<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<book xml:id="book.pcre" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
 <?phpdoc extension-membership="core" ?>
 <title>Regular Expressions (Perl-Compatible)</title>
 <titleabbrev>PCRE</titleabbrev>   

 <preface xml:id="intro.pcre">
  &reftitle.intro;
  <para>
   The syntax for patterns used in these functions closely resembles
   Perl. The expression must be enclosed in the delimiters, a
   forward slash (/), for example.  Delimiters can be any 
   non-alphanumeric, non-whitespace ASCII character except the backslash (\) and the
   null byte. If the delimiter character has to be used in the 
   expression itself, it needs to be escaped by backslash.
   Perl-style (), {}, [], and &lt;&gt; matching delimiters may also be used.
   See <link linkend="reference.pcre.pattern.syntax">Pattern Syntax</link>
   for detailed explanation.
  </para>
  <para>
   The ending delimiter may be followed by various modifiers that
   affect the matching. 
   See <link linkend="reference.pcre.pattern.modifiers">Pattern
    Modifiers</link>.
  </para>
  <note>
   <para>
    This extension maintains a global per-thread cache of compiled regular
    expressions (up to 4096).
   </para>
  </note>
  <warning>
   <para>
    You should be aware of some limitations of PCRE. Read <link
     xlink:href="&url.pcre.man;">&url.pcre.man;</link> for more info.
   </para>
  </warning>
  <!-- FIXME: Check what Perl version implementation corresponds -->
  <para>
   The PCRE library is a set of functions that implement regular
   expression pattern matching using the same syntax and semantics
   as Perl 5, with just a few differences (see below).  The current
   implementation corresponds to Perl 5.005.
  </para>
 </preface>

 &reference.pcre.setup;
 &reference.pcre.constants;
 &reference.pcre.examples;
 &reference.pcre.pattern;
 &reference.pcre.reference;

</book>

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