pcredemo.c

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/*************************************************
*           PCRE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM           *
*************************************************/

/* This is a demonstration program to illustrate the most straightforward ways
of calling the PCRE regular expression library from a C program. See the
pcresample documentation for a short discussion ("man pcresample" if you have
the PCRE man pages installed).

In Unix-like environments, compile this program thuswise:

  gcc -Wall pcredemo.c -I/usr/local/include -L/usr/local/lib \
    -R/usr/local/lib -lpcre

Replace "/usr/local/include" and "/usr/local/lib" with wherever the include and
library files for PCRE are installed on your system. You don't need -I and -L
if PCRE is installed in the standard system libraries. Only some operating
systems (e.g. Solaris) use the -R option.

Building under Windows:

If you want to statically link this program against a non-dll .a file, you must
define PCRE_STATIC before including pcre.h, otherwise the pcre_malloc() and
pcre_free() exported functions will be declared __declspec(dllimport), with
unwanted results. So in this environment, uncomment the following line. */

/* #define PCRE_STATIC */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <pcre.h>

#define OVECCOUNT 30    /* should be a multiple of 3 */


int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
pcre *re;
const char *error;
char *pattern;
char *subject;
unsigned char *name_table;
int erroffset;
int find_all;
int namecount;
int name_entry_size;
int ovector[OVECCOUNT];
int subject_length;
int rc, i;


/**************************************************************************
* First, sort out the command line. There is only one possible option at  *
* the moment, "-g" to request repeated matching to find all occurrences,  *
* like Perl's /g option. We set the variable find_all to a non-zero value *
* if the -g option is present. Apart from that, there must be exactly two *
* arguments.                                                              *
**************************************************************************/

find_all = 0;
for (i = 1; i < argc; i++)
  {
  if (strcmp(argv[i], "-g") == 0) find_all = 1;
    else break;
  }

/* After the options, we require exactly two arguments, which are the pattern,
and the subject string. */

if (argc - i != 2)
  {
  printf("Two arguments required: a regex and a subject string\n");
  return 1;
  }

pattern = argv[i];
subject = argv[i+1];
subject_length = (int)strlen(subject);


/*************************************************************************
* Now we are going to compile the regular expression pattern, and handle *
* and errors that are detected.                                          *
*************************************************************************/

re = pcre_compile(
  pattern,              /* the pattern */
  0,                    /* default options */
  &error,               /* for error message */
  &erroffset,           /* for error offset */
  NULL);                /* use default character tables */

/* Compilation failed: print the error message and exit */

if (re == NULL)
  {
  printf("PCRE compilation failed at offset %d: %s\n", erroffset, error);
  return 1;
  }


/*************************************************************************
* If the compilation succeeded, we call PCRE again, in order to do a     *
* pattern match against the subject string. This does just ONE match. If *
* further matching is needed, it will be done below.                     *
*************************************************************************/

rc = pcre_exec(
  re,                   /* the compiled pattern */
  NULL,                 /* no extra data - we didn't study the pattern */
  subject,              /* the subject string */
  subject_length,       /* the length of the subject */
  0,                    /* start at offset 0 in the subject */
  0,                    /* default options */
  ovector,              /* output vector for substring information */
  OVECCOUNT);           /* number of elements in the output vector */

/* Matching failed: handle error cases */

if (rc < 0)
  {
  switch(rc)
    {
    case PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH: printf("No match\n"); break;
    /*
    Handle other special cases if you like
    */
    default: printf("Matching error %d\n", rc); break;
    }
  pcre_free(re);     /* Release memory used for the compiled pattern */
  return 1;
  }

/* Match succeded */

printf("\nMatch succeeded at offset %d\n", ovector[0]);


/*************************************************************************
* We have found the first match within the subject string. If the output *
* vector wasn't big enough, say so. Then output any substrings that were *
* captured.                                                              *
*************************************************************************/

/* The output vector wasn't big enough */

if (rc == 0)
  {
  rc = OVECCOUNT/3;
  printf("ovector only has room for %d captured substrings\n", rc - 1);
  }

/* Show substrings stored in the output vector by number. Obviously, in a real
application you might want to do things other than print them. */

for (i = 0; i < rc; i++)
  {
  char *substring_start = subject + ovector[2*i];
  int substring_length = ovector[2*i+1] - ovector[2*i];
  printf("%2d: %.*s\n", i, substring_length, substring_start);
  }


/**************************************************************************
* That concludes the basic part of this demonstration program. We have    *
* compiled a pattern, and performed a single match. The code that follows *
* shows first how to access named substrings, and then how to code for    *
* repeated matches on the same subject.                                   *
**************************************************************************/

/* See if there are any named substrings, and if so, show them by name. First
we have to extract the count of named parentheses from the pattern. */

(void)pcre_fullinfo(
  re,                   /* the compiled pattern */
  NULL,                 /* no extra data - we didn't study the pattern */
  PCRE_INFO_NAMECOUNT,  /* number of named substrings */
  &namecount);          /* where to put the answer */

if (namecount <= 0) printf("No named substrings\n"); else
  {
  unsigned char *tabptr;
  printf("Named substrings\n");

  /* Before we can access the substrings, we must extract the table for
  translating names to numbers, and the size of each entry in the table. */

  (void)pcre_fullinfo(
    re,                       /* the compiled pattern */
    NULL,                     /* no extra data - we didn't study the pattern */
    PCRE_INFO_NAMETABLE,      /* address of the table */
    &name_table);             /* where to put the answer */

  (void)pcre_fullinfo(
    re,                       /* the compiled pattern */
    NULL,                     /* no extra data - we didn't study the pattern */
    PCRE_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE,  /* size of each entry in the table */
    &name_entry_size);        /* where to put the answer */

  /* Now we can scan the table and, for each entry, print the number, the name,
  and the substring itself. */

  tabptr = name_table;
  for (i = 0; i < namecount; i++)
    {
    int n = (tabptr[0] << 8) | tabptr[1];
    printf("(%d) %*s: %.*s\n", n, name_entry_size - 3, tabptr + 2,
      ovector[2*n+1] - ovector[2*n], subject + ovector[2*n]);
    tabptr += name_entry_size;
    }
  }


/*************************************************************************
* If the "-g" option was given on the command line, we want to continue  *
* to search for additional matches in the subject string, in a similar   *
* way to the /g option in Perl. This turns out to be trickier than you   *
* might think because of the possibility of matching an empty string.    *
* What happens is as follows:                                            *
*                                                                        *
* If the previous match was NOT for an empty string, we can just start   *
* the next match at the end of the previous one.                         *
*                                                                        *
* If the previous match WAS for an empty string, we can't do that, as it *
* would lead to an infinite loop. Instead, a special call of pcre_exec() *
* is made with the PCRE_NOTEMPTY and PCRE_ANCHORED flags set. The first  *
* of these tells PCRE that an empty string is not a valid match; other   *
* possibilities must be tried. The second flag restricts PCRE to one     *
* match attempt at the initial string position. If this match succeeds,  *
* an alternative to the empty string match has been found, and we can    *
* proceed round the loop.                                                *
*************************************************************************/

if (!find_all)
  {
  pcre_free(re);   /* Release the memory used for the compiled pattern */
  return 0;        /* Finish unless -g was given */
  }

/* Loop for second and subsequent matches */

for (;;)
  {
  int options = 0;                 /* Normally no options */
  int start_offset = ovector[1];   /* Start at end of previous match */

  /* If the previous match was for an empty string, we are finished if we are
  at the end of the subject. Otherwise, arrange to run another match at the
  same point to see if a non-empty match can be found. */

  if (ovector[0] == ovector[1])
    {
    if (ovector[0] == subject_length) break;
    options = PCRE_NOTEMPTY | PCRE_ANCHORED;
    }

  /* Run the next matching operation */

  rc = pcre_exec(
    re,                   /* the compiled pattern */
    NULL,                 /* no extra data - we didn't study the pattern */
    subject,              /* the subject string */
    subject_length,       /* the length of the subject */
    start_offset,         /* starting offset in the subject */
    options,              /* options */
    ovector,              /* output vector for substring information */
    OVECCOUNT);           /* number of elements in the output vector */

  /* This time, a result of NOMATCH isn't an error. If the value in "options"
  is zero, it just means we have found all possible matches, so the loop ends.
  Otherwise, it means we have failed to find a non-empty-string match at a
  point where there was a previous empty-string match. In this case, we do what
  Perl does: advance the matching position by one, and continue. We do this by
  setting the "end of previous match" offset, because that is picked up at the
  top of the loop as the point at which to start again. */

  if (rc == PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH)
    {
    if (options == 0) break;
    ovector[1] = start_offset + 1;
    continue;    /* Go round the loop again */
    }

  /* Other matching errors are not recoverable. */

  if (rc < 0)
    {
    printf("Matching error %d\n", rc);
    pcre_free(re);    /* Release memory used for the compiled pattern */
    return 1;
    }

  /* Match succeded */

  printf("\nMatch succeeded again at offset %d\n", ovector[0]);

  /* The match succeeded, but the output vector wasn't big enough. */

  if (rc == 0)
    {
    rc = OVECCOUNT/3;
    printf("ovector only has room for %d captured substrings\n", rc - 1);
    }

  /* As before, show substrings stored in the output vector by number, and then
  also any named substrings. */

  for (i = 0; i < rc; i++)
    {
    char *substring_start = subject + ovector[2*i];
    int substring_length = ovector[2*i+1] - ovector[2*i];
    printf("%2d: %.*s\n", i, substring_length, substring_start);
    }

  if (namecount <= 0) printf("No named substrings\n"); else
    {
    unsigned char *tabptr = name_table;
    printf("Named substrings\n");
    for (i = 0; i < namecount; i++)
      {
      int n = (tabptr[0] << 8) | tabptr[1];
      printf("(%d) %*s: %.*s\n", n, name_entry_size - 3, tabptr + 2,
        ovector[2*n+1] - ovector[2*n], subject + ovector[2*n]);
      tabptr += name_entry_size;
      }
    }
  }      /* End of loop to find second and subsequent matches */

printf("\n");
pcre_free(re);       /* Release memory used for the compiled pattern */
return 0;
}

/* End of pcredemo.c */

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