regexpr(3G) regexpr(3G)
NAME
regexpr, compile, step, advance - regular expression compile and
match routines
SYNOPSIS
cc [flag ...] file ... -lgen [library ...]
#include <regexpr.h>
char *compile (const char *instring, char *expbuf, char *endbuf);
int step (const char *string, char *expbuf);
int advance (const char *string, char *expbuf);
extern char *loc1, *loc2, *locs;
extern int nbra, regerrno, reglength;
extern char *braslist[], *braelist[];
DESCRIPTION
These routines are used to compile regular expressions and match the
compiled expressions against lines. The regular expressions compiled
are in the form used by ed.
The syntax of the compile routine is as follows:
compile (instring, expbuf, endbuf)
The parameter instring is a null-terminated string representing the
regular expression.
The parameter expbuf points to the place where the compiled regular
expression is to be placed. If expbuf is NULL, compile uses malloc
to allocate the space for the compiled regular expression. If an
error occurs, this space is freed. It is the user's responsibility
to free unneeded space after the compiled regular expression is no
longer needed.
The parameter endbuf is one more than the highest address where the
compiled regular expression may be placed. This argument is ignored
if expbuf is NULL. If the compiled expression cannot fit in
(endbuf-expbuf) bytes, compile returns NULL and regerrno (see below)
is set to 50.
If compile succeeds, it returns a non-NULL pointer whose value
depends on expbuf. If expbuf is non-NULL, compile returns a pointer
to the byte after the last byte in the compiled regular expression.
The length of the compiled regular expression is stored in reglength.
Otherwise, compile returns a pointer to the space allocated by
malloc.
If an error is detected when compiling the regular expression, a NULL
pointer is returned from compile and regerrno is set to one of the
non-zero error numbers indicated below:
7/91 Page 1
regexpr(3G) regexpr(3G)
ERROR MEANING
___________________________________________
11 Range endpoint too large.
16 Bad number.
25 ``digit'' out of range.
36 Illegal or missing delimiter.
41 No remembered search string.
42 (~) imbalance.
43 Too many (.
44 More than 2 numbers given in {~}.
45 } expected after .
46 First number exceeds second in {~}.
49 [ ] imbalance.
50 Regular expression overflow.
The call to step is as follows:
step (string, expbuf)
The first parameter to step is a pointer to a string of characters to
be checked for a match. This string should be null-terminated.
The parameter expbuf is the compiled regular expression obtained by a
call of the function compile.
The function step returns non-zero if the given string matches the
regular expression, and zero if the expressions do not match. If
there is a match, two external character pointers are set as a side
effect to the call to step. The variable set in step is loc1. loc1
is a pointer to the first character that matched the regular
expression. The variable loc2 points to the character after the last
character that matches the regular expression. Thus if the regular
expression matches the entire line, loc1 points to the first
character of string and loc2 points to the null at the end of string.
The purpose of step is to step through the string argument until a
match is found or until the end of string is reached. If the regular
expression begins with ^, step tries to match the regular expression
at the beginning of the string only.
The function advance has the same arguments and side effects as step,
but it always restricts matches to the beginning of the string.
If one is looking for successive matches in the same string of
characters, locs should be set equal to loc2, and step should be
called with string equal to loc2. locs is used by commands like ed
and sed so that global substitutions like s/y*//g do not loop
forever, and is NULL by default.
Page 2 7/91
regexpr(3G) regexpr(3G)
The external variable nbra is used to determine the number of
subexpressions in the compiled regular expression. braslist and
braelist are arrays of character pointers that point to the start and
end of the nbra subexpressions in the matched string. For example,
after calling step or advance with string sabcdefg and regular
expression \(abcdef\), braslist[0] will point at a and braelist[0]
will point at g. These arrays are used by commands like ed and sed
for substitute replacement patterns that contain the \n notation for
subexpressions.
Note that it isn't necessary to use the external variables regerrno,
nbra, loc1, loc2 locs, braelist, and braslist if one is only checking
whether or not a string matches a regular expression.
EXAMPLES
The following is similar to the regular expression code from grep:
#include <regexpr.h>
. . .
if(compile(*argv, (char *)0, (char *)0) == (char *)0)
regerr(regerrno);
. . .
if (step(linebuf, expbuf))
succeed();
SEE ALSO
regexp(5).
ed(1), grep(1), sed(1) in the User's Reference Manual.
7/91 Page 3