PCREPRECOMPILE(3) Library Functions Manual PCREPRECOMPILE(3)
NAME
PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions
SAVING AND RE-USING PRECOMPILED PCRE PATTERNS
If you are running an application that uses a large number of regular
expression patterns, it may be useful to store them in a precompiled
form instead of having to compile them every time the application is
run. If you are not using any private character tables (see the
pcre_maketables() documentation), this is relatively straightforward.
If you are using private tables, it is a little bit more complicated.
However, if you are using the just-in-time optimization feature, it is
not possible to save and reload the JIT data.
If you save compiled patterns to a file, you can copy them to a differ-
ent host and run them there. If the two hosts have different endianness
(byte order), you should run the pcre[16|32]_pat-
tern_to_host_byte_order() function on the new host before trying to
match the pattern. The matching functions return PCRE_ERROR_BADENDIAN-
NESS if they detect a pattern with the wrong endianness.
Compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a
different version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes, and
saving and restoring a compiled pattern loses any JIT optimization
data.
SAVING A COMPILED PATTERN
The value returned by pcre[16|32]_compile() points to a single block of
memory that holds the compiled pattern and associated data. You can
find the length of this block in bytes by calling
pcre[16|32]_fullinfo() with an argument of PCRE_INFO_SIZE. You can then
save the data in any appropriate manner. Here is sample code for the
8-bit library that compiles a pattern and writes it to a file. It
assumes that the variable fd refers to a file that is open for output:
int erroroffset, rc, size;
char *error;
pcre *re;
re = pcre_compile("my pattern", 0, &error, &erroroffset, NULL);
if (re == NULL) { ... handle errors ... }
rc = pcre_fullinfo(re, NULL, PCRE_INFO_SIZE, &size);
if (rc < 0) { ... handle errors ... }
rc = fwrite(re, 1, size, fd);
if (rc != size) { ... handle errors ... }
In this example, the bytes that comprise the compiled pattern are
copied exactly. Note that this is binary data that may contain any of
the 256 possible byte values. On systems that make a distinction
between binary and non-binary data, be sure that the file is opened for
binary output.
If you want to write more than one pattern to a file, you will have to
devise a way of separating them. For binary data, preceding each pat-
tern with its length is probably the most straightforward approach.
Another possibility is to write out the data in hexadecimal instead of
binary, one pattern to a line.
Saving compiled patterns in a file is only one possible way of storing
them for later use. They could equally well be saved in a database, or
in the memory of some daemon process that passes them via sockets to
the processes that want them.
If the pattern has been studied, it is also possible to save the normal
study data in a similar way to the compiled pattern itself. However, if
the PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE was used, the just-in-time data that is cre-
ated cannot be saved because it is too dependent on the current envi-
ronment. When studying generates additional information,
pcre[16|32]_study() returns a pointer to a pcre[16|32]_extra data
block. Its format is defined in the section on matching a pattern in
the pcreapi documentation. The study_data field points to the binary
study data, and this is what you must save (not the pcre[16|32]_extra
block itself). The length of the study data can be obtained by calling
pcre[16|32]_fullinfo() with an argument of PCRE_INFO_STUDYSIZE. Remem-
ber to check that pcre[16|32]_study() did return a non-NULL value
before trying to save the study data.
RE-USING A PRECOMPILED PATTERN
Re-using a precompiled pattern is straightforward. Having reloaded it
into main memory, called pcre[16|32]_pattern_to_host_byte_order() if
necessary, you pass its pointer to pcre[16|32]_exec() or
pcre[16|32]_dfa_exec() in the usual way.
However, if you passed a pointer to custom character tables when the
pattern was compiled (the tableptr argument of pcre[16|32]_compile()),
you must now pass a similar pointer to pcre[16|32]_exec() or
pcre[16|32]_dfa_exec(), because the value saved with the compiled pat-
tern will obviously be nonsense. A field in a pcre[16|32]_extra() block
is used to pass this data, as described in the section on matching a
pattern in the pcreapi documentation.
If you did not provide custom character tables when the pattern was
compiled, the pointer in the compiled pattern is NULL, which causes the
matching functions to use PCRE's internal tables. Thus, you do not need
to take any special action at run time in this case.
If you saved study data with the compiled pattern, you need to create
your own pcre[16|32]_extra data block and set the study_data field to
point to the reloaded study data. You must also set the
PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA bit in the flags field to indicate that study
data is present. Then pass the pcre[16|32]_extra block to the matching
function in the usual way. If the pattern was studied for just-in-time
optimization, that data cannot be saved, and so is lost by a
save/restore cycle.
COMPATIBILITY WITH DIFFERENT PCRE RELEASES
In general, it is safest to recompile all saved patterns when you
update to a new PCRE release, though not all updates actually require
this.
AUTHOR
Philip Hazel
University Computing Service
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
REVISION
Last updated: 24 June 2012
Copyright (c) 1997-2012 University of Cambridge.
PCRE 8.30 24 June 2012 PCREPRECOMPILE(3)
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