---
name: "pcre2_get_startchar"
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_startchar"
---

# pcre2\_get\_startchar(3)

Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

## NAME

PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

## SYNOPSIS

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

```
PCRE2_SIZE pcre2_get_startchar(pcre2_match_data *match_data);
```

## DESCRIPTION

After a successful call of **pcre2\_match()** that was passed the match block that is this function's argument, this function returns the code unit offset of the character at which the successful match started. For a non-partial match, this can be different to the value of *ovector\[0\]* if the pattern contains the \\K escape sequence. After a partial match, however, this value is always the same as *ovector\[0\]* because \\K does not affect the result of a partial match.

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.