xref: /openbsd-src/lib/libc/regex/regex.3 (revision d32639f6ddc06f615d8e07a47d97091b3531a48f)

.\"	$OpenBSD: regex.3,v 1.30 2022/09/11 06:38:10 jmc Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1997, Phillip F Knaack. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994 Henry Spencer.
.\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" Henry Spencer.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\"	@(#)regex.3	8.4 (Berkeley) 3/20/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: September 11 2022 $
.Dt REGEXEC 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm regcomp ,
.Nm regexec ,
.Nm regerror ,
.Nm regfree
.Nd regular expression routines
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/types.h
.In regex.h
.Ft int
.Fn regcomp "regex_t *preg" "const char *pattern" "int cflags"
.Pp
.Ft int
.Fn regexec "const regex_t *preg" "const char *string" "size_t nmatch" \
            "regmatch_t pmatch[]" "int eflags"
.Pp
.Ft size_t
.Fn regerror "int errcode" "const regex_t *preg" "char *errbuf" \
             "size_t errbuf_size"
.Pp
.Ft void
.Fn regfree "regex_t *preg"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
These routines implement
.St -p1003.2
regular expressions
.Pq Dq REs ;
see
.Xr re_format 7 .
.Fn regcomp
compiles an RE written as a string into an internal form,
.Fn regexec
matches that internal form against a string and reports results,
.Fn regerror
transforms error codes from either into human-readable messages, and
.Fn regfree
frees any dynamically allocated storage used by the internal form
of an RE.
.Pp
The header
.In regex.h
declares two structure types,
.Vt regex_t
and
.Vt regmatch_t ,
the former for compiled internal forms and the latter for match reporting.
It also declares the four functions,
a type
.Vt regoff_t ,
and a number of constants with names starting with
.Dv REG_ .
.Pp
.Fn regcomp
compiles the regular expression contained in the
.Fa pattern
string,
subject to the flags in
.Fa cflags ,
and places the results in the
.Vt regex_t
structure pointed to by
.Fa preg .
The
.Fa cflags
argument is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width XREG_EXTENDEDX
.It Dv REG_EXTENDED
Compile modern
.Pq Dq extended
REs,
rather than the obsolete
.Pq Dq basic
REs that are the default.
.It Dv REG_BASIC
This is a synonym for 0,
provided as a counterpart to
.Dv REG_EXTENDED
to improve readability.
.It Dv REG_NOSPEC
Compile with recognition of all special characters turned off.
All characters are thus considered ordinary,
so the RE is a literal string.
This is an extension,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.Dv REG_EXTENDED
and
.Dv REG_NOSPEC
may not be used in the same call to
.Fn regcomp .
.It Dv REG_ICASE
Compile for matching that ignores upper/lower case distinctions.
See
.Xr re_format 7 .
.It Dv REG_NOSUB
Compile for matching that need only report success or failure,
not what was matched.
.It Dv REG_NEWLINE
Compile for newline-sensitive matching.
By default, newline is a completely ordinary character with no special
meaning in either REs or strings.
With this flag,
.Ql \&[^
bracket expressions and
.Ql \&.
never match newline,
a
.Ql ^
anchor matches the null string after any newline in the string
in addition to its normal function,
and the
.Ql $
anchor matches the null string before any newline in the
string in addition to its normal function.
.It Dv REG_PEND
The regular expression ends,
not at the first NUL,
but just before the character pointed to by the
.Fa re_endp
member of the structure pointed to by
.Fa preg .
The
.Fa re_endp
member is of type
.Fa const\ char\ * .
This flag permits inclusion of NULs in the RE;
they are considered ordinary characters.
This is an extension,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.El
.Pp
When successful,
.Fn regcomp
returns 0 and fills in the structure pointed to by
.Fa preg .
One member of that structure
(other than
.Fa re_endp )
is publicized:
.Fa re_nsub ,
of type
.Fa size_t ,
contains the number of parenthesized subexpressions within the RE
(except that the value of this member is undefined if the
.Dv REG_NOSUB
flag was used).
If
.Fn regcomp
fails, it returns a non-zero error code;
see DIAGNOSTICS.
.Pp
.Fn regexec
matches the compiled RE pointed to by
.Fa preg
against the
.Fa string ,
subject to the flags in
.Fa eflags ,
and reports results using
.Fa nmatch ,
.Fa pmatch ,
and the returned value.
The RE must have been compiled by a previous invocation of
.Fn regcomp .
The compiled form is not altered during execution of
.Fn regexec ,
so a single compiled RE can be used simultaneously by multiple threads.
.Pp
By default,
the NUL-terminated string pointed to by
.Fa string
is considered to be the text of an entire line, minus any terminating
newline.
The
.Fa eflags
argument is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width XREG_STARTENDX
.It Dv REG_NOTBOL
The first character of the string is treated as the continuation
of a line.
This means that the anchors
.Ql ^ ,
.Ql [[:<:]] ,
and
.Ql \e<
do not match before it; but see
.Dv REG_STARTEND
below.
This does not affect the behavior of newlines under
.Dv REG_NEWLINE .
.It Dv REG_NOTEOL
The NUL terminating
the string
does not end a line, so the
.Ql $
anchor does not match before it.
This does not affect the behavior of newlines under
.Dv REG_NEWLINE .
.It Dv REG_STARTEND
The string is considered to start at
.Fa string No +
.Fa pmatch Ns [0]. Ns Fa rm_so
and to end before the byte located at
.Fa string No +
.Fa pmatch Ns [0]. Ns Fa rm_eo ,
regardless of the value of
.Fa nmatch .
See below for the definition of
.Fa pmatch
and
.Fa nmatch .
This is an extension,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.Pp
Without
.Dv REG_NOTBOL ,
the position
.Fa rm_so
is considered the beginning of a line, such that
.Ql ^
matches before it, and the beginning of a word if there is a word
character at this position, such that
.Ql [[:<:]]
and
.Ql \e<
match before it.
.Pp
With
.Dv REG_NOTBOL ,
the character at position
.Fa rm_so
is treated as the continuation of a line, and if
.Fa rm_so
is greater than 0, the preceding character is taken into consideration.
If the preceding character is a newline and the regular expression was compiled
with
.Dv REG_NEWLINE ,
.Ql ^
matches before the string; if the preceding character is not a word character
but the string starts with a word character,
.Ql [[:<:]]
and
.Ql \e<
match before the string.
.El
.Pp
See
.Xr re_format 7
for a discussion of what is matched in situations where an RE or a
portion thereof could match any of several substrings of
.Fa string .
.Pp
Normally,
.Fn regexec
returns 0 for success and the non-zero code
.Dv REG_NOMATCH
for failure.
Other non-zero error codes may be returned in exceptional situations;
see DIAGNOSTICS.
.Pp
If
.Dv REG_NOSUB
was specified in the compilation of the RE,
or if
.Fa nmatch
is 0,
.Fn regexec
ignores the
.Fa pmatch
argument (but see below for the case where
.Dv REG_STARTEND
is specified).
Otherwise,
.Fa pmatch
points to an array of
.Fa nmatch
structures of type
.Vt regmatch_t .
Such a structure has at least the members
.Fa rm_so
and
.Fa rm_eo ,
both of type
.Fa regoff_t
(a signed arithmetic type at least as large as an
.Vt off_t
and a
.Vt ssize_t ) ,
containing respectively the offset of the first character of a substring
and the offset of the first character after the end of the substring.
Offsets are measured from the beginning of the
.Fa string
argument given to
.Fn regexec .
An empty substring is denoted by equal offsets,
both indicating the character following the empty substring.
.Pp
The 0th member of the
.Fa pmatch
array is filled in to indicate what substring of
.Fa string
was matched by the entire RE.
Remaining members report what substring was matched by parenthesized
subexpressions within the RE;
member
.Va i
reports subexpression
.Va i ,
with subexpressions counted (starting at 1) by the order of their opening
parentheses in the RE, left to right.
Unused entries in the array\(emcorresponding either to subexpressions that
did not participate in the match at all, or to subexpressions that do not
exist in the RE (that is, \fIi\fR\ > \fIpreg\fR\->\fIre_nsub\fR)\(emhave both
.Fa rm_so
and
.Fa rm_eo
set to \-1.
If a subexpression participated in the match several times,
the reported substring is the last one it matched.
(Note, as an example in particular, that when the RE
.Dq (b*)+
matches
.Dq bbb ,
the parenthesized subexpression matches each of the three
.Sq b Ns s
and then
an infinite number of empty strings following the last
.Sq b ,
so the reported substring is one of the empties.)
.Pp
If
.Dv REG_STARTEND
is specified,
.Fa pmatch
must point to at least one
.Vt regmatch_t
(even if
.Fa nmatch
is 0 or
.Dv REG_NOSUB
was specified),
to hold the input offsets for
.Dv REG_STARTEND .
Use for output is still entirely controlled by
.Fa nmatch ;
if
.Fa nmatch
is 0 or
.Dv REG_NOSUB
was specified,
the value of
.Fa pmatch[0]
will not be changed by a successful
.Fn regexec .
.Pp
.Fn regerror
maps a non-zero
.Va errcode
from either
.Fn regcomp
or
.Fn regexec
to a human-readable, printable message.
If
.Fa preg
is non-NULL,
the error code should have arisen from use of
the
.Vt regex_t
pointed to by
.Fa preg ,
and if the error code came from
.Fn regcomp ,
it should have been the result from the most recent
.Fn regcomp
using that
.Vt regex_t .
.Pf ( Fn regerror
may be able to supply a more detailed message using information
from the
.Vt regex_t . )
.Fn regerror
places the NUL-terminated message into the buffer pointed to by
.Fa errbuf ,
limiting the length (including the NUL) to at most
.Fa errbuf_size
bytes.
If the whole message won't fit,
as much of it as will fit before the terminating NUL is supplied.
In any case,
the returned value is the size of buffer needed to hold the whole
message (including the terminating NUL).
If
.Fa errbuf_size
is 0,
.Fa errbuf
is ignored but the return value is still correct.
.Pp
If the
.Fa errcode
given to
.Fn regerror
is first OR'ed with
.Dv REG_ITOA ,
the
.Dq message
that results is the printable name of the error code,
e.g.,
.Dq REG_NOMATCH ,
rather than an explanation thereof.
If
.Fa errcode
is
.Dv REG_ATOI ,
then
.Fa preg
shall be non-null and the
.Fa re_endp
member of the structure it points to
must point to the printable name of an error code;
in this case, the result in
.Fa errbuf
is the decimal digits of
the numeric value of the error code
(0 if the name is not recognized).
.Dv REG_ITOA
and
.Dv REG_ATOI
are intended primarily as debugging facilities;
they are extensions,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
Be warned also that they are considered experimental and changes are possible.
.Pp
.Fn regfree
frees any dynamically allocated storage associated with the compiled RE
pointed to by
.Fa preg .
The remaining
.Vt regex_t
is no longer a valid compiled RE
and the effect of supplying it to
.Fn regexec
or
.Fn regerror
is undefined.
.Pp
None of these functions references global variables except for tables
of constants;
all are safe for use from multiple threads if the arguments are safe.
.Sh IMPLEMENTATION CHOICES
There are a number of decisions that
.St -p1003.2
leaves up to the implementor,
either by explicitly saying
.Dq undefined
or by virtue of them being
forbidden by the RE grammar.
This implementation treats them as follows.
.Pp
See
.Xr re_format 7
for a discussion of the definition of case-independent matching.
.Pp
There is no particular limit on the length of REs,
except insofar as memory is limited.
Memory usage is approximately linear in RE size, and largely insensitive
to RE complexity, except for bounded repetitions.
See
.Sx BUGS
for one short RE using them
that will run almost any system out of memory.
.Pp
A backslashed character other than one specifically given a magic meaning
by
.St -p1003.2
(such magic meanings occur only in obsolete REs)
is taken as an ordinary character.
.Pp
Any unmatched
.Ql \&[
is a
.Dv REG_EBRACK
error.
.Pp
Equivalence classes cannot begin or end bracket-expression ranges.
The endpoint of one range cannot begin another.
.Pp
RE_DUP_MAX, the limit on repetition counts in bounded repetitions, is 255.
.Pp
A repetition operator (?, *, +, or bounds) cannot follow another
repetition operator.
A repetition operator cannot begin an expression or subexpression
or follow
.Ql ^
or
.Ql | .
.Pp
A
.Ql |
cannot appear first or last in a (sub)expression, or after another
.Ql | ,
i.e., an operand of
.Ql |
cannot be an empty subexpression.
An empty parenthesized subexpression,
.Ql \&(\&) ,
is legal and matches an
empty (sub)string.
An empty string is not a legal RE.
.Pp
A
.Ql {
followed by a digit is considered the beginning of bounds for a
bounded repetition, which must then follow the syntax for bounds.
A
.Ql {
.Em not
followed by a digit is considered an ordinary character.
.Pp
.Ql ^
and
.Ql $
beginning and ending subexpressions in obsolete
.Pq Dq basic
REs are anchors, not ordinary characters.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
Non-zero error codes from
.Fn regcomp
and
.Fn regexec
include the following:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -compact -width XREG_ECOLLATEX
.It Er REG_NOMATCH
.Fn regexec
failed to match
.It Er REG_BADPAT
invalid regular expression
.It Er REG_ECOLLATE
invalid collating element
.It Er REG_ECTYPE
invalid character class
.It Er REG_EESCAPE
\e applied to unescapable character
.It Er REG_ESUBREG
invalid backreference number
.It Er REG_EBRACK
brackets [ ] not balanced
.It Er REG_EPAREN
parentheses ( ) not balanced
.It Er REG_EBRACE
braces { } not balanced
.It Er REG_BADBR
invalid repetition count(s) in { }
.It Er REG_ERANGE
invalid character range in [ ]
.It Er REG_ESPACE
ran out of memory
.It Er REG_BADRPT
?, *, or + operand invalid
.It Er REG_EMPTY
empty (sub)expression
.It Er REG_ASSERT
.Dq can't happen
\(emyou found a bug
.It Er REG_INVARG
invalid argument, e.g., negative-length string
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr grep 1 ,
.Xr re_format 7
.Pp
.St -p1003.2 ,
sections 2.8 (Regular Expression Notation)
and
B.5 (C Binding for Regular Expression Matching).
.Sh HISTORY
Predecessors called
.Fn regcmp
and
.Fn regex
first appeared in PWB/UNIX 1.0.
.Pp
Predecessors
.Fn re_comp
and
.Fn re_exec
first appeared in
.Bx 4.0 ,
became part of
.In unistd.h
in
.Bx 4.4 ,
and were deleted after
.Ox 5.4 .
.Pp
Functions called
.Fn regcomp ,
.Fn regexec ,
.Fn regerror ,
and
.Fn regsub
first appeared in Version\~8
.At ,
were reimplemented and declared in
.In regexp.h
for
.Bx 4.3 Tahoe ,
and were also deleted after
.Ox 5.4 .
.Pp
Taking different arguments, the POSIX
.In regex.h
functions
.Fn regcomp ,
.Fn regexec ,
.Fn regerror ,
and
.Fn regfree
appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The
Version\~8
.At
code was implemented by
.An Rob Pike
and extracted into a library by
.An Dave Presotto .
The
.Bx 4.3 Tahoe
and
.Bx 4.4
versions were both written by
.An Henry Spencer .
.Sh BUGS
The implementation of internationalization is incomplete:
the locale is always assumed to be the default one of
.St -p1003.2 ,
and only the collating elements etc. of that locale are available.
.Pp
The back-reference code is subtle and doubts linger about its correctness
in complex cases.
.Pp
.Fn regexec
performance is poor.
This will improve with later releases.
.Fa nmatch
exceeding 0 is expensive;
.Fa nmatch
exceeding 1 is worse.
.Fn regexec
is largely insensitive to RE complexity
.Em except
that back references are massively expensive.
RE length does matter; in particular, there is a strong speed bonus
for keeping RE length under about 30 characters,
with most special characters counting roughly double.
.Pp
.Fn regcomp
implements bounded repetitions by macro expansion,
which is costly in time and space if counts are large
or bounded repetitions are nested.
A RE like, say,
.Dq ((((a{1,100}){1,100}){1,100}){1,100}){1,100}
will (eventually) run almost any existing machine out of swap space.
.Pp
There are suspected problems with response to obscure error conditions.
Notably,
certain kinds of internal overflow,
produced only by truly enormous REs or by multiply nested bounded repetitions,
are probably not handled well.
.Pp
Due to a mistake in
.St -p1003.2 ,
things like
.Ql a)b
are legal REs because
.Ql \&)
is
a special character only in the presence of a previous unmatched
.Ql \&( .
This can't be fixed until the spec is fixed.
.Pp
The standard's definition of back references is vague.
For example, does
.Dq a\e(\e(b\e)*\e2\e)*d
match
.Dq abbbd ?
Until the standard is clarified,
behavior in such cases should not be relied on.
.Pp
The implementation of word-boundary matching is a bit of a kludge,
and bugs may lurk in combinations of word-boundary matching and anchoring.