NAME

perlreapi - perl regular expression plugin interface

DESCRIPTION

As of Perl 5.9.5 there is a new interface for using other regexp engines than the default one. Each engine is supposed to provide access to a constant structure of the following format:

typedef struct regexp_engine {
    REGEXP* (*comp) (pTHX_ const SV * const pattern, const U32 flags);
    I32     (*exec) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, char* stringarg, char* strend,
                     char* strbeg, I32 minend, SV* screamer,
                     void* data, U32 flags);
    char*   (*intuit) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, SV *sv, char *strpos,
                       char *strend, U32 flags,
                       struct re_scream_pos_data_s *data);
    SV*     (*checkstr) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx);
    void    (*free) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx);
    void    (*numbered_buff_FETCH) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const I32 paren,
                             SV * const sv);
    void    (*numbered_buff_STORE) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const I32 paren,
                                   SV const * const value);
    I32     (*numbered_buff_LENGTH) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const SV * const sv,
                                    const I32 paren);
    SV*     (*named_buff) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, SV * const key,
                           SV * const value, U32 flags);
    SV*     (*named_buff_iter) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const SV * const lastkey,
                                const U32 flags);
    SV*     (*qr_package)(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx);
#ifdef USE_ITHREADS
    void*   (*dupe) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, CLONE_PARAMS *param);
#endif

When a regexp is compiled, its engine field is then set to point at the appropriate structure so that when it needs to be used Perl can find the right routines to do so.

In order to install a new regexp handler, $^H{regcomp} is set to an integer which (when casted appropriately) resolves to one of these structures. When compiling, the comp method is executed, and the resulting regexp structure's engine field is expected to point back at the same structure.

The pTHX_ symbol in the definition is a macro used by perl under threading to provide an extra argument to the routine holding a pointer back to the interpreter that is executing the regexp. So under threading all routines get an extra argument.

Callbacks

comp

REGEXP* comp(pTHX_ const SV * const pattern, const U32 flags);

Compile the pattern stored in pattern using the given flags and return a pointer to a prepared REGEXP structure that can perform the match. See "The REGEXP structure" below for an explanation of the individual fields in the REGEXP struct.

The pattern parameter is the scalar that was used as the pattern. previous versions of perl would pass two char* indicating the start and end of the stringifed pattern, the following snippet can be used to get the old parameters:

STRLEN plen;
char*  exp = SvPV(pattern, plen);
char* xend = exp + plen;

Since any scalar can be passed as a pattern it's possible to implement an engine that does something with an array ("ook" =~ [ qw/ eek hlagh / ]) or with the non-stringified form of a compiled regular expression ("ook" =~ qr/eek/). perl's own engine will always stringify everything using the snippet above but that doesn't mean other engines have to.

The flags paramater is a bitfield which indicates which of the msixp flags the regex was compiled with. It also contains additional info such as whether use locale is in effect.

The eogc flags are stripped out before being passed to the comp routine. The regex engine does not need to know whether any of these are set as those flags should only affect what perl does with the pattern and its match variables, not how it gets compiled and executed.

By the time the comp callback is called, some of these flags have already had effect (noted below where applicable). However most of their effect occurs after the comp callback has run in routines that read the rx->extflags field which it populates.

In general the flags should be preserved in rx->extflags after compilation, although the regex engine might want to add or delete some of them to invoke or disable some special behavior in perl. The flags along with any special behavior they cause are documented below:

The pattern modifiers:

/m - RXf_PMf_MULTILINE

If this is in rx->extflags it will be passed to Perl_fbm_instr by pp_split which will treat the subject string as a multi-line string.

/s - RXf_PMf_SINGLELINE

/i - RXf_PMf_FOLD

/x - RXf_PMf_EXTENDED

If present on a regex # comments will be handled differently by the tokenizer in some cases.

TODO: Document those cases.

/p - RXf_PMf_KEEPCOPY

Additional flags:

RXf_PMf_LOCALE

Set if use locale is in effect. If present in rx->extflags split will use the locale dependant definition of whitespace under when RXf_SKIPWHITE or RXf_WHITE are in effect. Under ASCII whitespace is defined as per isSPACE, and by the internal macros is_utf8_space under UTF-8 and isSPACE_LC under use locale.

RXf_UTF8

Set if the pattern is SvUTF8(), set by Perl_pmruntime.

A regex engine may want to set or disable this flag during compilation. The perl engine for instance may upgrade non-UTF-8 strings to UTF-8 if the pattern includes constructs such as \x{...} that can only match Unicode values.

RXf_SPLIT

If split is invoked as split ' ' or with no arguments (which really means split(' ', $_), see split), perl will set this flag. The regex engine can then check for it and set the SKIPWHITE and WHITE extflags. To do this the perl engine does:

if (flags & RXf_SPLIT && r->prelen == 1 && r->precomp[0] == ' ')
    r->extflags |= (RXf_SKIPWHITE|RXf_WHITE);

These flags can be set during compilation to enable optimizations in the split operator.

RXf_SKIPWHITE

If the flag is present in rx->extflags split will delete whitespace from the start of the subject string before it's operated on. What is considered whitespace depends on whether the subject is a UTF-8 string and whether the RXf_PMf_LOCALE flag is set.

If RXf_WHITE is set in addition to this flag split will behave like split " " under the perl engine.

RXf_START_ONLY

Tells the split operator to split the target string on newlines (\n) without invoking the regex engine.

Perl's engine sets this if the pattern is /^/ (plen == 1 && *exp == '^'), even under /^/s, see split. Of course a different regex engine might want to use the same optimizations with a different syntax.

RXf_WHITE

Tells the split operator to split the target string on whitespace without invoking the regex engine. The definition of whitespace varies depending on whether the target string is a UTF-8 string and on whether RXf_PMf_LOCALE is set.

Perl's engine sets this flag if the pattern is \s+.

exec

I32 exec(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx,
         char *stringarg, char* strend, char* strbeg,
         I32 minend, SV* screamer,
         void* data, U32 flags);

Execute a regexp.

intuit

char* intuit(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx,
              SV *sv, char *strpos, char *strend,
              const U32 flags, struct re_scream_pos_data_s *data);

Find the start position where a regex match should be attempted, or possibly whether the regex engine should not be run because the pattern can't match. This is called as appropriate by the core depending on the values of the extflags member of the regexp structure.

checkstr

SV*	checkstr(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx);

Return a SV containing a string that must appear in the pattern. Used by split for optimising matches.

free

void free(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx);

Called by perl when it is freeing a regexp pattern so that the engine can release any resources pointed to by the pprivate member of the regexp structure. This is only responsible for freeing private data; perl will handle releasing anything else contained in the regexp structure.

Numbered capture callbacks

Called to get/set the value of $`, $', $& and their named equivalents, ${^PREMATCH}, ${^POSTMATCH} and $^{MATCH}, as well as the numbered capture buffers ($1, $2, ...).

The paren paramater will be -2 for $`, -1 for $', 0 for $&, 1 for $1 and so forth.

The names have been chosen by analogy with Tie::Scalar methods names with an additional LENGTH callback for efficiency. However named capture variables are currently not tied internally but implemented via magic.

numbered_buff_FETCH

void numbered_buff_FETCH(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const I32 paren,
                         SV * const sv);

Fetch a specified numbered capture. sv should be set to the scalar to return, the scalar is passed as an argument rather than being returned from the function because when it's called perl already has a scalar to store the value, creating another one would be redundant. The scalar can be set with sv_setsv, sv_setpvn and friends, see perlapi.

This callback is where perl untaints its own capture variables under taint mode (see perlsec). See the Perl_reg_numbered_buff_fetch function in regcomp.c for how to untaint capture variables if that's something you'd like your engine to do as well.

numbered_buff_STORE

void    (*numbered_buff_STORE) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const I32 paren,
                                SV const * const value);

Set the value of a numbered capture variable. value is the scalar that is to be used as the new value. It's up to the engine to make sure this is used as the new value (or reject it).

Example:

if ("ook" =~ /(o*)/) {
    # `paren' will be `1' and `value' will be `ee'
    $1 =~ tr/o/e/;
}

Perl's own engine will croak on any attempt to modify the capture variables, to do this in another engine use the following callack (copied from Perl_reg_numbered_buff_store):

void
Example_reg_numbered_buff_store(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const I32 paren,
							    SV const * const value)
{
    PERL_UNUSED_ARG(rx);
    PERL_UNUSED_ARG(paren);
    PERL_UNUSED_ARG(value);

    if (!PL_localizing)
        Perl_croak(aTHX_ PL_no_modify);
}

Actually perl 5.10 will not always croak in a statement that looks like it would modify a numbered capture variable. This is because the STORE callback will not be called if perl can determine that it doesn't have to modify the value. This is exactly how tied variables behave in the same situation:

package CaptureVar;
use base 'Tie::Scalar';

sub TIESCALAR { bless [] }
sub FETCH { undef }
sub STORE { die "This doesn't get called" }

package main;

tie my $sv => "CatptureVar";
$sv =~ y/a/b/;

Because $sv is undef when the y/// operator is applied to it the transliteration won't actually execute and the program won't die. This is different to how 5.8 and earlier versions behaved since the capture variables were READONLY variables then, now they'll just die when assigned to in the default engine.

numbered_buff_LENGTH

I32 numbered_buff_LENGTH (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const SV * const sv,
                          const I32 paren);

Get the length of a capture variable. There's a special callback for this so that perl doesn't have to do a FETCH and run length on the result, since the length is (in perl's case) known from an offset stored in <rx-offs> this is much more efficient:

I32 s1  = rx->offs[paren].start;
I32 s2  = rx->offs[paren].end;
I32 len = t1 - s1;

This is a little bit more complex in the case of UTF-8, see what Perl_reg_numbered_buff_length does with is_utf8_string_loclen.

Named capture callbacks

Called to get/set the value of %+ and %- as well as by some utility functions in re.

There are two callbacks, named_buff is called in all the cases the FETCH, STORE, DELETE, CLEAR, EXISTS and SCALAR Tie::Hash callbacks would be on changes to %+ and %- and named_buff_iter in the same cases as FIRSTKEY and NEXTKEY.

The flags parameter can be used to determine which of these operations the callbacks should respond to, the following flags are currently defined:

Which Tie::Hash operation is being performed from the Perl level on %+ or %+, if any:

RXapif_FETCH
RXapif_STORE
RXapif_DELETE
RXapif_CLEAR
RXapif_EXISTS
RXapif_SCALAR
RXapif_FIRSTKEY
RXapif_NEXTKEY

Whether %+ or %- is being operated on, if any.

RXapif_ONE /* %+ */
RXapif_ALL /* %- */

Whether this is being called as re::regname, re::regnames or re::regnames_count, if any. The first two will be combined with RXapif_ONE or RXapif_ALL.

RXapif_REGNAME
RXapif_REGNAMES
RXapif_REGNAMES_COUNT

Internally %+ and %- are implemented with a real tied interface via Tie::Hash::NamedCapture. The methods in that package will call back into these functions. However the usage of Tie::Hash::NamedCapture for this purpose might change in future releases. For instance this might be implemented by magic instead (would need an extension to mgvtbl).

named_buff

SV*     (*named_buff) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, SV * const key,
                       SV * const value, U32 flags);

named_buff_iter

SV*     (*named_buff_iter) (pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, const SV * const lastkey,
                            const U32 flags);

qr_package

SV* qr_package(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx);

The package the qr// magic object is blessed into (as seen by ref qr//). It is recommended that engines change this to their package name for identification regardless of whether they implement methods on the object.

The package this method returns should also have the internal Regexp package in its @ISA. qr//-isa("Regexp")> should always be true regardless of what engine is being used.

Example implementation might be:

SV*
Example_qr_package(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx)
{
	PERL_UNUSED_ARG(rx);
	return newSVpvs("re::engine::Example");
}

Any method calls on an object created with qr// will be dispatched to the package as a normal object.

use re::engine::Example;
my $re = qr//;
$re->meth; # dispatched to re::engine::Example::meth()

To retrieve the REGEXP object from the scalar in an XS function use the SvRX macro, see "REGEXP Functions" in perlapi.

void meth(SV * rv)
PPCODE:
    REGEXP * re = SvRX(sv);

dupe

void* dupe(pTHX_ REGEXP * const rx, CLONE_PARAMS *param);

On threaded builds a regexp may need to be duplicated so that the pattern can be used by mutiple threads. This routine is expected to handle the duplication of any private data pointed to by the pprivate member of the regexp structure. It will be called with the preconstructed new regexp structure as an argument, the pprivate member will point at the old private structue, and it is this routine's responsibility to construct a copy and return a pointer to it (which perl will then use to overwrite the field as passed to this routine.)

This allows the engine to dupe its private data but also if necessary modify the final structure if it really must.

On unthreaded builds this field doesn't exist.

The REGEXP structure

The REGEXP struct is defined in regexp.h. All regex engines must be able to correctly build such a structure in their "comp" routine.

The REGEXP structure contains all the data that perl needs to be aware of to properly work with the regular expression. It includes data about optimisations that perl can use to determine if the regex engine should really be used, and various other control info that is needed to properly execute patterns in various contexts such as is the pattern anchored in some way, or what flags were used during the compile, or whether the program contains special constructs that perl needs to be aware of.

In addition it contains two fields that are intended for the private use of the regex engine that compiled the pattern. These are the intflags and pprivate members. pprivate is a void pointer to an arbitrary structure whose use and management is the responsibility of the compiling engine. perl will never modify either of these values.

typedef struct regexp {
    /* what engine created this regexp? */
    const struct regexp_engine* engine;

    /* what re is this a lightweight copy of? */
    struct regexp* mother_re;

    /* Information about the match that the perl core uses to manage things */
    U32 extflags;   /* Flags used both externally and internally */
    I32 minlen;     /* mininum possible length of string to match */
    I32 minlenret;  /* mininum possible length of $& */
    U32 gofs;       /* chars left of pos that we search from */

    /* substring data about strings that must appear
       in the final match, used for optimisations */
    struct reg_substr_data *substrs;

    U32 nparens;  /* number of capture buffers */

    /* private engine specific data */
    U32 intflags;   /* Engine Specific Internal flags */
    void *pprivate; /* Data private to the regex engine which 
                       created this object. */

    /* Data about the last/current match. These are modified during matching*/
    U32 lastparen;            /* last open paren matched */
    U32 lastcloseparen;       /* last close paren matched */
    regexp_paren_pair *swap;  /* Swap copy of *offs */
    regexp_paren_pair *offs;  /* Array of offsets for (@-) and (@+) */

    char *subbeg;  /* saved or original string so \digit works forever. */
    SV_SAVED_COPY  /* If non-NULL, SV which is COW from original */
    I32 sublen;    /* Length of string pointed by subbeg */

    /* Information about the match that isn't often used */
    I32 prelen;           /* length of precomp */
    const char *precomp;  /* pre-compilation regular expression */

    char *wrapped;  /* wrapped version of the pattern */
    I32 wraplen;    /* length of wrapped */

    I32 seen_evals;   /* number of eval groups in the pattern - for security checks */
    HV *paren_names;  /* Optional hash of paren names */

    /* Refcount of this regexp */
    I32 refcnt;             /* Refcount of this regexp */
} regexp;

The fields are discussed in more detail below:

`engine`

This field points at a regexp_engine structure which contains pointers to the subroutines that are to be used for performing a match. It is the compiling routine's responsibility to populate this field before returning the regexp object.

Internally this is set to NULL unless a custom engine is specified in $^H{regcomp}, perl's own set of callbacks can be accessed in the struct pointed to by RE_ENGINE_PTR.

`mother_re`

TODO, see http://www.mail-archive.com/perl5-changes@perl.org/msg17328.html

`extflags`

This will be used by perl to see what flags the regexp was compiled with, this will normally be set to the value of the flags parameter by the comp callback. See the comp documentation for valid flags.

`minlen` `minlenret`

The minimum string length required for the pattern to match. This is used to prune the search space by not bothering to match any closer to the end of a string than would allow a match. For instance there is no point in even starting the regex engine if the minlen is 10 but the string is only 5 characters long. There is no way that the pattern can match.

minlenret is the minimum length of the string that would be found in $& after a match.

The difference between minlen and minlenret can be seen in the following pattern:

/ns(?=\d)/

where the minlen would be 3 but minlenret would only be 2 as the \d is required to match but is not actually included in the matched content. This distinction is particularly important as the substitution logic uses the minlenret to tell whether it can do in-place substition which can result in considerable speedup.

`gofs`

Left offset from pos() to start match at.

`substrs`

Substring data about strings that must appear in the final match. This is currently only used internally by perl's engine for but might be used in the future for all engines for optimisations.

`nparens`, `lasparen`, and `lastcloseparen`

These fields are used to keep track of how many paren groups could be matched in the pattern, which was the last open paren to be entered, and which was the last close paren to be entered.

`intflags`

The engine's private copy of the flags the pattern was compiled with. Usually this is the same as extflags unless the engine chose to modify one of them.

`pprivate`

A void* pointing to an engine-defined data structure. The perl engine uses the regexp_internal structure (see "Base Structures" in perlreguts) but a custom engine should use something else.

`swap`

TODO: document

`offs`

A regexp_paren_pair structure which defines offsets into the string being matched which correspond to the $& and $1, $2 etc. captures, the regexp_paren_pair struct is defined as follows:

typedef struct regexp_paren_pair {
    I32 start;
    I32 end;
} regexp_paren_pair;

If ->offs[num].start or ->offs[num].end is -1 then that capture buffer did not match. ->offs[0].start/end represents $& (or ${^MATCH under //p) and ->offs[paren].end matches $$paren where $paren = 1>.

`precomp` `prelen`

Used for optimisations. precomp holds a copy of the pattern that was compiled and prelen its length. When a new pattern is to be compiled (such as inside a loop) the internal regcomp operator checks whether the last compiled REGEXP's precomp and prelen are equivalent to the new one, and if so uses the old pattern instead of compiling a new one.

The relevant snippet from Perl_pp_regcomp:

	if (!re || !re->precomp || re->prelen != (I32)len ||
	    memNE(re->precomp, t, len))
        /* Compile a new pattern */

`paren_names`

This is a hash used internally to track named capture buffers and their offsets. The keys are the names of the buffers the values are dualvars, with the IV slot holding the number of buffers with the given name and the pv being an embedded array of I32. The values may also be contained independently in the data array in cases where named backreferences are used.

`substrs`

Holds information on the longest string that must occur at a fixed offset from the start of the pattern, and the longest string that must occur at a floating offset from the start of the pattern. Used to do Fast-Boyer-Moore searches on the string to find out if its worth using the regex engine at all, and if so where in the string to search.

`subbeg` `sublen` `saved_copy`

Used during execution phase for managing search and replace patterns.

`wrapped` `wraplen`

Stores the string qr// stringifies to. The perl engine for example stores (?-xism:eek) in the case of qr/eek/.

When using a custom engine that doesn't support the (?:) construct for inline modifiers, it's probably best to have qr// stringify to the supplied pattern, note that this will create undesired patterns in cases such as:

my $x = qr/a|b/;  # "a|b"
my $y = qr/c/i;   # "c"
my $z = qr/$x$y/; # "a|bc"

There's no solution for this problem other than making the custom engine understand a construct like (?:).

`seen_evals`

This stores the number of eval groups in the pattern. This is used for security purposes when embedding compiled regexes into larger patterns with qr//.

`refcnt`

The number of times the structure is referenced. When this falls to 0 the regexp is automatically freed by a call to pregfree. This should be set to 1 in each engine's "comp" routine.

HISTORY

Originally part of perlreguts.

AUTHORS

Originally written by Yves Orton, expanded by Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason.

LICENSE

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

To install mro, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.

cpanm

cpanm mro

CPAN shell

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install mro

For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.

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NAME

DESCRIPTION

Callbacks

comp

exec

intuit

checkstr

free

Numbered capture callbacks

numbered_buff_FETCH

numbered_buff_STORE

numbered_buff_LENGTH

Named capture callbacks

named_buff

named_buff_iter

qr_package

dupe

The REGEXP structure

engine

mother_re

extflags

minlen minlenret

gofs

substrs

nparens, lasparen, and lastcloseparen

intflags

pprivate

swap

offs

precomp prelen

paren_names

substrs

subbeg sublen saved_copy

wrapped wraplen

seen_evals

refcnt

HISTORY

AUTHORS

LICENSE

Module Install Instructions

`engine`

`mother_re`

`extflags`

`minlen` `minlenret`

`gofs`

`substrs`

`nparens`, `lasparen`, and `lastcloseparen`

`intflags`

`pprivate`

`swap`

`offs`

`precomp` `prelen`

`paren_names`

`substrs`

`subbeg` `sublen` `saved_copy`

`wrapped` `wraplen`

`seen_evals`

`refcnt`