---
name: "pcre_compile2"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "pcre"
version: "8.45-5"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pcre_compile2"
---

# pcre\_compile2(3)

Perl-compatible regular expressions

## NAME

PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

## SYNOPSIS

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

```
pcre *pcre_compile2(const char *pattern, int options,
     int *errorcodeptr,
     const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
     const unsigned char *tableptr);

pcre16 *pcre16_compile2(PCRE_SPTR16 pattern, int options,
     int *errorcodeptr,
     const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
     const unsigned char *tableptr);

pcre32 *pcre32_compile2(PCRE_SPTR32 pattern, int options,
     int *errorcodeptr,£
     const char **errptr, int *erroffset,
     const unsigned char *tableptr);
```

## DESCRIPTION

This function compiles a regular expression into an internal form. It is the same as **pcre\[16\|32\]\_compile()**, except for the addition of the *errorcodeptr* argument. The arguments are:

  *pattern*       A zero-terminated string containing the\
                   regular expression to be compiled\
   *options*       Zero or more option bits\
   *errorcodeptr*  Where to put an error code\
   *errptr*        Where to put an error message\
   *erroffset*     Offset in pattern where error was found\
   *tableptr*      Pointer to character tables, or NULL to\
                   use the built-in default

The option bits are:

  PCRE\_ANCHORED           Force pattern anchoring\
   PCRE\_AUTO\_CALLOUT       Compile automatic callouts\
   PCRE\_BSR\_ANYCRLF        \\R matches only CR, LF, or CRLF\
   PCRE\_BSR\_UNICODE        \\R matches all Unicode line endings\
   PCRE\_CASELESS           Do caseless matching\
   PCRE\_DOLLAR\_ENDONLY     $ not to match newline at end\
   PCRE\_DOTALL             . matches anything including NL\
   PCRE\_DUPNAMES           Allow duplicate names for subpatterns\
   PCRE\_EXTENDED           Ignore white space and # comments\
   PCRE\_EXTRA              PCRE extra features\
                             (not much use currently)\
   PCRE\_FIRSTLINE          Force matching to be before newline\
   PCRE\_JAVASCRIPT\_COMPAT  JavaScript compatibility\
   PCRE\_MULTILINE          ^ and $ match newlines within data\
   PCRE\_NEVER\_UTF          Lock out UTF, e.g. via (\*UTF)\
   PCRE\_NEWLINE\_ANY        Recognize any Unicode newline sequence\
   PCRE\_NEWLINE\_ANYCRLF    Recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline\
                             sequences\
   PCRE\_NEWLINE\_CR         Set CR as the newline sequence\
   PCRE\_NEWLINE\_CRLF       Set CRLF as the newline sequence\
   PCRE\_NEWLINE\_LF         Set LF as the newline sequence\
   PCRE\_NO\_AUTO\_CAPTURE    Disable numbered capturing paren-\
                             theses (named ones available)\
   PCRE\_NO\_AUTO\_POSSESS    Disable auto-possessification\
   PCRE\_NO\_START\_OPTIMIZE  Disable match-time start optimizations\
   PCRE\_NO\_UTF16\_CHECK     Do not check the pattern for UTF-16\
                             validity (only relevant if\
                             PCRE\_UTF16 is set)\
   PCRE\_NO\_UTF32\_CHECK     Do not check the pattern for UTF-32\
                             validity (only relevant if\
                             PCRE\_UTF32 is set)\
   PCRE\_NO\_UTF8\_CHECK      Do not check the pattern for UTF-8\
                             validity (only relevant if\
                             PCRE\_UTF8 is set)\
   PCRE\_UCP                Use Unicode properties for \\d, \\w, etc.\
   PCRE\_UNGREEDY           Invert greediness of quantifiers\
   PCRE\_UTF16              Run **pcre16\_compile()** in UTF-16 mode\
   PCRE\_UTF32              Run **pcre32\_compile()** in UTF-32 mode\
   PCRE\_UTF8               Run **pcre\_compile()** in UTF-8 mode

PCRE must be built with UTF support in order to use PCRE\_UTF8/16/32 and PCRE\_NO\_UTF8/16/32\_CHECK, and with UCP support if PCRE\_UCP is used.

The yield of the function is a pointer to a private data structure that contains the compiled pattern, or NULL if an error was detected. Note that compiling regular expressions with one version of PCRE for use with a different version is not guaranteed to work and may cause crashes.

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.