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- <html>
- <head>
- <title>pcre2grep specification</title>
- </head>
- <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
- <h1>pcre2grep man page</h1>
- <p>
- Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
- </p>
- <p>
- This page is part of the PCRE2 HTML documentation. It was generated
- automatically from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it,
- please consult the man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
- <br>
- <ul>
- <li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">SYNOPSIS</a>
- <li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">DESCRIPTION</a>
- <li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">SUPPORT FOR COMPRESSED FILES</a>
- <li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">BINARY FILES</a>
- <li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">BINARY ZEROS IN PATTERNS</a>
- <li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">OPTIONS</a>
- <li><a name="TOC7" href="#SEC7">ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES</a>
- <li><a name="TOC8" href="#SEC8">NEWLINES</a>
- <li><a name="TOC9" href="#SEC9">OPTIONS COMPATIBILITY</a>
- <li><a name="TOC10" href="#SEC10">OPTIONS WITH DATA</a>
- <li><a name="TOC11" href="#SEC11">USING PCRE2'S CALLOUT FACILITY</a>
- <li><a name="TOC12" href="#SEC12">MATCHING ERRORS</a>
- <li><a name="TOC13" href="#SEC13">DIAGNOSTICS</a>
- <li><a name="TOC14" href="#SEC14">SEE ALSO</a>
- <li><a name="TOC15" href="#SEC15">AUTHOR</a>
- <li><a name="TOC16" href="#SEC16">REVISION</a>
- </ul>
- <br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">SYNOPSIS</a><br>
- <P>
- <b>pcre2grep [options] [long options] [pattern] [path1 path2 ...]</b>
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">DESCRIPTION</a><br>
- <P>
- <b>pcre2grep</b> searches files for character patterns, in the same way as other
- grep commands do, but it uses the PCRE2 regular expression library to support
- patterns that are compatible with the regular expressions of Perl 5. See
- <a href="pcre2syntax.html"><b>pcre2syntax</b>(3)</a>
- for a quick-reference summary of pattern syntax, or
- <a href="pcre2pattern.html"><b>pcre2pattern</b>(3)</a>
- for a full description of the syntax and semantics of the regular expressions
- that PCRE2 supports.
- </P>
- <P>
- Patterns, whether supplied on the command line or in a separate file, are given
- without delimiters. For example:
- <pre>
- pcre2grep Thursday /etc/motd
- </pre>
- If you attempt to use delimiters (for example, by surrounding a pattern with
- slashes, as is common in Perl scripts), they are interpreted as part of the
- pattern. Quotes can of course be used to delimit patterns on the command line
- because they are interpreted by the shell, and indeed quotes are required if a
- pattern contains white space or shell metacharacters.
- </P>
- <P>
- The first argument that follows any option settings is treated as the single
- pattern to be matched when neither <b>-e</b> nor <b>-f</b> is present.
- Conversely, when one or both of these options are used to specify patterns, all
- arguments are treated as path names. At least one of <b>-e</b>, <b>-f</b>, or an
- argument pattern must be provided.
- </P>
- <P>
- If no files are specified, <b>pcre2grep</b> reads the standard input. The
- standard input can also be referenced by a name consisting of a single hyphen.
- For example:
- <pre>
- pcre2grep some-pattern file1 - file3
- </pre>
- Input files are searched line by line. By default, each line that matches a
- pattern is copied to the standard output, and if there is more than one file,
- the file name is output at the start of each line, followed by a colon.
- However, there are options that can change how <b>pcre2grep</b> behaves. In
- particular, the <b>-M</b> option makes it possible to search for strings that
- span line boundaries. What defines a line boundary is controlled by the
- <b>-N</b> (<b>--newline</b>) option.
- </P>
- <P>
- The amount of memory used for buffering files that are being scanned is
- controlled by parameters that can be set by the <b>--buffer-size</b> and
- <b>--max-buffer-size</b> options. The first of these sets the size of buffer
- that is obtained at the start of processing. If an input file contains very
- long lines, a larger buffer may be needed; this is handled by automatically
- extending the buffer, up to the limit specified by <b>--max-buffer-size</b>. The
- default values for these parameters can be set when <b>pcre2grep</b> is
- built; if nothing is specified, the defaults are set to 20KiB and 1MiB
- respectively. An error occurs if a line is too long and the buffer can no
- longer be expanded.
- </P>
- <P>
- The block of memory that is actually used is three times the "buffer size", to
- allow for buffering "before" and "after" lines. If the buffer size is too
- small, fewer than requested "before" and "after" lines may be output.
- </P>
- <P>
- Patterns can be no longer than 8KiB or BUFSIZ bytes, whichever is the greater.
- BUFSIZ is defined in <b><stdio.h></b>. When there is more than one pattern
- (specified by the use of <b>-e</b> and/or <b>-f</b>), each pattern is applied to
- each line in the order in which they are defined, except that all the <b>-e</b>
- patterns are tried before the <b>-f</b> patterns.
- </P>
- <P>
- By default, as soon as one pattern matches a line, no further patterns are
- considered. However, if <b>--colour</b> (or <b>--color</b>) is used to colour the
- matching substrings, or if <b>--only-matching</b>, <b>--file-offsets</b>, or
- <b>--line-offsets</b> is used to output only the part of the line that matched
- (either shown literally, or as an offset), scanning resumes immediately
- following the match, so that further matches on the same line can be found. If
- there are multiple patterns, they are all tried on the remainder of the line,
- but patterns that follow the one that matched are not tried on the earlier
- matched part of the line.
- </P>
- <P>
- This behaviour means that the order in which multiple patterns are specified
- can affect the output when one of the above options is used. This is no longer
- the same behaviour as GNU grep, which now manages to display earlier matches
- for later patterns (as long as there is no overlap).
- </P>
- <P>
- Patterns that can match an empty string are accepted, but empty string
- matches are never recognized. An example is the pattern "(super)?(man)?", in
- which all components are optional. This pattern finds all occurrences of both
- "super" and "man"; the output differs from matching with "super|man" when only
- the matching substrings are being shown.
- </P>
- <P>
- If the <b>LC_ALL</b> or <b>LC_CTYPE</b> environment variable is set,
- <b>pcre2grep</b> uses the value to set a locale when calling the PCRE2 library.
- The <b>--locale</b> option can be used to override this.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">SUPPORT FOR COMPRESSED FILES</a><br>
- <P>
- It is possible to compile <b>pcre2grep</b> so that it uses <b>libz</b> or
- <b>libbz2</b> to read compressed files whose names end in <b>.gz</b> or
- <b>.bz2</b>, respectively. You can find out whether your <b>pcre2grep</b> binary
- has support for one or both of these file types by running it with the
- <b>--help</b> option. If the appropriate support is not present, all files are
- treated as plain text. The standard input is always so treated. When input is
- from a compressed .gz or .bz2 file, the <b>--line-buffered</b> option is
- ignored.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">BINARY FILES</a><br>
- <P>
- By default, a file that contains a binary zero byte within the first 1024 bytes
- is identified as a binary file, and is processed specially. However, if the
- newline type is specified as NUL, that is, the line terminator is a binary
- zero, the test for a binary file is not applied. See the <b>--binary-files</b>
- option for a means of changing the way binary files are handled.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">BINARY ZEROS IN PATTERNS</a><br>
- <P>
- Patterns passed from the command line are strings that are terminated by a
- binary zero, so cannot contain internal zeros. However, patterns that are read
- from a file via the <b>-f</b> option may contain binary zeros.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">OPTIONS</a><br>
- <P>
- The order in which some of the options appear can affect the output. For
- example, both the <b>-H</b> and <b>-l</b> options affect the printing of file
- names. Whichever comes later in the command line will be the one that takes
- effect. Similarly, except where noted below, if an option is given twice, the
- later setting is used. Numerical values for options may be followed by K or M,
- to signify multiplication by 1024 or 1024*1024 respectively.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--</b>
- This terminates the list of options. It is useful if the next item on the
- command line starts with a hyphen but is not an option. This allows for the
- processing of patterns and file names that start with hyphens.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-A</b> <i>number</i>, <b>--after-context=</b><i>number</i>
- Output up to <i>number</i> lines of context after each matching line. Fewer
- lines are output if the next match or the end of the file is reached, or if the
- processing buffer size has been set too small. If file names and/or line
- numbers are being output, a hyphen separator is used instead of a colon for the
- context lines. A line containing "--" is output between each group of lines,
- unless they are in fact contiguous in the input file. The value of <i>number</i>
- is expected to be relatively small. When <b>-c</b> is used, <b>-A</b> is ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-a</b>, <b>--text</b>
- Treat binary files as text. This is equivalent to
- <b>--binary-files</b>=<i>text</i>.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-B</b> <i>number</i>, <b>--before-context=</b><i>number</i>
- Output up to <i>number</i> lines of context before each matching line. Fewer
- lines are output if the previous match or the start of the file is within
- <i>number</i> lines, or if the processing buffer size has been set too small. If
- file names and/or line numbers are being output, a hyphen separator is used
- instead of a colon for the context lines. A line containing "--" is output
- between each group of lines, unless they are in fact contiguous in the input
- file. The value of <i>number</i> is expected to be relatively small. When
- <b>-c</b> is used, <b>-B</b> is ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--binary-files=</b><i>word</i>
- Specify how binary files are to be processed. If the word is "binary" (the
- default), pattern matching is performed on binary files, but the only output is
- "Binary file <name> matches" when a match succeeds. If the word is "text",
- which is equivalent to the <b>-a</b> or <b>--text</b> option, binary files are
- processed in the same way as any other file. In this case, when a match
- succeeds, the output may be binary garbage, which can have nasty effects if
- sent to a terminal. If the word is "without-match", which is equivalent to the
- <b>-I</b> option, binary files are not processed at all; they are assumed not to
- be of interest and are skipped without causing any output or affecting the
- return code.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--buffer-size=</b><i>number</i>
- Set the parameter that controls how much memory is obtained at the start of
- processing for buffering files that are being scanned. See also
- <b>--max-buffer-size</b> below.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-C</b> <i>number</i>, <b>--context=</b><i>number</i>
- Output <i>number</i> lines of context both before and after each matching line.
- This is equivalent to setting both <b>-A</b> and <b>-B</b> to the same value.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-c</b>, <b>--count</b>
- Do not output lines from the files that are being scanned; instead output the
- number of lines that would have been shown, either because they matched, or, if
- <b>-v</b> is set, because they failed to match. By default, this count is
- exactly the same as the number of lines that would have been output, but if the
- <b>-M</b> (multiline) option is used (without <b>-v</b>), there may be more
- suppressed lines than the count (that is, the number of matches).
- <br>
- <br>
- If no lines are selected, the number zero is output. If several files are are
- being scanned, a count is output for each of them and the <b>-t</b> option can
- be used to cause a total to be output at the end. However, if the
- <b>--files-with-matches</b> option is also used, only those files whose counts
- are greater than zero are listed. When <b>-c</b> is used, the <b>-A</b>,
- <b>-B</b>, and <b>-C</b> options are ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--colour</b>, <b>--color</b>
- If this option is given without any data, it is equivalent to "--colour=auto".
- If data is required, it must be given in the same shell item, separated by an
- equals sign.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--colour=</b><i>value</i>, <b>--color=</b><i>value</i>
- This option specifies under what circumstances the parts of a line that matched
- a pattern should be coloured in the output. By default, the output is not
- coloured. The value (which is optional, see above) may be "never", "always", or
- "auto". In the latter case, colouring happens only if the standard output is
- connected to a terminal. More resources are used when colouring is enabled,
- because <b>pcre2grep</b> has to search for all possible matches in a line, not
- just one, in order to colour them all.
- <br>
- <br>
- The colour that is used can be specified by setting one of the environment
- variables PCRE2GREP_COLOUR, PCRE2GREP_COLOR, PCREGREP_COLOUR, or
- PCREGREP_COLOR, which are checked in that order. If none of these are set,
- <b>pcre2grep</b> looks for GREP_COLORS or GREP_COLOR (in that order). The value
- of the variable should be a string of two numbers, separated by a semicolon,
- except in the case of GREP_COLORS, which must start with "ms=" or "mt="
- followed by two semicolon-separated colours, terminated by the end of the
- string or by a colon. If GREP_COLORS does not start with "ms=" or "mt=" it is
- ignored, and GREP_COLOR is checked.
- <br>
- <br>
- If the string obtained from one of the above variables contains any characters
- other than semicolon or digits, the setting is ignored and the default colour
- is used. The string is copied directly into the control string for setting
- colour on a terminal, so it is your responsibility to ensure that the values
- make sense. If no relevant environment variable is set, the default is "1;31",
- which gives red.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-D</b> <i>action</i>, <b>--devices=</b><i>action</i>
- If an input path is not a regular file or a directory, "action" specifies how
- it is to be processed. Valid values are "read" (the default) or "skip"
- (silently skip the path).
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-d</b> <i>action</i>, <b>--directories=</b><i>action</i>
- If an input path is a directory, "action" specifies how it is to be processed.
- Valid values are "read" (the default in non-Windows environments, for
- compatibility with GNU grep), "recurse" (equivalent to the <b>-r</b> option), or
- "skip" (silently skip the path, the default in Windows environments). In the
- "read" case, directories are read as if they were ordinary files. In some
- operating systems the effect of reading a directory like this is an immediate
- end-of-file; in others it may provoke an error.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--depth-limit</b>=<i>number</i>
- See <b>--match-limit</b> below.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-e</b> <i>pattern</i>, <b>--regex=</b><i>pattern</i>, <b>--regexp=</b><i>pattern</i>
- Specify a pattern to be matched. This option can be used multiple times in
- order to specify several patterns. It can also be used as a way of specifying a
- single pattern that starts with a hyphen. When <b>-e</b> is used, no argument
- pattern is taken from the command line; all arguments are treated as file
- names. There is no limit to the number of patterns. They are applied to each
- line in the order in which they are defined until one matches.
- <br>
- <br>
- If <b>-f</b> is used with <b>-e</b>, the command line patterns are matched first,
- followed by the patterns from the file(s), independent of the order in which
- these options are specified. Note that multiple use of <b>-e</b> is not the same
- as a single pattern with alternatives. For example, X|Y finds the first
- character in a line that is X or Y, whereas if the two patterns are given
- separately, with X first, <b>pcre2grep</b> finds X if it is present, even if it
- follows Y in the line. It finds Y only if there is no X in the line. This
- matters only if you are using <b>-o</b> or <b>--colo(u)r</b> to show the part(s)
- of the line that matched.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--exclude</b>=<i>pattern</i>
- Files (but not directories) whose names match the pattern are skipped without
- being processed. This applies to all files, whether listed on the command line,
- obtained from <b>--file-list</b>, or by scanning a directory. The pattern is a
- PCRE2 regular expression, and is matched against the final component of the
- file name, not the entire path. The <b>-F</b>, <b>-w</b>, and <b>-x</b> options do
- not apply to this pattern. The option may be given any number of times in order
- to specify multiple patterns. If a file name matches both an <b>--include</b>
- and an <b>--exclude</b> pattern, it is excluded. There is no short form for this
- option.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--exclude-from=</b><i>filename</i>
- Treat each non-empty line of the file as the data for an <b>--exclude</b>
- option. What constitutes a newline when reading the file is the operating
- system's default. The <b>--newline</b> option has no effect on this option. This
- option may be given more than once in order to specify a number of files to
- read.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--exclude-dir</b>=<i>pattern</i>
- Directories whose names match the pattern are skipped without being processed,
- whatever the setting of the <b>--recursive</b> option. This applies to all
- directories, whether listed on the command line, obtained from
- <b>--file-list</b>, or by scanning a parent directory. The pattern is a PCRE2
- regular expression, and is matched against the final component of the directory
- name, not the entire path. The <b>-F</b>, <b>-w</b>, and <b>-x</b> options do not
- apply to this pattern. The option may be given any number of times in order to
- specify more than one pattern. If a directory matches both <b>--include-dir</b>
- and <b>--exclude-dir</b>, it is excluded. There is no short form for this
- option.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-F</b>, <b>--fixed-strings</b>
- Interpret each data-matching pattern as a list of fixed strings, separated by
- newlines, instead of as a regular expression. What constitutes a newline for
- this purpose is controlled by the <b>--newline</b> option. The <b>-w</b> (match
- as a word) and <b>-x</b> (match whole line) options can be used with <b>-F</b>.
- They apply to each of the fixed strings. A line is selected if any of the fixed
- strings are found in it (subject to <b>-w</b> or <b>-x</b>, if present). This
- option applies only to the patterns that are matched against the contents of
- files; it does not apply to patterns specified by any of the <b>--include</b> or
- <b>--exclude</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-f</b> <i>filename</i>, <b>--file=</b><i>filename</i>
- Read patterns from the file, one per line, and match them against each line of
- input. As is the case with patterns on the command line, no delimiters should
- be used. What constitutes a newline when reading the file is the operating
- system's default interpretation of \n. The <b>--newline</b> option has no
- effect on this option. Trailing white space is removed from each line, and
- blank lines are ignored. An empty file contains no patterns and therefore
- matches nothing. Patterns read from a file in this way may contain binary
- zeros, which are treated as ordinary data characters. See also the comments
- about multiple patterns versus a single pattern with alternatives in the
- description of <b>-e</b> above.
- <br>
- <br>
- If this option is given more than once, all the specified files are read. A
- data line is output if any of the patterns match it. A file name can be given
- as "-" to refer to the standard input. When <b>-f</b> is used, patterns
- specified on the command line using <b>-e</b> may also be present; they are
- tested before the file's patterns. However, no other pattern is taken from the
- command line; all arguments are treated as the names of paths to be searched.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--file-list</b>=<i>filename</i>
- Read a list of files and/or directories that are to be scanned from the given
- file, one per line. What constitutes a newline when reading the file is the
- operating system's default. Trailing white space is removed from each line, and
- blank lines are ignored. These paths are processed before any that are listed
- on the command line. The file name can be given as "-" to refer to the standard
- input. If <b>--file</b> and <b>--file-list</b> are both specified as "-",
- patterns are read first. This is useful only when the standard input is a
- terminal, from which further lines (the list of files) can be read after an
- end-of-file indication. If this option is given more than once, all the
- specified files are read.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--file-offsets</b>
- Instead of showing lines or parts of lines that match, show each match as an
- offset from the start of the file and a length, separated by a comma. In this
- mode, no context is shown. That is, the <b>-A</b>, <b>-B</b>, and <b>-C</b>
- options are ignored. If there is more than one match in a line, each of them is
- shown separately. This option is mutually exclusive with <b>--output</b>,
- <b>--line-offsets</b>, and <b>--only-matching</b>.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-H</b>, <b>--with-filename</b>
- Force the inclusion of the file name at the start of output lines when
- searching a single file. By default, the file name is not shown in this case.
- For matching lines, the file name is followed by a colon; for context lines, a
- hyphen separator is used. If a line number is also being output, it follows the
- file name. When the <b>-M</b> option causes a pattern to match more than one
- line, only the first is preceded by the file name. This option overrides any
- previous <b>-h</b>, <b>-l</b>, or <b>-L</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-h</b>, <b>--no-filename</b>
- Suppress the output file names when searching multiple files. By default,
- file names are shown when multiple files are searched. For matching lines, the
- file name is followed by a colon; for context lines, a hyphen separator is used.
- If a line number is also being output, it follows the file name. This option
- overrides any previous <b>-H</b>, <b>-L</b>, or <b>-l</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--heap-limit</b>=<i>number</i>
- See <b>--match-limit</b> below.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--help</b>
- Output a help message, giving brief details of the command options and file
- type support, and then exit. Anything else on the command line is
- ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-I</b>
- Ignore binary files. This is equivalent to
- <b>--binary-files</b>=<i>without-match</i>.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-i</b>, <b>--ignore-case</b>
- Ignore upper/lower case distinctions during comparisons.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--include</b>=<i>pattern</i>
- If any <b>--include</b> patterns are specified, the only files that are
- processed are those whose names match one of the patterns and do not match an
- <b>--exclude</b> pattern. This option does not affect directories, but it
- applies to all files, whether listed on the command line, obtained from
- <b>--file-list</b>, or by scanning a directory. The pattern is a PCRE2 regular
- expression, and is matched against the final component of the file name, not
- the entire path. The <b>-F</b>, <b>-w</b>, and <b>-x</b> options do not apply to
- this pattern. The option may be given any number of times. If a file name
- matches both an <b>--include</b> and an <b>--exclude</b> pattern, it is excluded.
- There is no short form for this option.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--include-from=</b><i>filename</i>
- Treat each non-empty line of the file as the data for an <b>--include</b>
- option. What constitutes a newline for this purpose is the operating system's
- default. The <b>--newline</b> option has no effect on this option. This option
- may be given any number of times; all the files are read.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--include-dir</b>=<i>pattern</i>
- If any <b>--include-dir</b> patterns are specified, the only directories that
- are processed are those whose names match one of the patterns and do not match
- an <b>--exclude-dir</b> pattern. This applies to all directories, whether listed
- on the command line, obtained from <b>--file-list</b>, or by scanning a parent
- directory. The pattern is a PCRE2 regular expression, and is matched against
- the final component of the directory name, not the entire path. The <b>-F</b>,
- <b>-w</b>, and <b>-x</b> options do not apply to this pattern. The option may be
- given any number of times. If a directory matches both <b>--include-dir</b> and
- <b>--exclude-dir</b>, it is excluded. There is no short form for this option.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-L</b>, <b>--files-without-match</b>
- Instead of outputting lines from the files, just output the names of the files
- that do not contain any lines that would have been output. Each file name is
- output once, on a separate line. This option overrides any previous <b>-H</b>,
- <b>-h</b>, or <b>-l</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-l</b>, <b>--files-with-matches</b>
- Instead of outputting lines from the files, just output the names of the files
- containing lines that would have been output. Each file name is output once, on
- a separate line. Searching normally stops as soon as a matching line is found
- in a file. However, if the <b>-c</b> (count) option is also used, matching
- continues in order to obtain the correct count, and those files that have at
- least one match are listed along with their counts. Using this option with
- <b>-c</b> is a way of suppressing the listing of files with no matches that
- occurs with <b>-c</b> on its own. This option overrides any previous <b>-H</b>,
- <b>-h</b>, or <b>-L</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--label</b>=<i>name</i>
- This option supplies a name to be used for the standard input when file names
- are being output. If not supplied, "(standard input)" is used. There is no
- short form for this option.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--line-buffered</b>
- When this option is given, non-compressed input is read and processed line by
- line, and the output is flushed after each write. By default, input is read in
- large chunks, unless <b>pcre2grep</b> can determine that it is reading from a
- terminal, which is currently possible only in Unix-like environments or
- Windows. Output to terminal is normally automatically flushed by the operating
- system. This option can be useful when the input or output is attached to a
- pipe and you do not want <b>pcre2grep</b> to buffer up large amounts of data.
- However, its use will affect performance, and the <b>-M</b> (multiline) option
- ceases to work. When input is from a compressed .gz or .bz2 file,
- <b>--line-buffered</b> is ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--line-offsets</b>
- Instead of showing lines or parts of lines that match, show each match as a
- line number, the offset from the start of the line, and a length. The line
- number is terminated by a colon (as usual; see the <b>-n</b> option), and the
- offset and length are separated by a comma. In this mode, no context is shown.
- That is, the <b>-A</b>, <b>-B</b>, and <b>-C</b> options are ignored. If there is
- more than one match in a line, each of them is shown separately. This option is
- mutually exclusive with <b>--output</b>, <b>--file-offsets</b>, and
- <b>--only-matching</b>.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--locale</b>=<i>locale-name</i>
- This option specifies a locale to be used for pattern matching. It overrides
- the value in the <b>LC_ALL</b> or <b>LC_CTYPE</b> environment variables. If no
- locale is specified, the PCRE2 library's default (usually the "C" locale) is
- used. There is no short form for this option.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-M</b>, <b>--multiline</b>
- Allow patterns to match more than one line. When this option is set, the PCRE2
- library is called in "multiline" mode. This allows a matched string to extend
- past the end of a line and continue on one or more subsequent lines. Patterns
- used with <b>-M</b> may usefully contain literal newline characters and internal
- occurrences of ^ and $ characters. The output for a successful match may
- consist of more than one line. The first line is the line in which the match
- started, and the last line is the line in which the match ended. If the matched
- string ends with a newline sequence, the output ends at the end of that line.
- If <b>-v</b> is set, none of the lines in a multi-line match are output. Once a
- match has been handled, scanning restarts at the beginning of the line after
- the one in which the match ended.
- <br>
- <br>
- The newline sequence that separates multiple lines must be matched as part of
- the pattern. For example, to find the phrase "regular expression" in a file
- where "regular" might be at the end of a line and "expression" at the start of
- the next line, you could use this command:
- <pre>
- pcre2grep -M 'regular\s+expression' <file>
- </pre>
- The \s escape sequence matches any white space character, including newlines,
- and is followed by + so as to match trailing white space on the first line as
- well as possibly handling a two-character newline sequence.
- <br>
- <br>
- There is a limit to the number of lines that can be matched, imposed by the way
- that <b>pcre2grep</b> buffers the input file as it scans it. With a sufficiently
- large processing buffer, this should not be a problem, but the <b>-M</b> option
- does not work when input is read line by line (see <b>--line-buffered</b>.)
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-m</b> <i>number</i>, <b>--max-count</b>=<i>number</i>
- Stop processing after finding <i>number</i> matching lines, or non-matching
- lines if <b>-v</b> is also set. Any trailing context lines are output after the
- final match. In multiline mode, each multiline match counts as just one line
- for this purpose. If this limit is reached when reading the standard input from
- a regular file, the file is left positioned just after the last matching line.
- If <b>-c</b> is also set, the count that is output is never greater than
- <i>number</i>. This option has no effect if used with <b>-L</b>, <b>-l</b>, or
- <b>-q</b>, or when just checking for a match in a binary file.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--match-limit</b>=<i>number</i>
- Processing some regular expression patterns may take a very long time to search
- for all possible matching strings. Others may require a very large amount of
- memory. There are three options that set resource limits for matching.
- <br>
- <br>
- The <b>--match-limit</b> option provides a means of limiting computing resource
- usage when processing patterns that are not going to match, but which have a
- very large number of possibilities in their search trees. The classic example
- is a pattern that uses nested unlimited repeats. Internally, PCRE2 has a
- counter that is incremented each time around its main processing loop. If the
- value set by <b>--match-limit</b> is reached, an error occurs.
- <br>
- <br>
- The <b>--heap-limit</b> option specifies, as a number of kibibytes (units of
- 1024 bytes), the amount of heap memory that may be used for matching. Heap
- memory is needed only if matching the pattern requires a significant number of
- nested backtracking points to be remembered. This parameter can be set to zero
- to forbid the use of heap memory altogether.
- <br>
- <br>
- The <b>--depth-limit</b> option limits the depth of nested backtracking points,
- which indirectly limits the amount of memory that is used. The amount of memory
- needed for each backtracking point depends on the number of capturing
- parentheses in the pattern, so the amount of memory that is used before this
- limit acts varies from pattern to pattern. This limit is of use only if it is
- set smaller than <b>--match-limit</b>.
- <br>
- <br>
- There are no short forms for these options. The default limits can be set
- when the PCRE2 library is compiled; if they are not specified, the defaults
- are very large and so effectively unlimited.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--max-buffer-size</b>=<i>number</i>
- This limits the expansion of the processing buffer, whose initial size can be
- set by <b>--buffer-size</b>. The maximum buffer size is silently forced to be no
- smaller than the starting buffer size.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-N</b> <i>newline-type</i>, <b>--newline</b>=<i>newline-type</i>
- Six different conventions for indicating the ends of lines in scanned files are
- supported. For example:
- <pre>
- pcre2grep -N CRLF 'some pattern' <file>
- </pre>
- The newline type may be specified in upper, lower, or mixed case. If the
- newline type is NUL, lines are separated by binary zero characters. The other
- types are the single-character sequences CR (carriage return) and LF
- (linefeed), the two-character sequence CRLF, an "anycrlf" type, which
- recognizes any of the preceding three types, and an "any" type, for which any
- Unicode line ending sequence is assumed to end a line. The Unicode sequences
- are the three just mentioned, plus VT (vertical tab, U+000B), FF (form feed,
- U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), and PS
- (paragraph separator, U+2029).
- <br>
- <br>
- When the PCRE2 library is built, a default line-ending sequence is specified.
- This is normally the standard sequence for the operating system. Unless
- otherwise specified by this option, <b>pcre2grep</b> uses the library's default.
- <br>
- <br>
- This option makes it possible to use <b>pcre2grep</b> to scan files that have
- come from other environments without having to modify their line endings. If
- the data that is being scanned does not agree with the convention set by this
- option, <b>pcre2grep</b> may behave in strange ways. Note that this option does
- not apply to files specified by the <b>-f</b>, <b>--exclude-from</b>, or
- <b>--include-from</b> options, which are expected to use the operating system's
- standard newline sequence.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-n</b>, <b>--line-number</b>
- Precede each output line by its line number in the file, followed by a colon
- for matching lines or a hyphen for context lines. If the file name is also
- being output, it precedes the line number. When the <b>-M</b> option causes a
- pattern to match more than one line, only the first is preceded by its line
- number. This option is forced if <b>--line-offsets</b> is used.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--no-jit</b>
- If the PCRE2 library is built with support for just-in-time compiling (which
- speeds up matching), <b>pcre2grep</b> automatically makes use of this, unless it
- was explicitly disabled at build time. This option can be used to disable the
- use of JIT at run time. It is provided for testing and working round problems.
- It should never be needed in normal use.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-O</b> <i>text</i>, <b>--output</b>=<i>text</i>
- When there is a match, instead of outputting the line that matched, output just
- the text specified in this option, followed by an operating-system standard
- newline. In this mode, no context is shown. That is, the <b>-A</b>, <b>-B</b>,
- and <b>-C</b> options are ignored. The <b>--newline</b> option has no effect on
- this option, which is mutually exclusive with <b>--only-matching</b>,
- <b>--file-offsets</b>, and <b>--line-offsets</b>. However, like
- <b>--only-matching</b>, if there is more than one match in a line, each of them
- causes a line of output.
- <br>
- <br>
- Escape sequences starting with a dollar character may be used to insert the
- contents of the matched part of the line and/or captured substrings into the
- text.
- <br>
- <br>
- $<digits> or ${<digits>} is replaced by the captured substring of the given
- decimal number; zero substitutes the whole match. If the number is greater than
- the number of capturing substrings, or if the capture is unset, the replacement
- is empty.
- <br>
- <br>
- $a is replaced by bell; $b by backspace; $e by escape; $f by form feed; $n by
- newline; $r by carriage return; $t by tab; $v by vertical tab.
- <br>
- <br>
- $o<digits> or $o{<digits>} is replaced by the character whose code point is the
- given octal number. In the first form, up to three octal digits are processed.
- When more digits are needed in Unicode mode to specify a wide character, the
- second form must be used.
- <br>
- <br>
- $x<digits> or $x{<digits>} is replaced by the character represented by the
- given hexadecimal number. In the first form, up to two hexadecimal digits are
- processed. When more digits are needed in Unicode mode to specify a wide
- character, the second form must be used.
- <br>
- <br>
- Any other character is substituted by itself. In particular, $$ is replaced by
- a single dollar.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-o</b>, <b>--only-matching</b>
- Show only the part of the line that matched a pattern instead of the whole
- line. In this mode, no context is shown. That is, the <b>-A</b>, <b>-B</b>, and
- <b>-C</b> options are ignored. If there is more than one match in a line, each
- of them is shown separately, on a separate line of output. If <b>-o</b> is
- combined with <b>-v</b> (invert the sense of the match to find non-matching
- lines), no output is generated, but the return code is set appropriately. If
- the matched portion of the line is empty, nothing is output unless the file
- name or line number are being printed, in which case they are shown on an
- otherwise empty line. This option is mutually exclusive with <b>--output</b>,
- <b>--file-offsets</b> and <b>--line-offsets</b>.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-o</b><i>number</i>, <b>--only-matching</b>=<i>number</i>
- Show only the part of the line that matched the capturing parentheses of the
- given number. Up to 50 capturing parentheses are supported by default. This
- limit can be changed via the <b>--om-capture</b> option. A pattern may contain
- any number of capturing parentheses, but only those whose number is within the
- limit can be accessed by <b>-o</b>. An error occurs if the number specified by
- <b>-o</b> is greater than the limit.
- <br>
- <br>
- -o0 is the same as <b>-o</b> without a number. Because these options can be
- given without an argument (see above), if an argument is present, it must be
- given in the same shell item, for example, -o3 or --only-matching=2. The
- comments given for the non-argument case above also apply to this option. If
- the specified capturing parentheses do not exist in the pattern, or were not
- set in the match, nothing is output unless the file name or line number are
- being output.
- <br>
- <br>
- If this option is given multiple times, multiple substrings are output for each
- match, in the order the options are given, and all on one line. For example,
- -o3 -o1 -o3 causes the substrings matched by capturing parentheses 3 and 1 and
- then 3 again to be output. By default, there is no separator (but see the next
- but one option).
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--om-capture</b>=<i>number</i>
- Set the number of capturing parentheses that can be accessed by <b>-o</b>. The
- default is 50.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--om-separator</b>=<i>text</i>
- Specify a separating string for multiple occurrences of <b>-o</b>. The default
- is an empty string. Separating strings are never coloured.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-q</b>, <b>--quiet</b>
- Work quietly, that is, display nothing except error messages. The exit
- status indicates whether or not any matches were found.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-r</b>, <b>--recursive</b>
- If any given path is a directory, recursively scan the files it contains,
- taking note of any <b>--include</b> and <b>--exclude</b> settings. By default, a
- directory is read as a normal file; in some operating systems this gives an
- immediate end-of-file. This option is a shorthand for setting the <b>-d</b>
- option to "recurse".
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>--recursion-limit</b>=<i>number</i>
- This is an obsolete synonym for <b>--depth-limit</b>. See <b>--match-limit</b>
- above for details.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-s</b>, <b>--no-messages</b>
- Suppress error messages about non-existent or unreadable files. Such files are
- quietly skipped. However, the return code is still 2, even if matches were
- found in other files.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-t</b>, <b>--total-count</b>
- This option is useful when scanning more than one file. If used on its own,
- <b>-t</b> suppresses all output except for a grand total number of matching
- lines (or non-matching lines if <b>-v</b> is used) in all the files. If <b>-t</b>
- is used with <b>-c</b>, a grand total is output except when the previous output
- is just one line. In other words, it is not output when just one file's count
- is listed. If file names are being output, the grand total is preceded by
- "TOTAL:". Otherwise, it appears as just another number. The <b>-t</b> option is
- ignored when used with <b>-L</b> (list files without matches), because the grand
- total would always be zero.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-u</b>, <b>--utf</b>
- Operate in UTF-8 mode. This option is available only if PCRE2 has been compiled
- with UTF-8 support. All patterns (including those for any <b>--exclude</b> and
- <b>--include</b> options) and all lines that are scanned must be valid strings
- of UTF-8 characters. If an invalid UTF-8 string is encountered, an error
- occurs.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-U</b>, <b>--utf-allow-invalid</b>
- As <b>--utf</b>, but in addition subject lines may contain invalid UTF-8 code
- unit sequences. These can never form part of any pattern match. Patterns
- themselves, however, must still be valid UTF-8 strings. This facility allows
- valid UTF-8 strings to be sought within arbitrary byte sequences in executable
- or other binary files. For more details about matching in non-valid UTF-8
- strings, see the
- <a href="pcre2unicode.html"><b>pcre2unicode</b>(3)</a>
- documentation.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-V</b>, <b>--version</b>
- Write the version numbers of <b>pcre2grep</b> and the PCRE2 library to the
- standard output and then exit. Anything else on the command line is
- ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-v</b>, <b>--invert-match</b>
- Invert the sense of the match, so that lines which do <i>not</i> match any of
- the patterns are the ones that are found. When this option is set, options such
- as <b>--only-matching</b> and <b>--output</b>, which specify parts of a match
- that are to be output, are ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-w</b>, <b>--word-regex</b>, <b>--word-regexp</b>
- Force the patterns only to match "words". That is, there must be a word
- boundary at the start and end of each matched string. This is equivalent to
- having "\b(?:" at the start of each pattern, and ")\b" at the end. This
- option applies only to the patterns that are matched against the contents of
- files; it does not apply to patterns specified by any of the <b>--include</b> or
- <b>--exclude</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- <b>-x</b>, <b>--line-regex</b>, <b>--line-regexp</b>
- Force the patterns to start matching only at the beginnings of lines, and in
- addition, require them to match entire lines. In multiline mode the match may
- be more than one line. This is equivalent to having "^(?:" at the start of each
- pattern and ")$" at the end. This option applies only to the patterns that are
- matched against the contents of files; it does not apply to patterns specified
- by any of the <b>--include</b> or <b>--exclude</b> options.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC7" href="#TOC1">ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES</a><br>
- <P>
- The environment variables <b>LC_ALL</b> and <b>LC_CTYPE</b> are examined, in that
- order, for a locale. The first one that is set is used. This can be overridden
- by the <b>--locale</b> option. If no locale is set, the PCRE2 library's default
- (usually the "C" locale) is used.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC8" href="#TOC1">NEWLINES</a><br>
- <P>
- The <b>-N</b> (<b>--newline</b>) option allows <b>pcre2grep</b> to scan files with
- newline conventions that differ from the default. This option affects only the
- way scanned files are processed. It does not affect the interpretation of files
- specified by the <b>-f</b>, <b>--file-list</b>, <b>--exclude-from</b>, or
- <b>--include-from</b> options.
- </P>
- <P>
- Any parts of the scanned input files that are written to the standard output
- are copied with whatever newline sequences they have in the input. However, if
- the final line of a file is output, and it does not end with a newline
- sequence, a newline sequence is added. If the newline setting is CR, LF, CRLF
- or NUL, that line ending is output; for the other settings (ANYCRLF or ANY) a
- single NL is used.
- </P>
- <P>
- The newline setting does not affect the way in which <b>pcre2grep</b> writes
- newlines in informational messages to the standard output and error streams.
- Under Windows, the standard output is set to be binary, so that "\r\n" at the
- ends of output lines that are copied from the input is not converted to
- "\r\r\n" by the C I/O library. This means that any messages written to the
- standard output must end with "\r\n". For all other operating systems, and
- for all messages to the standard error stream, "\n" is used.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC9" href="#TOC1">OPTIONS COMPATIBILITY</a><br>
- <P>
- Many of the short and long forms of <b>pcre2grep</b>'s options are the same
- as in the GNU <b>grep</b> program. Any long option of the form
- <b>--xxx-regexp</b> (GNU terminology) is also available as <b>--xxx-regex</b>
- (PCRE2 terminology). However, the <b>--depth-limit</b>, <b>--file-list</b>,
- <b>--file-offsets</b>, <b>--heap-limit</b>, <b>--include-dir</b>,
- <b>--line-offsets</b>, <b>--locale</b>, <b>--match-limit</b>, <b>-M</b>,
- <b>--multiline</b>, <b>-N</b>, <b>--newline</b>, <b>--om-separator</b>,
- <b>--output</b>, <b>-u</b>, <b>--utf</b>, <b>-U</b>, and <b>--utf-allow-invalid</b>
- options are specific to <b>pcre2grep</b>, as is the use of the
- <b>--only-matching</b> option with a capturing parentheses number.
- </P>
- <P>
- Although most of the common options work the same way, a few are different in
- <b>pcre2grep</b>. For example, the <b>--include</b> option's argument is a glob
- for GNU <b>grep</b>, but a regular expression for <b>pcre2grep</b>. If both the
- <b>-c</b> and <b>-l</b> options are given, GNU grep lists only file names,
- without counts, but <b>pcre2grep</b> gives the counts as well.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC10" href="#TOC1">OPTIONS WITH DATA</a><br>
- <P>
- There are four different ways in which an option with data can be specified.
- If a short form option is used, the data may follow immediately, or (with one
- exception) in the next command line item. For example:
- <pre>
- -f/some/file
- -f /some/file
- </pre>
- The exception is the <b>-o</b> option, which may appear with or without data.
- Because of this, if data is present, it must follow immediately in the same
- item, for example -o3.
- </P>
- <P>
- If a long form option is used, the data may appear in the same command line
- item, separated by an equals character, or (with two exceptions) it may appear
- in the next command line item. For example:
- <pre>
- --file=/some/file
- --file /some/file
- </pre>
- Note, however, that if you want to supply a file name beginning with ~ as data
- in a shell command, and have the shell expand ~ to a home directory, you must
- separate the file name from the option, because the shell does not treat ~
- specially unless it is at the start of an item.
- </P>
- <P>
- The exceptions to the above are the <b>--colour</b> (or <b>--color</b>) and
- <b>--only-matching</b> options, for which the data is optional. If one of these
- options does have data, it must be given in the first form, using an equals
- character. Otherwise <b>pcre2grep</b> will assume that it has no data.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC11" href="#TOC1">USING PCRE2'S CALLOUT FACILITY</a><br>
- <P>
- <b>pcre2grep</b> has, by default, support for calling external programs or
- scripts or echoing specific strings during matching by making use of PCRE2's
- callout facility. However, this support can be completely or partially disabled
- when <b>pcre2grep</b> is built. You can find out whether your binary has support
- for callouts by running it with the <b>--help</b> option. If callout support is
- completely disabled, all callouts in patterns are ignored by <b>pcre2grep</b>.
- If the facility is partially disabled, calling external programs is not
- supported, and callouts that request it are ignored.
- </P>
- <P>
- A callout in a PCRE2 pattern is of the form (?C<arg>) where the argument is
- either a number or a quoted string (see the
- <a href="pcre2callout.html"><b>pcre2callout</b></a>
- documentation for details). Numbered callouts are ignored by <b>pcre2grep</b>;
- only callouts with string arguments are useful.
- </P>
- <br><b>
- Echoing a specific string
- </b><br>
- <P>
- Starting the callout string with a pipe character invokes an echoing facility
- that avoids calling an external program or script. This facility is always
- available, provided that callouts were not completely disabled when
- <b>pcre2grep</b> was built. The rest of the callout string is processed as a
- zero-terminated string, which means it should not contain any internal binary
- zeros. It is written to the output, having first been passed through the same
- escape processing as text from the <b>--output</b> (<b>-O</b>) option (see
- above). However, $0 cannot be used to insert a matched substring because the
- match is still in progress. Instead, the single character '0' is inserted. Any
- syntax errors in the string (for example, a dollar not followed by another
- character) causes the callout to be ignored. No terminator is added to the
- output string, so if you want a newline, you must include it explicitly using
- the escape $n. For example:
- <pre>
- pcre2grep '(.)(..(.))(?C"|[$1] [$2] [$3]$n")' <some file>
- </pre>
- Matching continues normally after the string is output. If you want to see only
- the callout output but not any output from an actual match, you should end the
- pattern with (*FAIL).
- </P>
- <br><b>
- Calling external programs or scripts
- </b><br>
- <P>
- This facility can be independently disabled when <b>pcre2grep</b> is built. It
- is supported for Windows, where a call to <b>_spawnvp()</b> is used, for VMS,
- where <b>lib$spawn()</b> is used, and for any Unix-like environment where
- <b>fork()</b> and <b>execv()</b> are available.
- </P>
- <P>
- If the callout string does not start with a pipe (vertical bar) character, it
- is parsed into a list of substrings separated by pipe characters. The first
- substring must be an executable name, with the following substrings specifying
- arguments:
- <pre>
- executable_name|arg1|arg2|...
- </pre>
- Any substring (including the executable name) may contain escape sequences
- started by a dollar character. These are the same as for the <b>--output</b>
- (<b>-O</b>) option documented above, except that $0 cannot insert the matched
- string because the match is still in progress. Instead, the character '0'
- is inserted. If you need a literal dollar or pipe character in any
- substring, use $$ or $| respectively. Here is an example:
- <pre>
- echo -e "abcde\n12345" | pcre2grep \
- '(?x)(.)(..(.))
- (?C"/bin/echo|Arg1: [$1] [$2] [$3]|Arg2: $|${1}$| ($4)")()' -
- Output:
- Arg1: [a] [bcd] [d] Arg2: |a| ()
- abcde
- Arg1: [1] [234] [4] Arg2: |1| ()
- 12345
- </pre>
- The parameters for the system call that is used to run the program or script
- are zero-terminated strings. This means that binary zero characters in the
- callout argument will cause premature termination of their substrings, and
- therefore should not be present. Any syntax errors in the string (for example,
- a dollar not followed by another character) causes the callout to be ignored.
- If running the program fails for any reason (including the non-existence of the
- executable), a local matching failure occurs and the matcher backtracks in the
- normal way.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC12" href="#TOC1">MATCHING ERRORS</a><br>
- <P>
- It is possible to supply a regular expression that takes a very long time to
- fail to match certain lines. Such patterns normally involve nested indefinite
- repeats, for example: (a+)*\d when matched against a line of a's with no final
- digit. The PCRE2 matching function has a resource limit that causes it to abort
- in these circumstances. If this happens, <b>pcre2grep</b> outputs an error
- message and the line that caused the problem to the standard error stream. If
- there are more than 20 such errors, <b>pcre2grep</b> gives up.
- </P>
- <P>
- The <b>--match-limit</b> option of <b>pcre2grep</b> can be used to set the
- overall resource limit. There are also other limits that affect the amount of
- memory used during matching; see the discussion of <b>--heap-limit</b> and
- <b>--depth-limit</b> above.
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC13" href="#TOC1">DIAGNOSTICS</a><br>
- <P>
- Exit status is 0 if any matches were found, 1 if no matches were found, and 2
- for syntax errors, overlong lines, non-existent or inaccessible files (even if
- matches were found in other files) or too many matching errors. Using the
- <b>-s</b> option to suppress error messages about inaccessible files does not
- affect the return code.
- </P>
- <P>
- When run under VMS, the return code is placed in the symbol PCRE2GREP_RC
- because VMS does not distinguish between exit(0) and exit(1).
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC14" href="#TOC1">SEE ALSO</a><br>
- <P>
- <b>pcre2pattern</b>(3), <b>pcre2syntax</b>(3), <b>pcre2callout</b>(3),
- <b>pcre2unicode</b>(3).
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC15" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a><br>
- <P>
- Philip Hazel
- <br>
- University Computing Service
- <br>
- Cambridge, England.
- <br>
- </P>
- <br><a name="SEC16" href="#TOC1">REVISION</a><br>
- <P>
- Last updated: 04 October 2020
- <br>
- Copyright © 1997-2020 University of Cambridge.
- <br>
- <p>
- Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
- </p>
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