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1 News about PCRE releases |
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2 ------------------------ |
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3 |
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4 |
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5 Release 7.8 05-Sep-08 |
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6 --------------------- |
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7 |
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8 More bug fixes, plus a performance improvement in Unicode character property |
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9 lookup. |
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10 |
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11 |
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12 Release 7.7 07-May-08 |
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13 --------------------- |
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14 |
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15 This is once again mainly a bug-fix release, but there are a couple of new |
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16 features. |
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17 |
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18 |
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19 Release 7.6 28-Jan-08 |
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20 --------------------- |
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21 |
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22 The main reason for having this release so soon after 7.5 is because it fixes a |
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23 potential buffer overflow problem in pcre_compile() when run in UTF-8 mode. In |
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24 addition, the CMake configuration files have been brought up to date. |
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25 |
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26 |
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27 Release 7.5 10-Jan-08 |
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28 --------------------- |
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29 |
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30 This is mainly a bug-fix release. However the ability to link pcregrep with |
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31 libz or libbz2 and the ability to link pcretest with libreadline have been |
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32 added. Also the --line-offsets and --file-offsets options were added to |
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33 pcregrep. |
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34 |
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35 |
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36 Release 7.4 21-Sep-07 |
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37 --------------------- |
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38 |
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39 The only change of specification is the addition of options to control whether |
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40 \R matches any Unicode line ending (the default) or just CR, LF, and CRLF. |
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41 Otherwise, the changes are bug fixes and a refactoring to reduce the number of |
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42 relocations needed in a shared library. There have also been some documentation |
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43 updates, in particular, some more information about using CMake to build PCRE |
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44 has been added to the NON-UNIX-USE file. |
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45 |
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46 |
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47 Release 7.3 28-Aug-07 |
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48 --------------------- |
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49 |
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50 Most changes are bug fixes. Some that are not: |
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51 |
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52 1. There is some support for Perl 5.10's experimental "backtracking control |
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53 verbs" such as (*PRUNE). |
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54 |
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55 2. UTF-8 checking is now as per RFC 3629 instead of RFC 2279; this is more |
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56 restrictive in the strings it accepts. |
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57 |
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58 3. Checking for potential integer overflow has been made more dynamic, and as a |
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59 consequence there is no longer a hard limit on the size of a subpattern that |
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60 has a limited repeat count. |
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61 |
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62 4. When CRLF is a valid line-ending sequence, pcre_exec() and pcre_dfa_exec() |
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63 no longer advance by two characters instead of one when an unanchored match |
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64 fails at CRLF if there are explicit CR or LF matches within the pattern. |
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65 This gets rid of some anomalous effects that previously occurred. |
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66 |
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67 5. Some PCRE-specific settings for varying the newline options at the start of |
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68 a pattern have been added. |
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69 |
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70 |
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71 Release 7.2 19-Jun-07 |
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72 --------------------- |
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73 |
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74 WARNING: saved patterns that were compiled by earlier versions of PCRE must be |
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75 recompiled for use with 7.2 (necessitated by the addition of \K, \h, \H, \v, |
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76 and \V). |
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77 |
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78 Correction to the notes for 7.1: the note about shared libraries for Windows is |
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79 wrong. Previously, three libraries were built, but each could function |
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80 independently. For example, the pcreposix library also included all the |
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81 functions from the basic pcre library. The change is that the three libraries |
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82 are no longer independent. They are like the Unix libraries. To use the |
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83 pcreposix functions, for example, you need to link with both the pcreposix and |
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84 the basic pcre library. |
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85 |
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86 Some more features from Perl 5.10 have been added: |
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87 |
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88 (?-n) and (?+n) relative references for recursion and subroutines. |
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89 |
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90 (?(-n) and (?(+n) relative references as conditions. |
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91 |
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92 \k{name} and \g{name} are synonyms for \k<name>. |
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93 |
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94 \K to reset the start of the matched string; for example, (foo)\Kbar |
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95 matches bar preceded by foo, but only sets bar as the matched string. |
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96 |
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97 (?| introduces a group where the capturing parentheses in each alternative |
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98 start from the same number; for example, (?|(abc)|(xyz)) sets capturing |
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99 parentheses number 1 in both cases. |
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100 |
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101 \h, \H, \v, \V match horizontal and vertical whitespace, respectively. |
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102 |
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103 |
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104 Release 7.1 24-Apr-07 |
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105 --------------------- |
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106 |
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107 There is only one new feature in this release: a linebreak setting of |
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108 PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF. It is a cut-down version of PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY, which |
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109 recognizes only CRLF, CR, and LF as linebreaks. |
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110 |
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111 A few bugs are fixed (see ChangeLog for details), but the major change is a |
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112 complete re-implementation of the build system. This now has full Autotools |
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113 support and so is now "standard" in some sense. It should help with compiling |
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114 PCRE in a wide variety of environments. |
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115 |
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116 NOTE: when building shared libraries for Windows, three dlls are now built, |
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117 called libpcre, libpcreposix, and libpcrecpp. Previously, everything was |
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118 included in a single dll. |
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119 |
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120 Another important change is that the dftables auxiliary program is no longer |
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121 compiled and run at "make" time by default. Instead, a default set of character |
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122 tables (assuming ASCII coding) is used. If you want to use dftables to generate |
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123 the character tables as previously, add --enable-rebuild-chartables to the |
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124 "configure" command. You must do this if you are compiling PCRE to run on a |
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125 system that uses EBCDIC code. |
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126 |
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127 There is a discussion about character tables in the README file. The default is |
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128 not to use dftables so that that there is no problem when cross-compiling. |
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129 |
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130 |
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131 Release 7.0 19-Dec-06 |
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132 --------------------- |
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133 |
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134 This release has a new major number because there have been some internal |
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135 upheavals to facilitate the addition of new optimizations and other facilities, |
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136 and to make subsequent maintenance and extension easier. Compilation is likely |
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137 to be a bit slower, but there should be no major effect on runtime performance. |
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138 Previously compiled patterns are NOT upwards compatible with this release. If |
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139 you have saved compiled patterns from a previous release, you will have to |
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140 re-compile them. Important changes that are visible to users are: |
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141 |
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142 1. The Unicode property tables have been updated to Unicode 5.0.0, which adds |
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143 some more scripts. |
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144 |
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145 2. The option PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY causes PCRE to recognize any Unicode newline |
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146 sequence as a newline. |
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147 |
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148 3. The \R escape matches a single Unicode newline sequence as a single unit. |
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149 |
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150 4. New features that will appear in Perl 5.10 are now in PCRE. These include |
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151 alternative Perl syntax for named parentheses, and Perl syntax for |
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152 recursion. |
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153 |
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154 5. The C++ wrapper interface has been extended by the addition of a |
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155 QuoteMeta function and the ability to allow copy construction and |
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156 assignment. |
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157 |
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158 For a complete list of changes, see the ChangeLog file. |
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159 |
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160 |
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161 Release 6.7 04-Jul-06 |
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162 --------------------- |
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163 |
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164 The main additions to this release are the ability to use the same name for |
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165 multiple sets of parentheses, and support for CRLF line endings in both the |
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166 library and pcregrep (and in pcretest for testing). |
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167 |
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168 Thanks to Ian Taylor, the stack usage for many kinds of pattern has been |
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169 significantly reduced for certain subject strings. |
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170 |
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171 |
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172 Release 6.5 01-Feb-06 |
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173 --------------------- |
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174 |
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175 Important changes in this release: |
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176 |
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177 1. A number of new features have been added to pcregrep. |
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178 |
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179 2. The Unicode property tables have been updated to Unicode 4.1.0, and the |
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180 supported properties have been extended with script names such as "Arabic", |
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181 and the derived properties "Any" and "L&". This has necessitated a change to |
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182 the interal format of compiled patterns. Any saved compiled patterns that |
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183 use \p or \P must be recompiled. |
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184 |
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185 3. The specification of recursion in patterns has been changed so that all |
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186 recursive subpatterns are automatically treated as atomic groups. Thus, for |
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187 example, (?R) is treated as if it were (?>(?R)). This is necessary because |
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188 otherwise there are situations where recursion does not work. |
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189 |
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190 See the ChangeLog for a complete list of changes, which include a number of bug |
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191 fixes and tidies. |
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192 |
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193 |
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194 Release 6.0 07-Jun-05 |
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195 --------------------- |
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196 |
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197 The release number has been increased to 6.0 because of the addition of several |
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198 major new pieces of functionality. |
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199 |
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200 A new function, pcre_dfa_exec(), which implements pattern matching using a DFA |
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201 algorithm, has been added. This has a number of advantages for certain cases, |
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202 though it does run more slowly, and lacks the ability to capture substrings. On |
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203 the other hand, it does find all matches, not just the first, and it works |
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204 better for partial matching. The pcrematching man page discusses the |
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205 differences. |
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206 |
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207 The pcretest program has been enhanced so that it can make use of the new |
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208 pcre_dfa_exec() matching function and the extra features it provides. |
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209 |
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210 The distribution now includes a C++ wrapper library. This is built |
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211 automatically if a C++ compiler is found. The pcrecpp man page discusses this |
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212 interface. |
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213 |
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214 The code itself has been re-organized into many more files, one for each |
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215 function, so it no longer requires everything to be linked in when static |
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216 linkage is used. As a consequence, some internal functions have had to have |
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217 their names exposed. These functions all have names starting with _pcre_. They |
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218 are undocumented, and are not intended for use by outside callers. |
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219 |
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220 The pcregrep program has been enhanced with new functionality such as |
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221 multiline-matching and options for output more matching context. See the |
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222 ChangeLog for a complete list of changes to the library and the utility |
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223 programs. |
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224 |
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225 |
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226 Release 5.0 13-Sep-04 |
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227 --------------------- |
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228 |
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229 The licence under which PCRE is released has been changed to the more |
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230 conventional "BSD" licence. |
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231 |
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232 In the code, some bugs have been fixed, and there are also some major changes |
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233 in this release (which is why I've increased the number to 5.0). Some changes |
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234 are internal rearrangements, and some provide a number of new facilities. The |
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235 new features are: |
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236 |
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237 1. There's an "automatic callout" feature that inserts callouts before every |
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238 item in the regex, and there's a new callout field that gives the position |
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239 in the pattern - useful for debugging and tracing. |
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240 |
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241 2. The extra_data structure can now be used to pass in a set of character |
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242 tables at exec time. This is useful if compiled regex are saved and re-used |
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243 at a later time when the tables may not be at the same address. If the |
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244 default internal tables are used, the pointer saved with the compiled |
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245 pattern is now set to NULL, which means that you don't need to do anything |
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246 special unless you are using custom tables. |
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247 |
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248 3. It is possible, with some restrictions on the content of the regex, to |
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249 request "partial" matching. A special return code is given if all of the |
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250 subject string matched part of the regex. This could be useful for testing |
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251 an input field as it is being typed. |
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252 |
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253 4. There is now some optional support for Unicode character properties, which |
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254 means that the patterns items such as \p{Lu} and \X can now be used. Only |
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255 the general category properties are supported. If PCRE is compiled with this |
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256 support, an additional 90K data structure is include, which increases the |
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257 size of the library dramatically. |
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258 |
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259 5. There is support for saving compiled patterns and re-using them later. |
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260 |
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261 6. There is support for running regular expressions that were compiled on a |
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262 different host with the opposite endianness. |
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263 |
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264 7. The pcretest program has been extended to accommodate the new features. |
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265 |
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266 The main internal rearrangement is that sequences of literal characters are no |
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267 longer handled as strings. Instead, each character is handled on its own. This |
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268 makes some UTF-8 handling easier, and makes the support of partial matching |
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269 possible. Compiled patterns containing long literal strings will be larger as a |
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270 result of this change; I hope that performance will not be much affected. |
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271 |
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272 |
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273 Release 4.5 01-Dec-03 |
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274 --------------------- |
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275 |
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276 Again mainly a bug-fix and tidying release, with only a couple of new features: |
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277 |
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278 1. It's possible now to compile PCRE so that it does not use recursive |
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279 function calls when matching. Instead it gets memory from the heap. This slows |
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280 things down, but may be necessary on systems with limited stacks. |
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281 |
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282 2. UTF-8 string checking has been tightened to reject overlong sequences and to |
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283 check that a starting offset points to the start of a character. Failure of the |
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284 latter returns a new error code: PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET. |
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285 |
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286 3. PCRE can now be compiled for systems that use EBCDIC code. |
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287 |
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288 |
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289 Release 4.4 21-Aug-03 |
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290 --------------------- |
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291 |
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292 This is mainly a bug-fix and tidying release. The only new feature is that PCRE |
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293 checks UTF-8 strings for validity by default. There is an option to suppress |
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294 this, just in case anybody wants that teeny extra bit of performance. |
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295 |
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296 |
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297 Releases 4.1 - 4.3 |
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298 ------------------ |
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299 |
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300 Sorry, I forgot about updating the NEWS file for these releases. Please take a |
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301 look at ChangeLog. |
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302 |
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303 |
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304 Release 4.0 17-Feb-03 |
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305 --------------------- |
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306 |
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307 There have been a lot of changes for the 4.0 release, adding additional |
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308 functionality and mending bugs. Below is a list of the highlights of the new |
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309 functionality. For full details of these features, please consult the |
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310 documentation. For a complete list of changes, see the ChangeLog file. |
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311 |
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312 1. Support for Perl's \Q...\E escapes. |
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313 |
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314 2. "Possessive quantifiers" ?+, *+, ++, and {,}+ which come from Sun's Java |
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315 package. They provide some syntactic sugar for simple cases of "atomic |
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316 grouping". |
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317 |
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318 3. Support for the \G assertion. It is true when the current matching position |
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319 is at the start point of the match. |
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320 |
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321 4. A new feature that provides some of the functionality that Perl provides |
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322 with (?{...}). The facility is termed a "callout". The way it is done in PCRE |
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323 is for the caller to provide an optional function, by setting pcre_callout to |
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324 its entry point. To get the function called, the regex must include (?C) at |
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325 appropriate points. |
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326 |
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327 5. Support for recursive calls to individual subpatterns. This makes it really |
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328 easy to get totally confused. |
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329 |
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330 6. Support for named subpatterns. The Python syntax (?P<name>...) is used to |
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331 name a group. |
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332 |
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333 7. Several extensions to UTF-8 support; it is now fairly complete. There is an |
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334 option for pcregrep to make it operate in UTF-8 mode. |
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335 |
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336 8. The single man page has been split into a number of separate man pages. |
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337 These also give rise to individual HTML pages which are put in a separate |
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338 directory. There is an index.html page that lists them all. Some hyperlinking |
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339 between the pages has been installed. |
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340 |
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341 |
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342 Release 3.5 15-Aug-01 |
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343 --------------------- |
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344 |
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345 1. The configuring system has been upgraded to use later versions of autoconf |
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346 and libtool. By default it builds both a shared and a static library if the OS |
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347 supports it. You can use --disable-shared or --disable-static on the configure |
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348 command if you want only one of them. |
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349 |
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350 2. The pcretest utility is now installed along with pcregrep because it is |
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351 useful for users (to test regexs) and by doing this, it automatically gets |
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352 relinked by libtool. The documentation has been turned into a man page, so |
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353 there are now .1, .txt, and .html versions in /doc. |
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354 |
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355 3. Upgrades to pcregrep: |
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356 (i) Added long-form option names like gnu grep. |
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357 (ii) Added --help to list all options with an explanatory phrase. |
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358 (iii) Added -r, --recursive to recurse into sub-directories. |
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359 (iv) Added -f, --file to read patterns from a file. |
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360 |
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361 4. Added --enable-newline-is-cr and --enable-newline-is-lf to the configure |
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362 script, to force use of CR or LF instead of \n in the source. On non-Unix |
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363 systems, the value can be set in config.h. |
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364 |
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365 5. The limit of 200 on non-capturing parentheses is a _nesting_ limit, not an |
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366 absolute limit. Changed the text of the error message to make this clear, and |
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367 likewise updated the man page. |
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368 |
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369 6. The limit of 99 on the number of capturing subpatterns has been removed. |
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370 The new limit is 65535, which I hope will not be a "real" limit. |
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371 |
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372 |
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373 Release 3.3 01-Aug-00 |
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374 --------------------- |
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375 |
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376 There is some support for UTF-8 character strings. This is incomplete and |
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377 experimental. The documentation describes what is and what is not implemented. |
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378 Otherwise, this is just a bug-fixing release. |
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379 |
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380 |
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381 Release 3.0 01-Feb-00 |
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382 --------------------- |
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383 |
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384 1. A "configure" script is now used to configure PCRE for Unix systems. It |
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385 builds a Makefile, a config.h file, and the pcre-config script. |
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386 |
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387 2. PCRE is built as a shared library by default. |
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388 |
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389 3. There is support for POSIX classes such as [:alpha:]. |
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390 |
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391 5. There is an experimental recursion feature. |
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392 |
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393 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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394 IMPORTANT FOR THOSE UPGRADING FROM VERSIONS BEFORE 2.00 |
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395 |
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396 Please note that there has been a change in the API such that a larger |
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397 ovector is required at matching time, to provide some additional workspace. |
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398 The new man page has details. This change was necessary in order to support |
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399 some of the new functionality in Perl 5.005. |
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400 |
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401 IMPORTANT FOR THOSE UPGRADING FROM VERSION 2.00 |
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402 |
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403 Another (I hope this is the last!) change has been made to the API for the |
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404 pcre_compile() function. An additional argument has been added to make it |
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405 possible to pass over a pointer to character tables built in the current |
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406 locale by pcre_maketables(). To use the default tables, this new arguement |
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407 should be passed as NULL. |
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408 |
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409 IMPORTANT FOR THOSE UPGRADING FROM VERSION 2.05 |
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410 |
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411 Yet another (and again I hope this really is the last) change has been made |
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412 to the API for the pcre_exec() function. An additional argument has been |
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413 added to make it possible to start the match other than at the start of the |
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414 subject string. This is important if there are lookbehinds. The new man |
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415 page has the details, but you just want to convert existing programs, all |
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416 you need to do is to stick in a new fifth argument to pcre_exec(), with a |
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417 value of zero. For example, change |
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418 |
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419 pcre_exec(pattern, extra, subject, length, options, ovec, ovecsize) |
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420 to |
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421 pcre_exec(pattern, extra, subject, length, 0, options, ovec, ovecsize) |
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422 |
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423 **** |