Technical Notes about PCRE2

---------------------------

These are very rough technical notes that record potentially useful information

about PCRE2 internals. PCRE2 is a library based on the original PCRE library,

but with a revised (and incompatible) API. To avoid confusion, the original

library is referred to as PCRE1 below. For information about testing PCRE2, see

the pcre2test documentation and the comment at the head of the RunTest file.

PCRE1 releases were up to 8.3x when PCRE2 was developed, and later bug fix

releases remain in the 8.xx series. PCRE2 releases started at 10.00 to avoid

confusion with PCRE1.

Historical note 1

-----------------

Many years ago I implemented some regular expression functions to an algorithm

suggested by Martin Richards. The rather simple patterns were not Unix-like in

form, and were quite restricted in what they could do by comparison with Perl.

The interesting part about the algorithm was that the amount of space required

to hold the compiled form of an expression was known in advance. The code to

apply an expression did not operate by backtracking, as the original Henry

Spencer code and current PCRE2 and Perl code does, but instead checked all

possibilities simultaneously by keeping a list of current states and checking

all of them as it advanced through the subject string. In the terminology of

Jeffrey Friedl's book, it was a "DFA algorithm", though it was not a

traditional Finite State Machine (FSM). When the pattern was all used up, all

remaining states were possible matches, and the one matching the longest subset

of the subject string was chosen. This did not necessarily maximize the

individual wild portions of the pattern, as is expected in Unix and Perl-style

regular expressions.

Historical note 2

-----------------

By contrast, the code originally written by Henry Spencer (which was

subsequently heavily modified for Perl) compiles the expression twice: once in

a dummy mode in order to find out how much store will be needed, and then for

real. (The Perl version probably doesn't do this any more; I'm talking about

the original library.) The execution function operates by backtracking and

maximizing (or, optionally, minimizing, in Perl) the amount of the subject that

matches individual wild portions of the pattern. This is an "NFA algorithm" in

Friedl's terminology.

OK, here's the real stuff

-------------------------

For the set of functions that formed the original PCRE1 library in 1997 (which

are unrelated to those mentioned above), I tried at first to invent an

algorithm that used an amount of store bounded by a multiple of the number of

characters in the pattern, to save on compiling time. However, because of the

greater complexity in Perl regular expressions, I couldn't do this, even though

the then current Perl 5.004 patterns were much simpler than those supported

nowadays. In any case, a first pass through the pattern is helpful for other

reasons.

Support for 16-bit and 32-bit data strings

-------------------------------------------

The PCRE2 library can be compiled in any combination of 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit

modes, creating up to three different libraries. In the description that

follows, the word "short" is used for a 16-bit data quantity, and the phrase

"code unit" is used for a quantity that is a byte in 8-bit mode, a short in

16-bit mode and a 32-bit word in 32-bit mode. The names of PCRE2 functions are

given in generic form, without the _8, _16, or _32 suffix.

Computing the memory requirement: how it was

--------------------------------------------

Up to and including release 6.7, PCRE1 worked by running a very degenerate

first pass to calculate a maximum memory requirement, and then a second pass to

do the real compile - which might use a bit less than the predicted amount of

memory. The idea was that this would turn out faster than the Henry Spencer

code because the first pass is degenerate and the second pass can just store

stuff straight into memory, which it knows is big enough.

Computing the memory requirement: how it is

-------------------------------------------

By the time I was working on a potential 6.8 release, the degenerate first pass

had become very complicated and hard to maintain. Indeed one of the early

things I did for 6.8 was to fix Yet Another Bug in the memory computation. Then

I had a flash of inspiration as to how I could run the real compile function in

a "fake" mode that enables it to compute how much memory it would need, while

in most cases only ever using a small amount of working memory, and without too

many tests of the mode that might slow it down. So I refactored the compiling

functions to work this way. This got rid of about 600 lines of source and made

further maintenance and development easier. As this was such a major change, I

never released 6.8, instead upping the number to 7.0 (other quite major changes

were also present in the 7.0 release).

A side effect of this work was that the previous limit of 200 on the nesting

depth of parentheses was removed. However, there was a downside: compiling ran

more slowly than before (30% or more, depending on the pattern) because it now

did a full analysis of the pattern. My hope was that this would not be a big

issue, and in the event, nobody has commented on it.

At release 8.34, a limit on the nesting depth of parentheses was re-introduced

(default 250, settable at build time) so as to put a limit on the amount of

system stack used by the compile function, which uses recursive function calls

for nested parenthesized groups. This is a safety feature for environments with

small stacks where the patterns are provided by users.

Yet another pattern scan

------------------------

History repeated itself for PCRE2 release 10.20. A number of bugs relating to

named subpatterns had been discovered by fuzzers. Most of these were related to

the handling of forward references when it was not known if the named group was

unique. (References to non-unique names use a different opcode and more

memory.) The use of duplicate group numbers (the (?| facility) also caused

issues.

To get around these problems I adopted a new approach by adding a third pass

over the pattern (really a "pre-pass"), which did nothing other than identify

all the named subpatterns and their corresponding group numbers. This means

that the actual compile (both the memory-computing dummy run and the real

compile) has full knowledge of group names and numbers throughout. Several

dozen lines of messy code were eliminated, though the new pre-pass was not

short. In particular, parsing and skipping over [] classes is complicated.

While working on 10.22 I realized that I could simplify yet again by moving

more of the parsing into the pre-pass, thus avoiding doing it in two places, so

after 10.22 was released, the code underwent yet another big refactoring. This

is how it is from 10.23 onwards:

The function called parse_regex() scans the pattern characters, parsing them

into literal data and meta characters. It converts escapes such as \x{123}

into literals, handles \Q...\E, and skips over comments and non-significant

white space. The result of the scanning is put into a vector of 32-bit unsigned

integers. Values less than 0x80000000 are literal data. Higher values represent

meta-characters. The top 16-bits of such values identify the meta-character,

and these are given names such as META_CAPTURE. The lower 16-bits are available

for data, for example, the capturing group number. The only situation in which

literal data values greater than 0x7fffffff can appear is when the 32-bit

library is running in non-UTF mode. This is handled by having a special

meta-character that is followed by the 32-bit data value.

The size of the parsed pattern vector, when auto-callouts are not enabled, is

bounded by the length of the pattern (with one exception). The code is written

so that each item in the pattern uses no more vector elements than the number

of code units in the item itself. The exception is the aforementioned large

32-bit number handling. For this reason, 32-bit non-UTF patterns are scanned in

advance to check for such values. When auto-callouts are enabled, the generous

assumption is made that there will be a callout for each pattern code unit

(which of course is only actually true if all code units are literals) plus one

at the end. There is a default parsed pattern vector on the system stack, but

if this is not big enough, heap memory is used.

As before, the actual compiling function is run twice, the first time to

determine the amount of memory needed for the final compiled pattern. It

now processes the parsed pattern vector, not the pattern itself, although some

of the parsed items refer to strings in the pattern - for example, group

names. As escapes and comments have already been processed, the code is a bit

simpler than before.

Most errors can be diagnosed during the parsing scan. For those that cannot

(for example, "lookbehind assertion is not fixed length"), the parsed code

contains offsets into the pattern so that the actual compiling code can

report where errors are.

The elements of the parsed pattern vector

-----------------------------------------

The word "offset" below means a code unit offset into the pattern. When

PCRE2_SIZE (which is usually size_t) is no bigger than uint32_t, an offset is

stored in a single parsed pattern element. Otherwise (typically on 64-bit

systems) it occupies two elements. The following meta items occupy just one

element, with no data:

META_ACCEPT           (*ACCEPT)

META_ASTERISK         *

META_ASTERISK_PLUS    *+

META_ASTERISK_QUERY   *?

META_ATOMIC           (?> start of atomic group

META_CIRCUMFLEX       ^ metacharacter

META_CLASS            [ start of non-empty class

META_CLASS_EMPTY      [] empty class - only with PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS

META_CLASS_EMPTY_NOT  [^] negative empty class - ditto

META_CLASS_END        ] end of non-empty class

META_CLASS_NOT        [^ start non-empty negative class

META_COMMIT           (*COMMIT)

META_COND_ASSERT      (?(?assertion)

META_DOLLAR           $ metacharacter

META_DOT              . metacharacter

META_END              End of pattern (this value is 0x80000000)

META_FAIL             (*FAIL)

META_KET              ) closing parenthesis

META_LOOKAHEAD        (?= start of lookahead

META_LOOKAHEADNOT     (?! start of negative lookahead

META_NOCAPTURE        (?: no capture parens

META_PLUS             +

META_PLUS_PLUS        ++

META_PLUS_QUERY       +?

META_PRUNE            (*PRUNE) - no argument

META_QUERY            ?

META_QUERY_PLUS       ?+

META_QUERY_QUERY      ??

META_RANGE_ESCAPED    hyphen in class range with at least one escape

META_RANGE_LITERAL    hyphen in class range defined literally

META_SKIP             (*SKIP) - no argument

META_THEN             (*THEN) - no argument

The two RANGE values occur only in character classes. They are positioned

between two literals that define the start and end of the range. In an EBCDIC

evironment it is necessary to know whether either of the range values was

specified as an escape. In an ASCII/Unicode environment the distinction is not

relevant.

The following have data in the lower 16 bits, and may be followed by other data

elements:

META_ALT              | alternation

META_BACKREF          back reference

META_CAPTURE          start of capturing group

META_ESCAPE           non-literal escape sequence

META_RECURSE          recursion call

If the data for META_ALT is non-zero, it is inside a lookbehind, and the data

is the length of its branch, for which OP_REVERSE must be generated.

META_BACKREF, META_CAPTURE, and META_RECURSE have the capture group number as

their data in the lower 16 bits of the element.

META_BACKREF is followed by an offset if the back reference group number is 10

or more. The offsets of the first ocurrences of references to groups whose

numbers are less than 10 are put in cb->small_ref_offset[] (only the first

occurrence is useful). On 64-bit systems this avoids using more than two parsed

pattern elements for items such as \3. The offset is used when an error occurs

because the reference is to a non-existent group.

META_RECURSE is always followed by an offset, for use in error messages.

META_ESCAPE has an ESC_xxx value as its data. For ESC_P and ESC_p, the next

element contains the 16-bit type and data property values, packed together.

ESC_g and ESC_k are used only for named references - numerical ones are turned

into META_RECURSE or META_BACKREF as appropriate. ESC_g and ESC_k are followed

by a length and an offset into the pattern to specify the name.

The following have one data item that follows in the next vector element:

META_BIGVALUE         Next is a literal >= META_END

META_OPTIONS          (?i) and friends (data is new option bits)

META_POSIX            POSIX class item (data identifies the class)

META_POSIX_NEG        negative POSIX class item (ditto)

The following are followed by a length element, then a number of character code

values (which should match with the length):

META_MARK             (*MARK:xxxx)

META_COMMIT_ARG       )*COMMIT:xxxx)

META_PRUNE_ARG        (*PRUNE:xxx)

META_SKIP_ARG         (*SKIP:xxxx)

META_THEN_ARG         (*THEN:xxxx)

The following are followed by a length element, then an offset in the pattern

that identifies the name:

META_COND_NAME        (?(<name>) or (?('name') or (?(name)

META_COND_RNAME       (?(R&name)

META_COND_RNUMBER     (?(Rdigits)

META_RECURSE_BYNAME   (?&name)

META_BACKREF_BYNAME   \k'name'

META_COND_RNUMBER is used for names that start with R and continue with digits,

because this is an ambiguous case. It could be a back reference to a group with

that name, or it could be a recursion test on a numbered group.

This one is followed by an offset, for use in error messages, then a number:

META_COND_NUMBER       (?([+-]digits)

The following is followed just by an offset, for use in error messages:

META_COND_DEFINE      (?(DEFINE)

The following are also followed just by an offset, but also the lower 16 bits

of the main word contain the length of the first branch of the lookbehind

group; this is used when generating OP_REVERSE for that branch.

META_LOOKBEHIND       (?<=

META_LOOKBEHINDNOT    (?

The following are followed by two elements, the minimum and maximum. Repeat

values are limited to 65535 (MAX_REPEAT). A maximum value of "unlimited" is

represented by UNLIMITED_REPEAT, which is bigger than MAX_REPEAT:

META_MINMAX           {n,m}  repeat

META_MINMAX_PLUS      {n,m}+ repeat

META_MINMAX_QUERY     {n,m}? repeat

This one is followed by three elements. The first is 0 for '>' and 1 for '>=';

the next two are the major and minor numbers:

META_COND_VERSION     (?(VERSION<op>x.y)

Callouts are converted into one of two items:

META_CALLOUT_NUMBER   (?C with numerical argument

META_CALLOUT_STRING   (?C with string argument

In both cases, the next two elements contain the offset and length of the next

item in the pattern. Then there is either one callout number, or a length and

an offset for the string argument. The length includes both delimiters.

Traditional matching function

-----------------------------

The "traditional", and original, matching function is called pcre2_match(), and

it implements an NFA algorithm, similar to the original Henry Spencer algorithm

and the way that Perl works. This is not surprising, since it is intended to be

as compatible with Perl as possible. This is the function most users of PCRE2

will use most of the time. If PCRE2 is compiled with just-in-time (JIT)

support, and studying a compiled pattern with JIT is successful, the JIT code

is run instead of the normal pcre2_match() code, but the result is the same.

Supplementary matching function

-------------------------------

There is also a supplementary matching function called pcre2_dfa_match(). This

implements a DFA matching algorithm that searches simultaneously for all

possible matches that start at one point in the subject string. (Going back to

my roots: see Historical Note 1 above.) This function intreprets the same

compiled pattern data as pcre2_match(); however, not all the facilities are

available, and those that are do not always work in quite the same way. See the

user documentation for details.

The algorithm that is used for pcre2_dfa_match() is not a traditional FSM,

because it may have a number of states active at one time. More work would be

needed at compile time to produce a traditional FSM where only one state is

ever active at once. I believe some other regex matchers work this way. JIT

support is not available for this kind of matching.

Changeable options

------------------

The /i, /m, or /s options (PCRE2_CASELESS, PCRE2_MULTILINE, PCRE2_DOTALL, and

others) may be changed in the middle of patterns by items such as (?i). Their

processing is handled entirely at compile time by generating different opcodes

for the different settings. The runtime functions do not need to keep track of

an option's state.

PCRE2_DUPNAMES, PCRE2_EXTENDED, PCRE2_EXTENDED_MORE, and PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE

are tracked and processed during the parsing pre-pass. The others are handled

from META_OPTIONS items during the main compile phase.

Format of compiled patterns

---------------------------

The compiled form of a pattern is a vector of unsigned code units (bytes in

8-bit mode, shorts in 16-bit mode, 32-bit words in 32-bit mode), containing

items of variable length. The first code unit in an item contains an opcode,

and the length of the item is either implicit in the opcode or contained in the

data that follows it.

In many cases listed below, LINK_SIZE data values are specified for offsets

within the compiled pattern. LINK_SIZE always specifies a number of bytes. The

default value for LINK_SIZE is 2, except for the 32-bit library, where it can

only be 4. The 8-bit library can be compiled to used 3-byte or 4-byte values,

and the 16-bit library can be compiled to use 4-byte values, though this

impairs performance. Specifing a LINK_SIZE larger than 2 for these libraries is

necessary only when patterns whose compiled length is greater than 65535 code

units are going to be processed. When a LINK_SIZE value uses more than one code

unit, the most significant unit is first.

In this description, we assume the "normal" compilation options. Data values

that are counts (e.g. quantifiers) are always two bytes long in 8-bit mode

(most significant byte first), and one code unit in 16-bit and 32-bit modes.

Opcodes with no following data

------------------------------

These items are all just one unit long:

  OP_END                 end of pattern

  OP_ANY                 match any one character other than newline

  OP_ALLANY              match any one character, including newline

  OP_ANYBYTE             match any single code unit, even in UTF-8/16 mode

  OP_SOD                 match start of data: \A

  OP_SOM,                start of match (subject + offset): \G

  OP_SET_SOM,            set start of match (\K)

  OP_CIRC                ^ (start of data)

  OP_CIRCM               ^ multiline mode (start of data or after newline)

  OP_NOT_WORD_BOUNDARY   \W

  OP_WORD_BOUNDARY       \w

  OP_NOT_DIGIT           \D

  OP_DIGIT               \d

  OP_NOT_HSPACE          \H

  OP_HSPACE              \h

  OP_NOT_WHITESPACE      \S

  OP_WHITESPACE          \s

  OP_NOT_VSPACE          \V

  OP_VSPACE              \v

  OP_NOT_WORDCHAR        \W

  OP_WORDCHAR            \w

  OP_EODN                match end of data or newline at end: \Z

  OP_EOD                 match end of data: \z

  OP_DOLL                $ (end of data, or before final newline)

  OP_DOLLM               $ multiline mode (end of data or before newline)

  OP_EXTUNI              match an extended Unicode grapheme cluster

  OP_ANYNL               match any Unicode newline sequence

  OP_ASSERT_ACCEPT       )

  OP_ACCEPT              ) These are Perl 5.10's "backtracking control

  OP_COMMIT              ) verbs". If OP_ACCEPT is inside capturing

  OP_FAIL                ) parentheses, it may be preceded by one or more

  OP_PRUNE               ) OP_CLOSE, each followed by a number that

  OP_SKIP                ) indicates which parentheses must be closed.

  OP_THEN                )

OP_ASSERT_ACCEPT is used when (*ACCEPT) is encountered within an assertion.

This ends the assertion, not the entire pattern match. The assertion (?!) is

always optimized to OP_FAIL.

OP_ALLANY is used for '.' when PCRE2_DOTALL is set. It is also used for \C in

non-UTF modes and in UTF-32 mode (since one code unit still equals one

character). Another use is for [^] when empty classes are permitted

(PCRE2_ALLOW_EMPTY_CLASS is set).

Backtracking control verbs

--------------------------

Verbs with no arguments generate opcodes with no following data (as listed

in the section above). 

(*MARK:NAME) generates OP_MARK followed by the mark name, preceded by a

length in one code unit, and followed by a binary zero. The name length is

limited by the size of the code unit.

(*ACCEPT:NAME) and (*FAIL:NAME) are compiled as (*MARK:NAME)(*ACCEPT) and

(*MARK:NAME)(*FAIL) respectively.

For (*COMMIT:NAME), (*PRUNE:NAME), (*SKIP:NAME), and (*THEN:NAME), the opcodes

OP_COMMIT_ARG, OP_PRUNE_ARG, OP_SKIP_ARG, and OP_THEN_ARG are used, with the

name following in the same format as for OP_MARK.

Matching literal characters

---------------------------

The OP_CHAR opcode is followed by a single character that is to be matched

casefully. For caseless matching of characters that have at most two

case-equivalent code points, OP_CHARI is used. In UTF-8 or UTF-16 modes, the

character may be more than one code unit long. In UTF-32 mode, characters are

always exactly one code unit long.

If there is only one character in a character class, OP_CHAR or OP_CHARI is

used for a positive class, and OP_NOT or OP_NOTI for a negative one (that is,

for something like [^a]).

Caseless matching (positive or negative) of characters that have more than two

case-equivalent code points (which is possible only in UTF mode) is handled by

compiling a Unicode property item (see below), with the pseudo-property

PT_CLIST. The value of this property is an offset in a vector called

"ucd_caseless_sets" which identifies the start of a short list of equivalent

characters, terminated by the value NOTACHAR (0xffffffff).

Repeating single characters

---------------------------

The common repeats (*, +, ?), when applied to a single character, use the

following opcodes, which come in caseful and caseless versions:

  Caseful         Caseless

  OP_STAR         OP_STARI

  OP_MINSTAR      OP_MINSTARI

  OP_POSSTAR      OP_POSSTARI

  OP_PLUS         OP_PLUSI

  OP_MINPLUS      OP_MINPLUSI

  OP_POSPLUS      OP_POSPLUSI

  OP_QUERY        OP_QUERYI

  OP_MINQUERY     OP_MINQUERYI

  OP_POSQUERY     OP_POSQUERYI

Each opcode is followed by the character that is to be repeated. In ASCII or

UTF-32 modes, these are two-code-unit items; in UTF-8 or UTF-16 modes, the

length is variable. Those with "MIN" in their names are the minimizing

versions. Those with "POS" in their names are possessive versions. Other kinds

of repeat make use of these opcodes:

  Caseful         Caseless

  OP_UPTO         OP_UPTOI

  OP_MINUPTO      OP_MINUPTOI

  OP_POSUPTO      OP_POSUPTOI

  OP_EXACT        OP_EXACTI

Each of these is followed by a count and then the repeated character. The count

is two bytes long in 8-bit mode (most significant byte first), or one code unit

in 16-bit and 32-bit modes.

OP_UPTO matches from 0 to the given number. A repeat with a non-zero minimum

and a fixed maximum is coded as an OP_EXACT followed by an OP_UPTO (or

OP_MINUPTO or OPT_POSUPTO).

Another set of matching repeating opcodes (called OP_NOTSTAR, OP_NOTSTARI,

etc.) are used for repeated, negated, single-character classes such as [^a]*.

The normal single-character opcodes (OP_STAR, etc.) are used for repeated

positive single-character classes.

Repeating character types

-------------------------

Repeats of things like \d are done exactly as for single characters, except

that instead of a character, the opcode for the type (e.g. OP_DIGIT) is stored

in the next code unit. The opcodes are:

  OP_TYPESTAR

  OP_TYPEMINSTAR

  OP_TYPEPOSSTAR

  OP_TYPEPLUS

  OP_TYPEMINPLUS

  OP_TYPEPOSPLUS

  OP_TYPEQUERY

  OP_TYPEMINQUERY

  OP_TYPEPOSQUERY

  OP_TYPEUPTO

  OP_TYPEMINUPTO

  OP_TYPEPOSUPTO

  OP_TYPEEXACT

Match by Unicode property

-------------------------

OP_PROP and OP_NOTPROP are used for positive and negative matches of a

character by testing its Unicode property (the \p and \P escape sequences).

Each is followed by two code units that encode the desired property as a type

and a value. The types are a set of #defines of the form PT_xxx, and the values

are enumerations of the form ucp_xx, defined in the pcre2_ucp.h source file.

The value is relevant only for PT_GC (General Category), PT_PC (Particular

Category), PT_SC (Script), and the pseudo-property PT_CLIST, which is used to

identify a list of case-equivalent characters when there are three or more.

Repeats of these items use the OP_TYPESTAR etc. set of opcodes, followed by

three code units: OP_PROP or OP_NOTPROP, and then the desired property type and

value.

Character classes

-----------------

If there is only one character in a class, OP_CHAR or OP_CHARI is used for a

positive class, and OP_NOT or OP_NOTI for a negative one (that is, for

something like [^a]), except when caselessly matching a character that has more

than two case-equivalent code points (which can happen only in UTF mode). In

this case a Unicode property item is used, as described above in "Matching

literal characters".

A set of repeating opcodes (called OP_NOTSTAR etc.) are used for repeated,

negated, single-character classes. The normal single-character opcodes

(OP_STAR, etc.) are used for repeated positive single-character classes.

When there is more than one character in a class, and all the code points are

less than 256, OP_CLASS is used for a positive class, and OP_NCLASS for a

negative one. In either case, the opcode is followed by a 32-byte (16-short,

8-word) bit map containing a 1 bit for every character that is acceptable. The

bits are counted from the least significant end of each unit. In caseless mode,

bits for both cases are set.

The reason for having both OP_CLASS and OP_NCLASS is so that, in UTF-8 and

16-bit and 32-bit modes, subject characters with values greater than 255 can be

handled correctly. For OP_CLASS they do not match, whereas for OP_NCLASS they

do.

For classes containing characters with values greater than 255 or that contain

\p or \P, OP_XCLASS is used. It optionally uses a bit map if any acceptable

code points are less than 256, followed by a list of pairs (for a range) and/or

single characters and/or properties. In caseless mode, all equivalent

characters are explicitly listed.

OP_XCLASS is followed by a LINK_SIZE value containing the total length of the

opcode and its data. This is followed by a code unit containing flag bits:

XCL_NOT indicates that this is a negative class, and XCL_MAP indicates that a

bit map is present. There follows the bit map, if XCL_MAP is set, and then a

sequence of items coded as follows:

  XCL_END      marks the end of the list

  XCL_SINGLE   one character follows

  XCL_RANGE    two characters follow

  XCL_PROP     a Unicode property (type, value) follows

  XCL_NOTPROP  a Unicode property (type, value) follows

If a range starts with a code point less than 256 and ends with one greater

than 255, it is split into two ranges, with characters less than 256 being

indicated in the bit map, and the rest with XCL_RANGE.

When XCL_NOT is set, the bit map, if present, contains bits for characters that

are allowed (exactly as for OP_NCLASS), but the list of items that follow it

specifies characters and properties that are not allowed.

Back references

---------------

OP_REF (caseful) or OP_REFI (caseless) is followed by a count containing the

reference number when the reference is to a unique capturing group (either by

number or by name). When named groups are used, there may be more than one

group with the same name. In this case, a reference to such a group by name

generates OP_DNREF or OP_DNREFI. These are followed by two counts: the index

(not the byte offset) in the group name table of the first entry for the

required name, followed by the number of groups with the same name. The

matching code can then search for the first one that is set.

Repeating character classes and back references

-----------------------------------------------

Single-character classes are handled specially (see above). This section

applies to other classes and also to back references. In both cases, the repeat

information follows the base item. The matching code looks at the following

opcode to see if it is one of these:

  OP_CRSTAR

  OP_CRMINSTAR

  OP_CRPOSSTAR

  OP_CRPLUS

  OP_CRMINPLUS

  OP_CRPOSPLUS

  OP_CRQUERY

  OP_CRMINQUERY

  OP_CRPOSQUERY

  OP_CRRANGE

  OP_CRMINRANGE

  OP_CRPOSRANGE

All but the last three are single-code-unit items, with no data. The range

opcodes are followed by the minimum and maximum repeat counts.

Brackets and alternation

------------------------

A pair of non-capturing round brackets is wrapped round each expression at

compile time, so alternation always happens in the context of brackets.

[Note for North Americans: "bracket" to some English speakers, including

myself, can be round, square, curly, or pointy. Hence this usage rather than

"parentheses".]

Non-capturing brackets use the opcode OP_BRA, capturing brackets use OP_CBRA. A

bracket opcode is followed by a LINK_SIZE value which gives the offset to the

next alternative OP_ALT or, if there aren't any branches, to the terminating

opcode. Each OP_ALT is followed by a LINK_SIZE value giving the offset to the

next one, or to the final opcode. For capturing brackets, the bracket number is

a count that immediately follows the offset.

There are several opcodes that mark the end of a subpattern group. OP_KET is

used for subpatterns that do not repeat indefinitely, OP_KETRMIN and

OP_KETRMAX are used for indefinite repetitions, minimally or maximally

respectively, and OP_KETRPOS for possessive repetitions (see below for more 

details). All four are followed by a LINK_SIZE value giving (as a positive

number) the offset back to the matching bracket opcode.

If a subpattern is quantified such that it is permitted to match zero times, it

is preceded by one of OP_BRAZERO, OP_BRAMINZERO, or OP_SKIPZERO. These are

single-unit opcodes that tell the matcher that skipping the following

subpattern entirely is a valid match. In the case of the first two, not

skipping the pattern is also valid (greedy and non-greedy). The third is used

when a pattern has the quantifier {0,0}. It cannot be entirely discarded,

because it may be called as a subroutine from elsewhere in the pattern.

A subpattern with an indefinite maximum repetition is replicated in the

compiled data its minimum number of times (or once with OP_BRAZERO if the

minimum is zero), with the final copy terminating with OP_KETRMIN or OP_KETRMAX

as appropriate.

A subpattern with a bounded maximum repetition is replicated in a nested

fashion up to the maximum number of times, with OP_BRAZERO or OP_BRAMINZERO

before each replication after the minimum, so that, for example, (abc){2,5} is

compiled as (abc)(abc)((abc)((abc)(abc)?)?)?, except that each bracketed group

has the same number.

When a repeated subpattern has an unbounded upper limit, it is checked to see

whether it could match an empty string. If this is the case, the opcode in the

final replication is changed to OP_SBRA or OP_SCBRA. This tells the matcher

that it needs to check for matching an empty string when it hits OP_KETRMIN or

OP_KETRMAX, and if so, to break the loop.

Possessive brackets

-------------------

When a repeated group (capturing or non-capturing) is marked as possessive by

the "+" notation, e.g. (abc)++, different opcodes are used. Their names all

have POS on the end, e.g. OP_BRAPOS instead of OP_BRA and OP_SCBRAPOS instead

of OP_SCBRA. The end of such a group is marked by OP_KETRPOS. If the minimum

repetition is zero, the group is preceded by OP_BRAPOSZERO.

Once-only (atomic) groups

-------------------------

These are just like other subpatterns, but they start with the opcode OP_ONCE.

The check for matching an empty string in an unbounded repeat is handled

entirely at runtime, so there is just this one opcode for atomic groups.

Assertions

----------

Forward assertions are also just like other subpatterns, but starting with one

of the opcodes OP_ASSERT or OP_ASSERT_NOT. Backward assertions use the opcodes

OP_ASSERTBACK and OP_ASSERTBACK_NOT, and the first opcode inside the assertion

is OP_REVERSE, followed by a count of the number of characters to move back the

pointer in the subject string. In ASCII or UTF-32 mode, the count is also the

number of code units, but in UTF-8/16 mode each character may occupy more than

one code unit. A separate count is present in each alternative of a lookbehind

assertion, allowing them to have different (but fixed) lengths.

Conditional subpatterns

-----------------------

These are like other subpatterns, but they start with the opcode OP_COND, or

OP_SCOND for one that might match an empty string in an unbounded repeat.

If the condition is a back reference, this is stored at the start of the

subpattern using the opcode OP_CREF followed by a count containing the

reference number, provided that the reference is to a unique capturing group.

If the reference was by name and there is more than one group with that name,

OP_DNCREF is used instead. It is followed by two counts: the index in the group

names table, and the number of groups with the same name. The allows the

matcher to check if any group with the given name is set.

If the condition is "in recursion" (coded as "(?(R)"), or "in recursion of

group x" (coded as "(?(Rx)"), the group number is stored at the start of the

subpattern using the opcode OP_RREF (with a value of RREF_ANY (0xffff) for "the

whole pattern") or OP_DNRREF (with data as for OP_DNCREF).

For a DEFINE condition, OP_FALSE is used (with no associated data). During

compilation, however, a DEFINE condition is coded as OP_DEFINE so that, when

the conditional group is complete, there can be a check to ensure that it

contains only one top-level branch. Once this has happened, the opcode is

changed to OP_FALSE, so the matcher never sees OP_DEFINE.

There is a special PCRE2-specific condition of the form (VERSION[>]=x.y), which

tests the PCRE2 version number. This compiles into one of the opcodes OP_TRUE

or OP_FALSE.

If a condition is not a back reference, recursion test, DEFINE, or VERSION, it

must start with a parenthesized assertion, whose opcode normally immediately

follows OP_COND or OP_SCOND. However, if automatic callouts are enabled, a

callout is inserted immediately before the assertion. It is also possible to

insert a manual callout at this point. Only assertion conditions may have

callouts preceding the condition.

A condition that is the negative assertion (?!) is optimized to OP_FAIL in all

parts of the pattern, so this is another opcode that may appear as a condition.

It is treated the same as OP_FALSE.

Recursion

---------

Recursion either matches the current pattern, or some subexpression. The opcode

OP_RECURSE is followed by a LINK_SIZE value that is the offset to the starting

bracket from the start of the whole pattern. OP_RECURSE is also used for

"subroutine" calls, even though they are not strictly a recursion. Up till

release 10.30 recursions were treated as atomic groups, making them

incompatible with Perl (but PCRE had them well before Perl did). From 10.30,

backtracking into recursions is supported.

Repeated recursions used to be wrapped inside OP_ONCE brackets, which not only

forced no backtracking, but also allowed repetition to be handled as for other

bracketed groups. From 10.30 onwards, repeated recursions are duplicated for

their minimum repetitions, and then wrapped in non-capturing brackets for the

remainder. For example, (?1){3} is treated as (?1)(?1)(?1), and (?1){2,4} is

treated as (?1)(?1)(?:(?1)){0,2}.

Callouts

--------

A callout may have either a numerical argument or a string argument. These use

OP_CALLOUT or OP_CALLOUT_STR, respectively. In each case these are followed by

two LINK_SIZE values giving the offset in the pattern string to the start of

the following item, and another count giving the length of this item. These

values make it possible for pcre2test to output useful tracing information

using callouts.

In the case of a numeric callout, after these two values there is a single code

unit containing the callout number, in the range 0-255, with 255 being used for

callouts that are automatically inserted as a result of the PCRE2_AUTO_CALLOUT

option. Thus, this opcode item is of fixed length:

  [OP_CALLOUT] [PATTERN_OFFSET] [PATTERN_LENGTH] [NUMBER]

For callouts with string arguments, OP_CALLOUT_STR has three more data items:

a LINK_SIZE value giving the complete length of the entire opcode item, a

LINK_SIZE item containing the offset within the pattern string to the start of

the string argument, and the string itself, preceded by its starting delimiter

and followed by a binary zero. When a callout function is called, a pointer to

the actual string is passed, but the delimiter can be accessed as string[-1] if

the application needs it. In the 8-bit library, the callout in /X(?C'abc')Y/ is

compiled as the following bytes (decimal numbers represent binary values):

  [OP_CALLOUT_STR]  [0] [10]  [0] [1]  [0] [14]  [0] [5] ['] [a] [b] [c] [0]

                    --------  -------  --------  -------

                       |         |        |         |

                       ------- LINK_SIZE items ------

Opcode table checking

---------------------

The last opcode that is defined in pcre2_internal.h is OP_TABLE_LENGTH. This is

not a real opcode, but is used to check at compile time that tables indexed by

opcode are the correct length, in order to catch updating errors.

Philip Hazel

20 July 2018