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RE_COMP(3) FreeBSD Library Functions Manual RE_COMP(3) NAME re_comp, re_exec - regular expression handler LIBRARY Compatibility Library (libcompat, -lcompat) SYNOPSIS #include <re_comp.h> char * re_comp(const char *s); int re_exec(const char *s); DESCRIPTION This interface is made obsolete by regex(3). It is available from the compatibility library, libcompat. 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. RETURN VALUES 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 ed(1), egrep(1), ex(1), fgrep(1), grep(1), regex(3), re_format(7) HISTORY The re_comp() and re_exec() functions appeared in 4.0BSD. FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8 June 4, 1993 FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8