re(3p) | Perl Programmers Reference Guide | re(3p)

# NAME

re - Perl pragma to alter regular expression behaviour

# SYNOPSIS

        use re 'taint';
        ($x) = ($^X =~ /^(.*)$/s);     # $x is tainted here
        $pat = '(?{ $foo = 1 })';
        use re 'eval';
        /foo${pat}bar/;                # won't fail (when not under -T
                                       # switch)
        {
            no re 'taint';             # the default
            ($x) = ($^X =~ /^(.*)$/s); # $x is not tainted here
            no re 'eval';              # the default
            /foo${pat}bar/;            # disallowed (with or without -T
                                       # switch)
        }
        use re 'strict';               # Raise warnings for more conditions
        use re '/ix';
        "FOO" =~ / foo /; # /ix implied
        no re '/x';
        "FOO" =~ /foo/; # just /i implied
        use re 'debug';                # output debugging info during
        /^(.*)$/s;                     # compile and run time
        use re 'debugcolor';           # same as 'debug', but with colored
                                       # output
        ...
        use re qw(Debug All);          # Same as "use re 'debug'", but you
                                       # can use "Debug" with things other
                                       # than 'All'
        use re qw(Debug More);         # 'All' plus output more details
        no re qw(Debug ALL);           # Turn on (almost) all re debugging
                                       # in this scope
        use re qw(is_regexp regexp_pattern); # import utility functions
        my ($pat,$mods)=regexp_pattern(qr/foo/i);
        if (is_regexp($obj)) {
            print "Got regexp: ",
                scalar regexp_pattern($obj); # just as perl would stringify
        }                                    # it but no hassle with blessed
                                             # re's.

(We use $^X in these examples because it's tainted by default.)

# DESCRIPTION

## 'taint' mode

When "use re 'taint'" is in effect, and a tainted string is the target of a regexp, the regexp memories (or values returned by the m// operator in list context) are tainted. This feature is useful when regexp operations on tainted data aren't meant to extract safe substrings, but to perform other transformations.

## 'eval' mode

When "use re 'eval'" is in effect, a regexp is allowed to contain "(?{ ... })" zero-width assertions and "(??{ ... })" postponed subexpressions that are derived from variable interpolation, rather than appearing literally within the regexp. That is normally disallowed, since it is a potential security risk. Note that this pragma is ignored when the regular expression is obtained from tainted data, i.e. evaluation is always disallowed with tainted regular expressions. See "(?{ code })" in perlre and "(??{ code })" in perlre.

For the purpose of this pragma, interpolation of precompiled regular expressions (i.e., the result of "qr//") is not considered variable interpolation. Thus:

        /foo${pat}bar/

is allowed if $pat is a precompiled regular expression, even if $pat contains "(?{ ... })" assertions or "(??{ ... })" subexpressions.

## 'strict' mode

Note that this is an experimental feature which may be changed or removed in a future Perl release.

When "use re 'strict'" is in effect, stricter checks are applied than otherwise when compiling regular expressions patterns. These may cause more warnings to be raised than otherwise, and more things to be fatal instead of just warnings. The purpose of this is to find and report at compile time some things, which may be legal, but have a reasonable possibility of not being the programmer's actual intent. This automatically turns on the "regexp" warnings category (if not already on) within its scope.

As an example of something that is caught under ""strict'", but not otherwise, is the pattern

     qr/\xABC/

The "\x" construct without curly braces should be followed by exactly two hex digits; this one is followed by three. This currently evaluates as equivalent to

     qr/\x{AB}C/

that is, the character whose code point value is 0xAB, followed by the letter "C". But since "C" is a hex digit, there is a reasonable chance that the intent was

     qr/\x{ABC}/

that is the single character at 0xABC. Under 'strict' it is an error to not follow "\x" with exactly two hex digits. When not under 'strict' a warning is generated if there is only one hex digit, and no warning is raised if there are more than two.

It is expected that what exactly 'strict' does will evolve over time as we gain experience with it. This means that programs that compile under it in today's Perl may not compile, or may have more or fewer warnings, in future Perls. There is no backwards compatibility promises with regards to it. Also there are already proposals for an alternate syntax for enabling it. For these reasons, using it will raise a "experimental::re_strict" class warning, unless that category is turned off.

Note that if a pattern compiled within 'strict' is recompiled, say by interpolating into another pattern, outside of 'strict', it is not checked again for strictness. This is because if it works under strict it must work under non-strict.

## '/flags' mode

When "use re '/flags'" is specified, the given flags are automatically added to every regular expression till the end of the lexical scope. flags can be any combination of 'a', 'aa', 'd', 'i', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'p', 's', 'u', 'x', and/or 'xx'.

"no re '/flags'" will turn off the effect of "use re '/flags'" for the given flags.

For example, if you want all your regular expressions to have /msxx on by default, simply put

        use re '/msxx';

at the top of your code.

The character set "/adul" flags cancel each other out. So, in this example,

        use re "/u";
        "ss" =~ /\xdf/;
        use re "/d";
        "ss" =~ /\xdf/;

the second "use re" does an implicit "no re '/u'".

Similarly,

        use re "/xx";   # Doubled-x
        ...
        use re "/x";    # Single x from here on
        ...

Turning on one of the character set flags with "use re" takes precedence over the "locale" pragma and the 'unicode_strings' "feature", for regular expressions. Turning off one of these flags when it is active reverts to the behaviour specified by whatever other pragmata are in scope. For example:

        use feature "unicode_strings";
        no re "/u"; # does nothing
        use re "/l";
        no re "/l"; # reverts to unicode_strings behaviour

Default flags are applied to wherever a pattern is compiled with the exception of the "/x" flag, which is not applied to patterns compiled from string arguments to "split". Thus `use re "/x";` does not affect the behaviour of "split " "" but does affect the behavior of "split / /".

## 'debug' mode

When "use re 'debug'" is in effect, perl emits debugging messages when compiling and using regular expressions. The output is the same as that obtained by running a "-DDEBUGGING"-enabled perl interpreter with the -Dr switch. It may be quite voluminous depending on the complexity of the match. Using "debugcolor" instead of "debug" enables a form of output that can be used to get a colorful display on terminals that understand termcap color sequences. Set $ENV{PERL_RE_TC} to a comma-separated list of "termcap" properties to use for highlighting strings on/off, pre-point part on/off. See "Debugging Regular Expressions" in perldebug for additional info.

NOTE that the exact format of the "debug" mode is NOT considered to be an officially supported API of Perl. It is intended for debugging only and may change as the core development team deems appropriate without notice or deprecation in any release of Perl, major or minor. Any documentation of the output is purely advisory.

As of 5.9.5 the directive "use re 'debug'" and its equivalents are lexically scoped, as the other directives are. However they have both compile-time and run-time effects.

See "Pragmatic Modules" in perlmodlib.

## 'Debug' mode

Similarly "use re 'Debug'" produces debugging output, the difference being that it allows the fine tuning of what debugging output will be emitted. Options are divided into three groups, those related to compilation, those related to execution and those related to special purposes.

NOTE that the options provided under the "Debug" mode and the exact format of the output they create is NOT considered to be an officially supported API of Perl. It is intended for debugging only and may change as the core development team deems appropriate without notice or deprecation in any release of Perl, major or minor. Any documentation of the format or options available is advisory only and is subject to change without notice.

The options are as follows:

Compile related options

COMPILE
  Turns on all non-extra compile related debug options.
PARSE
  Turns on debug output related to the process of parsing the pattern.
OPTIMISE
  Enables output related to the optimisation phase of compilation.
TRIEC
  Detailed info about trie compilation.
DUMP
  Dump the final program out after it is compiled and optimised.
FLAGS
  Dump the flags associated with the program
TEST
  Print output intended for testing the internals of the compile process

Execute related options

EXECUTE
  Turns on all non-extra execute related debug options.
MATCH
  Turns on debugging of the main matching loop.
TRIEE
  Extra debugging of how tries execute.
INTUIT
  Enable debugging of start-point optimisations.

Extra debugging options

EXTRA
  Turns on all "extra" debugging options.
BUFFERS
  Enable debugging the capture group storage during match. Warning, this can potentially produce extremely large output.
TRIEM
  Enable enhanced TRIE debugging. Enhances both TRIEE and TRIEC.
STATE
  Enable debugging of states in the engine.
STACK
  Enable debugging of the recursion stack in the engine. Enabling or disabling this option automatically does the same for debugging states as well. This output from this can be quite large.
GPOS
  Enable debugging of the \G modifier.
OPTIMISEM
  Enable enhanced optimisation debugging and start-point optimisations. Probably not useful except when debugging the regexp engine itself.
DUMP_PRE_OPTIMIZE
  Enable the dumping of the compiled pattern before the optimization phase.
WILDCARD
  When Perl encounters a wildcard subpattern, (see "Wildcards in Property Values" in perlunicode), it suspends compilation of the main pattern, compiles the subpattern, and then matches that against all legal possibilities to determine the actual code points the subpattern matches. After that it adds these to the main pattern, and continues its compilation.

  You may very well want to see how your subpattern gets compiled, but it is likely of less use to you to see how Perl matches that against all the legal possibilities, as that is under control of Perl, not you. Therefore, the debugging information of the compilation portion is as specified by the other options, but the debugging output of the matching portion is normally suppressed.

  You can use the WILDCARD option to enable the debugging output of this subpattern matching. Careful! This can lead to voluminous outputs, and it may not make much sense to you what and why Perl is doing what it is. But it may be helpful to you to see why things aren't going the way you expect.

  Note that this option alone doesn't cause any debugging information to be output. What it does is stop the normal suppression of execution-related debugging information during the matching portion of the compilation of wildcards. You also have to specify which execution debugging information you want, such as by also including the EXECUTE option.

Other useful flags
  These are useful shortcuts to save on the typing.

ALL
  Enable all options at once except BUFFERS, WILDCARD, and DUMP_PRE_OPTIMIZE. (To get every single option without exception, use both ALL and EXTRA, or starting in 5.30 on a "-DDEBUGGING"-enabled perl interpreter, use the -Drv command-line switches.)
All
  Enable DUMP and all non-extra execute options. Equivalent to:

        use re 'debug';

MORE
More
  Enable the options enabled by "All", plus STATE, TRIEC, and TRIEM.

As of 5.9.5 the directive "use re 'debug'" and its equivalents are lexically scoped, as are the other directives. However they have both compile-time and run-time effects.

## Exportable Functions

As of perl 5.9.5, the "re" module contains a number of utility functions that may be optionally exported into the caller's namespace. They are listed below.

is_regexp($ref)
  Returns true if the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned by "qr//", false if it is not.

  This function will not be confused by overloading or blessing. In internals terms, this extracts the regexp pointer out of the PERL_MAGIC_qr structure so it cannot be fooled.

regexp_pattern($ref)
  If the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned by "qr//", then this function returns the pattern.

  In list context it returns a two element list, the first element containing the pattern and the second containing the modifiers used when the pattern was compiled.

        my ($pat, $mods) = regexp_pattern($ref);

  In scalar context it returns the same as perl would when stringifying a raw "qr//" with the same pattern inside. If the argument is not a compiled reference then this routine returns false but defined in scalar context, and the empty list in list context. Thus the following

          if (regexp_pattern($ref) eq '(?^i:foo)')

  will be warning free regardless of what $ref actually is.

  Like "is_regexp" this function will not be confused by overloading or blessing of the object.

regname($name,$all)
  Returns the contents of a named buffer of the last successful match. If $all is true, then returns an array ref containing one entry per buffer, otherwise returns the first defined buffer.
regnames($all)
  Returns a list of all of the named buffers defined in the last successful match. If $all is true, then it returns all names defined, if not it returns only names which were involved in the match.
regnames_count()
  Returns the number of distinct names defined in the pattern used for the last successful match.

  Note: this result is always the actual number of distinct named buffers defined, it may not actually match that which is returned by regnames() and related routines when those routines have not been called with the $all parameter set.

regmust($ref)
  If the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned by "qr//", then this function returns what the optimiser considers to be the longest anchored fixed string and longest floating fixed string in the pattern.

  A fixed string is defined as being a substring that must appear for the pattern to match. An anchored fixed string is a fixed string that must appear at a particular offset from the beginning of the match. A floating fixed string is defined as a fixed string that can appear at any point in a range of positions relative to the start of the match. For example,

          my $qr = qr/here .* there/x;
          my ($anchored, $floating) = regmust($qr);
          print "anchored:'$anchored'\nfloating:'$floating'\n";

  results in

          anchored:'here'
          floating:'there'

  Because the "here" is before the ".*" in the pattern, its position can be determined exactly. That's not true, however, for the "there"; it could appear at any point after where the anchored string appeared. Perl uses both for its optimisations, preferring the longer, or, if they are equal, the floating.

  NOTE: This may not necessarily be the definitive longest anchored and floating string. This will be what the optimiser of the Perl that you are using thinks is the longest. If you believe that the result is wrong please report it via the perlbug utility.

optimization($ref)
  If the argument is a compiled regular expression as returned by "qr//", then this function returns a hashref of the optimization information discovered at compile time, so we can write tests around it. If any other argument is given, returns "undef".

  The hash contents are expected to change from time to time as we develop new ways to optimize - no assumption of stability should be made, not even between minor versions of perl.

  For the current version, the hash will have the following contents:

minlen
  An integer, the least number of characters in any string that can match.
minlenret
  An integer, the least number of characters that can be in $& after a match. (Consider eg " /ns(?=\d)/ ".)
gofs
  An integer, the number of characters before pos() to start match at.
noscan
  A boolean, "TRUE" to indicate that any anchored/floating substrings found should not be used. (CHECKME: apparently this is set for an anchored pattern with no floating substring, but never used.)
isall
  A boolean, "TRUE" to indicate that the optimizer information is all that the regular expression contains, and thus one does not need to enter the regexp runtime engine at all.
anchor SBOL
  A boolean, "TRUE" if the pattern is anchored to start of string.
anchor MBOL
  A boolean, "TRUE" if the pattern is anchored to any start of line within the string.
anchor GPOS
  A boolean, "TRUE" if the pattern is anchored to the end of the previous match.
skip
  A boolean, "TRUE" if the start class can match only the first of a run.
implicit
  A boolean, "TRUE" if a "/.*/" has been turned implicitly into a "/^.*/".
anchored/floating
  A byte string representing an anchored or floating substring respectively that any match must contain, or undef if no such substring was found, or if the substring would require utf8 to represent.
anchored utf8/floating utf8
  A utf8 string representing an anchored or floating substring respectively that any match must contain, or undef if no such substring was found, or if the substring contains only 7-bit ASCII characters.
anchored min offset/floating min offset
  An integer, the first offset in characters from a match location at which we should look for the corresponding substring.
anchored max offset/floating max offset
  An integer, the last offset in characters from a match location at which we should look for the corresponding substring.

  Ignored for anchored, so may be 0 or same as min.

anchored end shift/floating end shift
  FIXME: not sure what this is, something to do with lookbehind. regcomp.c says:
  When the final pattern is compiled and the data is moved from the
  scan_data_t structure into the regexp structure the information
  about lookbehind is factored in, with the information that would
  have been lost precalculated in the end_shift field for the
  associated string.
checking
  A constant string, one of "anchored", "floating" or "none" to indicate which substring (if any) should be checked for first.
stclass
  A string representation of a character class ("start class") that must be the first character of any match.

  TODO: explain the representations.

# SEE ALSO

"Pragmatic Modules" in perlmodlib.

2025-01-28 | perl v5.40.1