for testing Perl-compatible regular expressions.
pcretest [options] [ input
file [ output file ] ]
pcretest was written as a test program for the PCRE regular expression library itself, but it can also be used for experimenting with regular expressions. This document describes the features of the test program; for details of the regular expressions themselves, see the pcrepattern(3) documentation. For details of the PCRE library function calls and their options, see the pcreapi(3) documentation. The input for pcretest is a sequence of regular expression patterns and strings to be matched, as described below. The output shows the result of each match. Options on the command line and the patterns control PCRE options and exactly what is output.
−bBehave as if each pattern has the /B (show byte code) modifier; the
internal form is output after compilation.
−COutput the version number of the PCRE library, and all available information about the optional features that are included, and then exit.
−dBehave as if each pattern has the /D (debug) modifier; the internal
form and information about the compiled pattern is
output after compilation; −d is equivalent to −b −i.
−dfaBehave as if each data line contains the \D escape
sequence; this causes the alternative matching
function, pcre_dfa_exec(), to be used instead
of the standard pcre_exec() function (more detail is
given below).
−helpOutput a brief summary these options and then exit.
−iBehave as if each pattern has the /I modifier; information about the
compiled pattern is given after compilation.
−MBehave as if each data line contains the \M escape
sequence; this causes PCRE to discover the minimum
MATCH_LIMIT and MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION settings by
calling pcre_exec()
repeatedly with different limits.
−mOutput the size of each compiled pattern after it
has been compiled. This is equivalent to adding
/M to each regular
expression.
−o osizeSet the number of elements in the output vector that
is used when calling pcre_exec() or pcre_dfa_exec() to be osize. The default value
is 45, which is enough for 14 capturing subexpressions
for pcre_exec() or 22
different matches for pcre_dfa_exec(). The vector size can
be changed for individual matching calls by including
\O in the data line (see below).
−pBehave as if each pattern has the /P modifier; the POSIX wrapper API is
used to call PCRE. None of the other options has any
effect when −p is
set.
−qDo not output the version number of pcretest at the start of execution.
−S sizeOn Unix-like systems, set the size of the run-time
stack to size
megabytes.
−sBehave as if each pattern has the /S modifier; in other words, force
each pattern to be studied. If the /I or /D option is present on a pattern
(requesting output about the compiled pattern),
information about the result of studying is not
included when studying is caused only by −s and neither −i nor −d is present on the command
line. This behaviour means that the output from tests
that are run with and without −s should be identical, except
when options that output information about the actual
running of a match are set. The −M, −t, and −tm options, which give
information about resources used, are likely to produce
different output with and without −s. Output may also differ if the
/C option is present on
an individual pattern. This uses callouts to trace the
the matching process, and this may be different between
studied and non-studied patterns. If the pattern
contains (*MARK) items there may also be differences,
for the same reason. The −s command line option can be
overridden for specific patterns that should never be
studied (see the /S option below).
−tRun each compile, study, and match many times with a
timer, and output resulting time per compile or match
(in milliseconds). Do not set −m with −t, because you will then get the
size output a zillion times, and the timing will be
distorted. You can control the number of iterations
that are used for timing by following −t with a number (as a separate
item on the command line). For example, "-t 1000" would
iterate 1000 times. The default is to iterate 500000
times.
−tmThis is like −t
except that it times only the matching phase, not the
compile or study phases.
If pcretest is given two filename arguments, it reads from the first and writes to the second. If it is given only one filename argument, it reads from that file and writes to stdout. Otherwise, it reads from stdin and writes to stdout, and prompts for each line of input, using "re>" to prompt for regular expressions, and "data>" to prompt for data lines.
When pcretest is built, a
configuration option can specify that it should be linked
with the libreadline library. When
this is done, if the input is from a terminal, it is read
using the readline() function.
This provides line-editing and history facilities. The output
from the −help option
states whether or not readline() will be used.
The program handles any number of sets of input on a single input file. Each set starts with a regular expression, and continues with any number of data lines to be matched against the pattern.
Each data line is matched separately and independently. If you want to do multi-line matches, you have to use the \n escape sequence (or \r or \r\n, etc., depending on the newline setting) in a single line of input to encode the newline sequences. There is no limit on the length of data lines; the input buffer is automatically extended if it is too small.
An empty line signals the end of the data lines, at which point a new regular expression is read. The regular expressions are given enclosed in any non-alphanumeric delimiters other than backslash, for example:
/(a|bc)x+yz/
White space before the initial delimiter is ignored. A regular expression may be continued over several input lines, in which case the newline characters are included within it. It is possible to include the delimiter within the pattern by escaping it, for example
/abc\/def/
If you do so, the escape and the delimiter form part of the pattern, but since delimiters are always non-alphanumeric, this does not affect its interpretation. If the terminating delimiter is immediately followed by a backslash, for example,
/abc/\
then a backslash is added to the end of the pattern. This is done to provide a way of testing the error condition that arises if a pattern finishes with a backslash, because
/abc\/
is interpreted as the first line of a pattern that starts with "abc/", causing pcretest to read the next line as a continuation of the regular expression.
A pattern may be followed by any number of modifiers,
which are mostly single characters. Following Perl usage,
these are referred to below as, for example, "the
/i modifier", even though the
delimiter of the pattern need not always be a slash, and no
slash is used when writing modifiers. White space may appear
between the final pattern delimiter and the first modifier,
and between the modifiers themselves.
The /i, /m, /s, and
/x modifiers set the
PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE, PCRE_DOTALL, or PCRE_EXTENDED
options, respectively, when pcre_compile() is called. These four
modifier letters have the same effect as they do in Perl. For
example:
/caseless/i
The following table shows additional modifiers for setting PCRE compile-time options that do not correspond to anything in Perl:
/8PCRE_UTF8 /?PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK /APCRE_ANCHORED/CPCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT/EPCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY/fPCRE_FIRSTLINE/JPCRE_DUPNAMES/NPCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE/UPCRE_UNGREEDY/WPCRE_UCP/XPCRE_EXTRA/YPCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE/<JS>PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT/<cr>PCRE_NEWLINE_CR/<lf>PCRE_NEWLINE_LF/<crlf>PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF/<anycrlf>PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF/<any>PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY/<bsr_anycrlf>PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF/<bsr_unicode>PCRE_BSR_UNICODE
The modifiers that are enclosed in angle brackets are literal strings as shown, including the angle brackets, but the letters within can be in either case. This example sets multiline matching with CRLF as the line ending sequence:
/^abc/m<CRLF>
As well as turning on the PCRE_UTF8 option, the
/8 modifier also causes any
non-printing characters in output strings to be printed using
the \x{hh...} notation if they are valid UTF-8 sequences.
Full details of the PCRE options are given in the pcreapi(3)
documentation.
Searching for all possible matches within each subject
string can be requested by the /g or /G
modifier. After finding a match, PCRE is called again to
search the remainder of the subject string. The difference
between /g and /G is that the former uses the startoffset argument to
pcre_exec() to start
searching at a new point within the entire string (which is
in effect what Perl does), whereas the latter passes over a
shortened substring. This makes a difference to the
matching process if the pattern begins with a lookbehind
assertion (including \b or \B).
If any call to pcre_exec()
in a /g or /G sequence matches an empty string, the
next call is done with the PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART and
PCRE_ANCHORED flags set in order to search for another,
non-empty, match at the same point. If this second match
fails, the start offset is advanced, and the normal match
is retried. This imitates the way Perl handles such cases
when using the /g modifier or
the split() function.
Normally, the start offset is advanced by one character,
but if the newline convention recognizes CRLF as a newline,
and the current character is CR followed by LF, an advance
of two is used.
There are yet more modifiers for controlling the way pcretest operates.
The /+ modifier requests
that as well as outputting the substring that matched the
entire pattern, pcretest should in
addition output the remainder of the subject string. This
is useful for tests where the subject contains multiple
copies of the same substring. If the + modifier appears twice, the same action
is taken for captured substrings. In each case the
remainder is output on the following line with a plus
character following the capture number.
The /= modifier requests
that the values of all potential captured parentheses be
output after a match by pcre_exec(). By default, only those up to
the highest one actually used in the match are output
(corresponding to the return code from pcre_exec()). Values in the offsets
vector corresponding to higher numbers should be set to -1,
and these are output as "<unset>". This modifier
gives a way of checking that this is happening.
The /B modifier is a
debugging feature. It requests that pcretest output a
representation of the compiled byte code after compilation.
Normally this information contains length and offset
values; however, if /Z is
also present, this data is replaced by spaces. This is a
special feature for use in the automatic test scripts; it
ensures that the same output is generated for different
internal link sizes.
The /D modifier is a PCRE
debugging feature, and is equivalent to /BI, that is, both the /B and the /I modifiers.
The /F modifier causes
pcretest to
flip the byte order of the fields in the compiled pattern
that contain 2-byte and 4-byte numbers. This facility is
for testing the feature in PCRE that allows it to execute
patterns that were compiled on a host with a different
endianness. This feature is not available when the POSIX
interface to PCRE is being used, that is, when the
/P pattern modifier is
specified. See also the section about saving and reloading
compiled patterns below.
The /I modifier requests
that pcretest
output information about the compiled pattern (whether it
is anchored, has a fixed first character, and so on). It
does this by calling pcre_fullinfo() after compiling a
pattern. If the pattern is studied, the results of that are
also output.
The /K modifier requests
pcretest to
show names from backtracking control verbs that are
returned from calls to pcre_exec(). It causes pcretest to create a
pcre_extra block if
one has not already been created by a call to pcre_study(), and to set the
PCRE_EXTRA_MARK flag and the mark field within it,
every time that pcre_exec()
is called. If the variable that the mark field points to is
non-NULL for a match, non-match, or partial match,
pcretest
prints the string to which it points. For a match, this is
shown on a line by itself, tagged with "MK:". For a
non-match it is added to the message.
The /L modifier must be
followed directly by the name of a locale, for example,
/pattern/Lfr_FR
For this reason, it must be the last modifier. The given
locale is set, pcre_maketables() is called to build a
set of character tables for the locale, and this is then
passed to pcre_compile() when
compiling the regular expression. Without an /L (or /T)
modifier, NULL is passed as the tables pointer; that is,
/L applies only to the
expression on which it appears.
The /M modifier causes the
size of memory block used to hold the compiled pattern to
be output.
If the /S modifier appears
once, it causes pcre_study()
to be called after the expression has been compiled, and
the results used when the expression is matched. If
/S appears twice, it
suppresses studying, even if it was requested externally by
the −s command line
option. This makes it possible to specify that certain
patterns are always studied, and others are never studied,
independently of −s. This
feature is used in the test files in a few cases where the
output is different when the pattern is studied.
The /T modifier must be
followed by a single digit. It causes a specific set of
built-in character tables to be passed to pcre_compile(). It is used in the
standard PCRE tests to check behaviour with different
character tables. The digit specifies the tables as
follows:
0 the default ASCII tables, as distributed in
pcre_chartables.c.dist
1 a set of tables defining ISO 8859 characters
In table 1, some characters whose codes are greater than 128 are identified as letters, digits, spaces, etc.
The /P modifier causes
pcretest to
call PCRE via the POSIX wrapper API rather than its native
API. When /P is set, the
following modifiers set options for the regcomp() function:
/i REG_ICASE /m REG_NEWLINE /N REG_NOSUB /s REG_DOTALL ) /U REG_UNGREEDY ) These options are not part of /W REG_UCP ) the POSIX standard /8 REG_UTF8 )
The /+ modifier works as
described above. All other modifiers are ignored.
Before each data line is passed to pcre_exec(), leading and trailing white
space is removed, and it is then scanned for \ escapes. Some
of these are pretty esoteric features, intended for checking
out some of the more complicated features of PCRE. If you are
just testing "ordinary" regular expressions, you probably
don't need any of these. The following escapes are
recognized:
\aalarm ( BEL, \x07)\bbackspace (\x08) \eescape (\x27) \fform feed (\x0c) \nnewline (\x0a) \qddset the PCRE_MATCH_LIMITlimit to dd (any number of digits)\rcarriage return (\x0d) \ttab (\x09) \vvertical tab (\x0b) \nnnoctal character (up to 3 octal digits) always a byte unless > 255 in UTF-8 mode\xhhhexadecimal byte (up to 2 hex digits) \x{hh...}hexadecimal character, any number of digits in UTF-8 mode\Apass the PCRE_ANCHOREDoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\Bpass the PCRE_NOTBOLoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\Cddcall pcre_copy_substring() for substring dd after a successful match (number less than 32) \Cnamecall pcre_copy_named_substring() for substring "name" after a successful match (name termin- ated by next non alphanumeric character) \C+show the current captured substrings at callout time \C-do not supply a callout function \C!nreturn 1 instead of 0 when callout number n is reached \C!n!mreturn 1 instead of 0 when callout number n is reached for the nth time \C*npass the number n (may be negative) as callout data; this is used as the callout return value \Duse the pcre_dfa_exec() match function\Fonly shortest match for pcre_dfa_exec()\Gddcall pcre_get_substring() for substring dd after a successful match (number less than 32) \Gnamecall pcre_get_named_substring() for substring "name" after a successful match (name termin- ated by next non-alphanumeric character) \Lcall pcre_get_substringlist() after a successful match \Mdiscover the minimum MATCH_LIMITandMATCH_LIMIT_RECURSIONsettings\Npass the PCRE_NOTEMPTYoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec(); if used twice, pass thePCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTARToption\Oddset the size of the output vector passed to pcre_exec() to dd (any number of digits)\Ppass the PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFToption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec(); if used twice, pass thePCRE_PARTIAL_HARDoption\Qddset the PCRE_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSIONlimit to dd (any number of digits)\Rpass the PCRE_DFA_RESTARToption topcre_dfa_exec()\Soutput details of memory get/free calls during matching \Ypass the PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZEoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\Zpass the PCRE_NOTEOLoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\?pass the PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK option to pcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\>ddstart the match at offset dd (optional "-"; then any number of digits); this sets the startoffsetargument forpcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\<cr>pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_CRoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\<lf>pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_LFoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\<crlf>pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLFoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\<anycrlf>pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLFoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()\<any>pass the PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYoption topcre_exec() orpcre_dfa_exec()
Note that \xhh always specifies one byte, even in UTF-8 mode; this makes it possible to construct invalid UTF-8 sequences for testing purposes. On the other hand, \x{hh} is interpreted as a UTF-8 character in UTF-8 mode, generating more than one byte if the value is greater than 127. When not in UTF-8 mode, it generates one byte for values less than 256, and causes an error for greater values.
The escapes that specify line ending sequences are literal strings, exactly as shown. No more than one newline setting should be present in any data line.
A backslash followed by anything else just escapes the anything else. If the very last character is a backslash, it is ignored. This gives a way of passing an empty line as data, since a real empty line terminates the data input.
If \M is present, pcretest calls pcre_exec() several times, with different
values in the match_limit and match_limit_recursion fields of
the pcre_extra data
structure, until it finds the minimum numbers for each
parameter that allow pcre_exec() to complete. The match_limit number is a measure
of the amount of backtracking that takes place, and checking
it out can be instructive. For most simple matches, the
number is quite small, but for patterns with very large
numbers of matching possibilities, it can become large very
quickly with increasing length of subject string. The
match_limit_recursion
number is a measure of how much stack (or, if PCRE is
compiled with NO_RECURSE, how much heap) memory is needed to
complete the match attempt.
When \O is used, the value specified may be higher or
lower than the size set by the −O command line option (or defaulted to
45); \O applies only to the call of pcre_exec() for the line in which it
appears.
If the /P modifier was
present on the pattern, causing the POSIX wrapper API to be
used, the only option-setting sequences that have any effect
are \B, \N, and \Z, causing REG_NOTBOL, REG_NOTEMPTY, and
REG_NOTEOL, respectively, to be passed to regexec().
The use of \x{hh...} to represent UTF-8 characters is not
dependent on the use of the /8
modifier on the pattern. It is recognized always. There may
be any number of hexadecimal digits inside the braces. The
result is from one to six bytes, encoded according to the
original UTF-8 rules of RFC 2279. This allows for values in
the range 0 to 0x7FFFFFFF. Note that not all of those are
valid Unicode code points, or indeed valid UTF-8 characters
according to the later rules in RFC 3629.
By default, pcretest uses the standard
PCRE matching function, pcre_exec() to match each data line. From
release 6.0, PCRE supports an alternative matching function,
pcre_dfa_test(), which operates
in a different way, and has some restrictions. The
differences between the two functions are described in the
pcrematching(3)
documentation.
If a data line contains the \D escape sequence, or if the
command line contains the −dfa option, the alternative matching
function is called. This function finds all possible matches
at a given point. If, however, the \F escape sequence is
present in the data line, it stops after the first match is
found. This is always the shortest possible match.
This section describes the output when the normal matching
function, pcre_exec(), is being
used.
When a match succeeds, pcretest outputs the list
of captured substrings that pcre_exec() returns, starting with number 0
for the string that matched the whole pattern. Otherwise, it
outputs "No match" when the return is PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH, and
"Partial match:" followed by the partially matching substring
when pcre_exec() returns
PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL. (Note that this is the entire substring
that was inspected during the partial match; it may include
characters before the actual match start if a lookbehind
assertion, \K, \b, or \B was involved.) For any other return,
pcretest
outputs the PCRE negative error number and a short
descriptive phrase. If the error is a failed UTF-8 string
check, the byte offset of the start of the failing character
and the reason code are also output, provided that the size
of the output vector is at least two. Here is an example of
an interactive pcretest run.
$ pcretest PCRE version 8.13 2011-04-30
re> /^abc(\d+)/ data> abc123 0: abc123 1: 123 data> xyz No match
Unset capturing substrings that are not followed by one
that is set are not returned by pcre_exec(), and are not shown by
pcretest. In
the following example, there are two capturing substrings,
but when the first data line is matched, the second, unset
substring is not shown. An "internal" unset substring is
shown as "<unset>", as for the second data line.
re> /(a)|(b)/ data> a 0: a 1: a data> b 0: b 1: <unset> 2: b
If the strings contain any non-printing characters, they
are output as \0x escapes, or as \x{...} escapes if the
/8 modifier was present on the
pattern. See below for the definition of non-printing
characters. If the pattern has the /+ modifier, the output for substring 0 is
followed by the the rest of the subject string, identified by
"0+" like this:
re> /cat/+ data> cataract 0: cat 0+ aract
If the pattern has the /g or
/G modifier, the results of
successive matching attempts are output in sequence, like
this:
re> /\Bi(\w\w)/g data> Mississippi 0: iss 1: ss 0: iss 1: ss 0: ipp 1: pp
"No match" is output only if the first match attempt fails. Here is an example of a failure message (the offset 4 that is specified by \>4 is past the end of the subject string):
re> /xyz/ data> xyz\>4 Error -24 (bad offset value)
If any of the sequences \C, \G, or \L are present in a data line
that is successfully matched, the substrings extracted by the
convenience functions are output with C, G, or L after the
string number instead of a colon. This is in addition to the
normal full list. The string length (that is, the return from
the extraction function) is given in parentheses after each
string for \C and
\G.
Note that whereas patterns can be continued over several lines (a plain ">" prompt is used for continuations), data lines may not. However newlines can be included in data by means of the \n escape (or \r, \r\n, etc., depending on the newline sequence setting).
When the alternative matching function, pcre_dfa_exec(), is used (by means of the
\D escape sequence or the −dfa command line option), the output
consists of a list of all the matches that start at the first
point in the subject where there is at least one match. For
example:
re> /(tang|tangerine|tan)/ data> yellow tangerine\D 0: tangerine 1: tang 2: tan
(Using the normal matching function on this data finds only "tang".) The longest matching string is always given first (and numbered zero). After a PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL return, the output is "Partial match:", followed by the partially matching substring. (Note that this is the entire substring that was inspected during the partial match; it may include characters before the actual match start if a lookbehind assertion, \K, \b, or \B was involved.)
If /g is present on the
pattern, the search for further matches resumes at the end of
the longest match. For example:
re> /(tang|tangerine|tan)/g data> yellow tangerine and tangy sultana\D 0: tangerine 1: tang 2: tan 0: tang 1: tan 0: tan
Since the matching function does not support substring capture, the escape sequences that are concerned with captured substrings are not relevant.
When the alternative matching function has given the PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL return, indicating that the subject partially matched the pattern, you can restart the match with additional subject data by means of the \R escape sequence. For example:
re> /^\d?\d(jan|feb|mar|apr|may|jun|jul|aug|sep|oct|nov|dec)\d\d$/ data> 23ja\P\D Partial match: 23ja data> n05\R\D 0: n05
For further information about partial matching, see the pcrepartial(3) documentation.
If the pattern contains any callout requests, pcretest's callout function is called during matching. This works with both matching functions. By default, the called function displays the callout number, the start and current positions in the text at the callout time, and the next pattern item to be tested. For example, the output
--->pqrabcdef 0 ^ ^ \d
indicates that callout number 0 occurred for a match attempt starting at the fourth character of the subject string, when the pointer was at the seventh character of the data, and when the next pattern item was \d. Just one circumflex is output if the start and current positions are the same.
Callouts numbered 255 are assumed to be automatic
callouts, inserted as a result of the /C pattern modifier. In this case, instead
of showing the callout number, the offset in the pattern,
preceded by a plus, is output. For example:
re> /\d?[A-E]\*/C data> E* --->E* +0 ^ \d? +3 ^ [A-E] +8 ^^ \* +10 ^ ^ 0: E*
If a pattern contains (*MARK) items, an additional line is output whenever a change of latest mark is passed to the callout function. For example:
re> /a(*MARK:X)bc/C data> abc --->abc +0 ^ a +1 ^^ (*MARK:X) +10 ^^ b Latest Mark: X +11 ^ ^ c +12 ^ ^ 0: abc
The mark changes between matching "a" and "b", but stays the same for the rest of the match, so nothing more is output. If, as a result of backtracking, the mark reverts to being unset, the text "<unset>" is output.
The callout function in pcretest returns zero (carry on matching) by default, but you can use a \C item in a data line (as described above) to change this and other parameters of the callout.
Inserting callouts can be helpful when using pcretest to check complicated regular expressions. For further information about callouts, see the pcrecallout(3) documentation.
When pcretest is outputting text in the compiled version of a pattern, bytes other than 32-126 are always treated as non-printing characters are are therefore shown as hex escapes.
When pcretest is outputting text
that is a matched part of a subject string, it behaves in the
same way, unless a different locale has been set for the
pattern (using the /L
modifier). In this case, the isprint() function to distinguish printing
and non-printing characters.
The facilities described in this section are not available
when the POSIX interface to PCRE is being used, that is, when
the /P pattern modifier is
specified.
When the POSIX interface is not in use, you can cause pcretest to write a compiled pattern to a file, by following the modifiers with > and a file name. For example:
/pattern/im >/some/file
See the pcreprecompile(3) documentation for a discussion about saving and re-using compiled patterns.
The data that is written is binary. The first eight bytes are the length of the compiled pattern data followed by the length of the optional study data, each written as four bytes in big-endian order (most significant byte first). If there is no study data (either the pattern was not studied, or studying did not return any data), the second length is zero. The lengths are followed by an exact copy of the compiled pattern. If there is additional study data, this follows immediately after the compiled pattern. After writing the file, pcretest expects to read a new pattern.
A saved pattern can be reloaded into pcretest by specifying < and a file name instead of a pattern. The name of the file must not contain a < character, as otherwise pcretest will interpret the line as a pattern delimited by < characters. For example:
re> </some/file Compiled pattern loaded from /some/file No study data
When the pattern has been loaded, pcretest proceeds to read data lines in the usual way.
You can copy a file written by pcretest to a different host and reload it there, even if the new host has opposite endianness to the one on which the pattern was compiled. For example, you can compile on an i86 machine and run on a SPARC machine.
File names for saving and reloading can be absolute or relative, but note that the shell facility of expanding a file name that starts with a tilde (~) is not available.
The ability to save and reload files in pcretest is intended for testing and experimentation. It is not intended for production use because only a single pattern can be written to a file. Furthermore, there is no facility for supplying custom character tables for use with a reloaded pattern. If the original pattern was compiled with custom tables, an attempt to match a subject string using a reloaded pattern is likely to cause pcretest to crash. Finally, if you attempt to load a file that is not in the correct format, the result is undefined.
pcre(3), pcreapi(3), pcrecallout(3), pcrematching(3),
pcrepartial(d), pcrepattern(3), pcreprecompile(3).
Last updated: 01 August 2011 Copyright (c) 1997-2011 University of Cambridge.
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This manual page is taken from the PCRE library, which is distributed under the BSD license. |