PCRE_STUDY(3)

💅 PCRE_STUDY(3) — okay bestie, let's talk regex glow-ups

so this page lives in the Library Functions Manual and it's titled PCRE_STUDY(3). ngl the whole thing is about making your compiled patterns go fast, and we love that for us. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

PCRE — Perl-compatible regular expressions. that's it, that's the name, and honestly? iconic. 👑

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

bestie. there are three flavors, one for each width. pick ur fighter:

#include <pcre.h>

pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *code, int options,
     const char **errptr);

pcre16_extra *pcre16_study(const pcre16 *code, int options,
     const char **errptr);

pcre32_extra *pcre32_study(const pcre32 *code, int options,
     const char **errptr);

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so what does this function do. it studies a compiled pattern to see if there's any extra info it can pull out that might speed up matching. like it's going to the library to cram before the exam. 📚 it's giving main character energy fr fr.

its arguments are:

• code — a compiled regular expression
• options — options for pcre[16|32]_study()
• errptr — where to put an error message

if the function succeeds, it returns a value you can pass into pcre[16|32]_exec() or pcre[16|32]_dfa_exec() through their extra arguments. slay. 🫶

if the function returns NULL, it's one of two things, and you gotta tell them apart:

1. it couldn't find any additional information, or
2. there was an error.

the way you tell the difference is by looking at the error value — it is NULL in the first case. so if errptr is NULL, no notes, no extra info, just vibes. 💀

✨ OPTIONS ✨

there is literally only one option, so no scrolling needed:

• PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE — requests just-in-time compilation if possible. if PCRE was compiled without JIT support, this option is ignored. see the pcrejit page for further details. 🔥

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

there's a full description of the PCRE native API in the pcreapi page, and a description of the POSIX API in the pcreposix page. go read those, bestie, iykyk. 💜

🌟 cute sign-off 🌟

this was PCRE 8.30, dated 24 June 2012, and that's the whole page. periodt. 💅✨🎀