---
name: "pcre2_get_error_message"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "pcre2"
version: "10.49-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pcre2_get_error_message"
---

# pcre2\_get\_error\_message(3)

Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

## NAME

PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

## SYNOPSIS

**#include \<pcre2.h\>**

```
int pcre2_get_error_message(int errorcode, PCRE2_UCHAR *buffer,
  PCRE2_SIZE bufflen);
```

## DESCRIPTION

This function provides a textual error message for each PCRE2 error code. Compilation errors are positive numbers; UTF formatting errors and matching errors are negative numbers. The arguments are:

  *errorcode*   an error code (positive or negative)\
   *buffer*      where to put the message\
   *bufflen*     the length of the buffer (code units)

The function returns the length of the message in code units, excluding the trailing zero, or the negative error code PCRE2\_ERROR\_NOMEMORY if the buffer is too small. In this case, the returned message is truncated (but still with a trailing zero). If *errorcode* does not contain a recognized error code number, the negative value PCRE2\_ERROR\_BADDATA is returned.

There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API in the **pcre2api** page and a description of the POSIX API in the **pcre2posix** page.