NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     re_comp, re_exec -- regular expression handler

LIBRARY    [Toc]    [Back]

     Compatibility Library (libcompat, -lcompat)

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     #include <unistd.h>

     char *
     re_comp(const char *s);

     int
     re_exec(const char *s);

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     This interface is made obsolete by regex(3).

     The re_comp() function compiles a string into an internal form suitable
     for pattern matching.  The re_exec() function checks the argument string
     against the last string passed to re_comp().

     The re_comp() function returns 0 if the string s was compiled successfully;
 otherwise a string containing an error message is returned.  If
     re_comp() is passed 0 or a null string, it returns without changing the
     currently compiled regular expression.

     The re_exec() function returns 1 if the string s matches the last compiled
 regular expression, 0 if the string s failed to match the last compiled
 regular expression, and -1 if the compiled regular expression was
     invalid (indicating an internal error).

     The strings passed to both re_comp() and re_exec() may have trailing or
     embedded newline characters; they are terminated by NULs.	The regular
     expressions recognized are described in the manual entry for ed(1), given
     the above difference.

DIAGNOSTICS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The re_exec() function returns -1 for an internal error.

     The re_comp() function returns one of the following strings if an error
     occurs:

	   No previous regular expression,
	   Regular expression too long,
	   unmatched \(,
	   missing ],
	   too many \(\) pairs,
	   unmatched \).

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     ed(1), egrep(1), ex(1), fgrep(1), grep(1), regex(3)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The re_comp() and re_exec() functions appeared in 4.0BSD.


FreeBSD 5.2.1			 June 4, 1993			 FreeBSD 5.2.1