---
name: "pcre16_maketables"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "pcre"
version: "8.45-5"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pcre_maketables"
---

# pcre16\_maketables(3)

Perl-compatible regular expressions

Part of [pcre\_maketables(3)](/pcre_maketables/3.md).

## NAME

PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

## SYNOPSIS

**#include \<pcre.h\>**

**const unsigned char \*pcre\_maketables(void);**

**const unsigned char \*pcre16\_maketables(void);**

**const unsigned char \*pcre32\_maketables(void);**

## DESCRIPTION

This function builds a set of character tables for character values less than 256. These can be passed to **pcre\[16\|32\]\_compile()** to override PCRE's internal, built-in tables (which were made by **pcre\[16\|32\]\_maketables()** when PCRE was compiled). You might want to do this if you are using a non-standard locale. The function yields a pointer to the tables.

There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the **pcreapi** page and a description of the POSIX API in the **pcreposix** page.