PCRE_FREE_STUDY(3)

💖 PCRE_FREE_STUDY — bestie edition 💖

okay so this is one of the PCRE pages, aka Perl-compatible regular expressions, from the Library Functions Manual. it's a lil guy but it's important, so let's go 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

PCRE — Perl-compatible regular expressions 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <pcre.h>

void pcre_free_study(pcre_extra *extra);

void pcre16_free_study(pcre16_extra *extra);

void pcre32_free_study(pcre32_extra *extra);

three whole flavours, one for each width, and they all do the same vibe 🦋

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so pcre_free_study() is the cleanup crew function. you use it to free the memory that got used for the data generated by a call to pcre[16|32]_study() — like, once you don't need that studied data anymore, this is how you let it go 🧚✨

the argument must be the result of such a call. no cap, that's a hard requirement, not a suggestion 💀

and if you want the full lore: there's a complete description of the PCRE native API over on the pcreapi page, and a description of the POSIX API on the pcreposix page. go read those when you're ready to level up 👑

that's it, that's the whole page, short and iconic 💜 this was PCRE 8.30, dated 24 June 2012, and it's the PCRE_FREE_STUDY(3) page signing off — mwah, take care of your memory bestie, free what you study 🍓💖