PCRE2_SERIALIZE_ENCODE(3) Introduction to Library Functions

NAME

PCRE2 - Perl-compatible regular expressions (revised API)

SYNOPSIS

#include <pcre2.h>

int32_t pcre2_serialize_encode(const pcre2_code **codes,
int32_t number_of_codes, uint8_t **serialized_bytes,
PCRE2_SIZE *serialized_size, pcre2_general_context *gcontext);

DESCRIPTION

This function encodes a list of compiled patterns into a byte stream
that can be saved on disc or elsewhere. Note that this is not an
abstract format like Java or .NET. Conversion of the byte stream back
into usable compiled patterns can only happen on a host that is
running the same version of PCRE2, with the same code unit width, and
the host must also have the same endianness, pointer width and
PCRE2_SIZE type. The arguments for pcre2_serialize_encode() are:

codes pointer to a vector containing the list
number_of_codes number of slots in the vector
serialized_bytes set to point to the serialized byte stream
serialized_size set to the number of bytes in the byte stream
gcontext pointer to a general context or NULL

The context argument is used to obtain memory for the byte stream.
When the serialized data is no longer needed, it must be freed by
calling pcre2_serialize_free(). The yield of the function is the
number of serialized patterns, or one of the following negative error
codes:

PCRE2_ERROR_BADDATA number_of_codes is zero or less
PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC mismatch of id bytes in one of the
patterns
PCRE2_ERROR_MEMORY memory allocation failed
PCRE2_ERROR_MIXEDTABLES the patterns do not all use the same
tables
PCRE2_ERROR_NULL an argument other than gcontext is NULL

PCRE2_ERROR_BADMAGIC means either that a pattern's code has been
corrupted, or that a slot in the vector does not point to a compiled
pattern.

There is a complete description of the PCRE2 native API in the
pcre2api page and a description of the serialization functions in the
pcre2serialize page.

PCRE2 10.45 13 August 2018 PCRE2_SERIALIZE_ENCODE(3)