regcmp(CP)                     6 January 1993                     regcmp(CP)


 Name

    regcmp - regular expression compile

 Syntax

    regcmp [ - ] files

 Description

    The regcmp command performs a function similar to regcmp(S) and, in most
    cases, precludes the need to call regcmp(S) from C programs.  This saves
    on both execution time and program size.  The command regcmp compiles the
    regular expressions in file and places the output in file.i.  If the -
    option is used, the output will be placed in file.c.  The format of
    entries in file is a name (C variable) followed by one or more blanks
    followed by a regular expression enclosed in double quotes.  The output
    of regcmp is C source code.  Compiled regular expressions are represented
    as extern char vectors.  file.i files may thus be included in C programs,
    or file.c files may be compiled and later loaded.  In the C program which
    uses the regcmp output, regex (abc, line) will apply the regular expres-
    sion named abc to line.  Diagnostics are self-explanatory.

 Examples


    name     "([A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9_]*)$0"

    telno    "\({0,1}([2-9][01][1-9])$0\){0,1} *"
             "([2-9][0-9]{2})$1[ -]{0,1}"
             "([0-9]{4})$2"

    In the C program that uses the regcmp output,

       regex(telno, line, area, exch, rest)

    will apply the regular expression named telno to line.

 See also

    regcmp(S)