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- <html>
- <head>
- <title>pcre2limits specification</title>
- </head>
- <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
- <h1>pcre2limits 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>
- <br><b>
- SIZE AND OTHER LIMITATIONS
- </b><br>
- <P>
- There are some size limitations in PCRE2 but it is hoped that they will never
- in practice be relevant.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum size of a compiled pattern is approximately 64 thousand code units
- for the 8-bit and 16-bit libraries if PCRE2 is compiled with the default
- internal linkage size, which is 2 bytes for these libraries. If you want to
- process regular expressions that are truly enormous, you can compile PCRE2 with
- an internal linkage size of 3 or 4 (when building the 16-bit library, 3 is
- rounded up to 4). See the <b>README</b> file in the source distribution and the
- <a href="pcre2build.html"><b>pcre2build</b></a>
- documentation for details. In these cases the limit is substantially larger.
- However, the speed of execution is slower. In the 32-bit library, the internal
- linkage size is always 4.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum length of a source pattern string is essentially unlimited; it is
- the largest number a PCRE2_SIZE variable can hold. However, the program that
- calls <b>pcre2_compile()</b> can specify a smaller limit.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum length (in code units) of a subject string is one less than the
- largest number a PCRE2_SIZE variable can hold. PCRE2_SIZE is an unsigned
- integer type, usually defined as size_t. Its maximum value (that is
- ~(PCRE2_SIZE)0) is reserved as a special indicator for zero-terminated strings
- and unset offsets.
- </P>
- <P>
- All values in repeating quantifiers must be less than 65536.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum length of a lookbehind assertion is 65535 characters.
- </P>
- <P>
- There is no limit to the number of parenthesized groups, but there can be no
- more than 65535 capture groups, and there is a limit to the depth of nesting of
- parenthesized subpatterns of all kinds. This is imposed in order to limit the
- amount of system stack used at compile time. The default limit can be specified
- when PCRE2 is built; if not, the default is set to 250. An application can
- change this limit by calling pcre2_set_parens_nest_limit() to set the limit in
- a compile context.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum length of name for a named capture group is 32 code units, and the
- maximum number of such groups is 10000.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum length of a name in a (*MARK), (*PRUNE), (*SKIP), or (*THEN) verb
- is 255 code units for the 8-bit library and 65535 code units for the 16-bit and
- 32-bit libraries.
- </P>
- <P>
- The maximum length of a string argument to a callout is the largest number a
- 32-bit unsigned integer can hold.
- </P>
- <br><b>
- AUTHOR
- </b><br>
- <P>
- Philip Hazel
- <br>
- University Computing Service
- <br>
- Cambridge, England.
- <br>
- </P>
- <br><b>
- REVISION
- </b><br>
- <P>
- Last updated: 02 February 2019
- <br>
- Copyright © 1997-2019 University of Cambridge.
- <br>
- <p>
- Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE2 index page</a>.
- </p>
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