1 Compiling PCRE on non-Unix systems
2 ----------------------------------
4 This document contains the following sections:
7 Generic instructions for the PCRE C library
8 The C++ wrapper functions
9 Building for virtual Pascal
10 Stack size in Windows environments
11 Linking programs in Windows environments
12 Comments about Win32 builds
13 Building PCRE on Windows with CMake
14 Use of relative paths with CMake on Windows
15 Testing with runtest.bat
16 Building under Windows with BCC5.5
17 Building PCRE on OpenVMS
22 I (Philip Hazel) have no experience of Windows or VMS sytems and how their
23 libraries work. The items in the PCRE distribution and Makefile that relate to
24 anything other than Unix-like systems are untested by me.
26 There are some other comments and files in the Contrib directory on the ftp
27 site that you may find useful. See
29 ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/Contrib
31 If you want to compile PCRE for a non-Unix system (especially for a system that
32 does not support "configure" and "make" files), note that the basic PCRE
33 library consists entirely of code written in Standard C, and so should compile
34 successfully on any system that has a Standard C compiler and library. The C++
35 wrapper functions are a separate issue (see below).
37 The PCRE distribution includes a "configure" file for use by the Configure/Make
38 build system, as found in many Unix-like environments. There is also support
39 support for CMake, which some users prefer, in particular in Windows
40 environments. There are some instructions for CMake under Windows in the
41 section entitled "Building PCRE with CMake" below. CMake can also be used to
42 build PCRE in Unix-like systems.
45 GENERIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PCRE C LIBRARY
47 The following are generic comments about building the PCRE C library "by hand".
49 (1) Copy or rename the file config.h.generic as config.h, and edit the macro
50 settings that it contains to whatever is appropriate for your environment.
51 In particular, if you want to force a specific value for newline, you can
52 define the NEWLINE macro. When you compile any of the PCRE modules, you
53 must specify -DHAVE_CONFIG_H to your compiler so that config.h is included
56 An alternative approach is not to edit config.h, but to use -D on the
57 compiler command line to make any changes that you need to the
58 configuration options. In this case -DHAVE_CONFIG_H must not be set.
60 NOTE: There have been occasions when the way in which certain parameters
61 in config.h are used has changed between releases. (In the configure/make
62 world, this is handled automatically.) When upgrading to a new release,
63 you are strongly advised to review config.h.generic before re-using what
66 (2) Copy or rename the file pcre.h.generic as pcre.h.
69 Copy or rename file pcre_chartables.c.dist as pcre_chartables.c.
72 Compile dftables.c as a stand-alone program (using -DHAVE_CONFIG_H if
73 you have set up config.h), and then run it with the single argument
74 "pcre_chartables.c". This generates a set of standard character tables
75 and writes them to that file. The tables are generated using the default
76 C locale for your system. If you want to use a locale that is specified
77 by LC_xxx environment variables, add the -L option to the dftables
78 command. You must use this method if you are building on a system that
81 The tables in pcre_chartables.c are defaults. The caller of PCRE can
82 specify alternative tables at run time.
84 (4) Ensure that you have the following header files:
91 (5) Also ensure that you have the following file, which is #included as source
92 when building a debugging version of PCRE, and is also used by pcretest.
96 (6) Compile the following source files, setting -DHAVE_CONFIG_H as a compiler
97 option if you have set up config.h with your configuration, or else use
98 other -D settings to change the configuration as required.
116 pcre_ucp_searchfuncs.c
121 Make sure that you include -I. in the compiler command (or equivalent for
122 an unusual compiler) so that all included PCRE header files are first
123 sought in the current directory. Otherwise you run the risk of picking up
124 a previously-installed file from somewhere else.
126 (7) Now link all the compiled code into an object library in whichever form
127 your system keeps such libraries. This is the basic PCRE C library. If
128 your system has static and shared libraries, you may have to do this once
131 (8) Similarly, compile pcreposix.c (remembering -DHAVE_CONFIG_H if necessary)
132 and link the result (on its own) as the pcreposix library.
134 (9) Compile the test program pcretest.c (again, don't forget -DHAVE_CONFIG_H).
135 This needs the functions in the pcre and pcreposix libraries when linking.
136 It also needs the pcre_printint.src source file, which it #includes.
138 (10) Run pcretest on the testinput files in the testdata directory, and check
139 that the output matches the corresponding testoutput files. Note that the
140 supplied files are in Unix format, with just LF characters as line
141 terminators. You may need to edit them to change this if your system uses
142 a different convention. If you are using Windows, you probably should use
143 the wintestinput3 file instead of testinput3 (and the corresponding output
144 file). This is a locale test; wintestinput3 sets the locale to "french"
145 rather than "fr_FR", and there some minor output differences.
147 (11) If you want to use the pcregrep command, compile and link pcregrep.c; it
148 uses only the basic PCRE library (it does not need the pcreposix library).
151 THE C++ WRAPPER FUNCTIONS
153 The PCRE distribution also contains some C++ wrapper functions and tests,
154 contributed by Google Inc. On a system that can use "configure" and "make",
155 the functions are automatically built into a library called pcrecpp. It should
156 be straightforward to compile the .cc files manually on other systems. The
157 files called xxx_unittest.cc are test programs for each of the corresponding
161 BUILDING FOR VIRTUAL PASCAL
163 A script for building PCRE using Borland's C++ compiler for use with VPASCAL
164 was contributed by Alexander Tokarev. Stefan Weber updated the script and added
165 additional files. The following files in the distribution are for building PCRE
166 for use with VP/Borland: makevp_c.txt, makevp_l.txt, makevp.bat, pcregexp.pas.
169 STACK SIZE IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
171 The default processor stack size of 1Mb in some Windows environments is too
172 small for matching patterns that need much recursion. In particular, test 2 may
173 fail because of this. Normally, running out of stack causes a crash, but there
174 have been cases where the test program has just died silently. See your linker
175 documentation for how to increase stack size if you experience problems. The
176 Linux default of 8Mb is a reasonable choice for the stack, though even that can
177 be too small for some pattern/subject combinations.
179 PCRE has a compile configuration option to disable the use of stack for
180 recursion so that heap is used instead. However, pattern matching is
181 significantly slower when this is done. There is more about stack usage in the
182 "pcrestack" documentation.
185 LINKING PROGRAMS IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
187 If you want to statically link a program against a PCRE library in the form of
188 a non-dll .a file, you must define PCRE_STATIC before including pcre.h,
189 otherwise the pcre_malloc() and pcre_free() exported functions will be declared
190 __declspec(dllimport), with unwanted results.
193 COMMENTS ABOUT WIN32 BUILDS (see also "BUILDING PCRE WITH CMAKE" below)
195 There are two ways of building PCRE using the "configure, make, make install"
196 paradigm on Windows systems: using MinGW or using Cygwin. These are not at all
197 the same thing; they are completely different from each other. There is also
198 support for building using CMake, which some users find a more straightforward
199 way of building PCRE under Windows. However, the tests are not run
200 automatically when CMake is used.
202 The MinGW home page (http://www.mingw.org/) says this:
204 MinGW: A collection of freely available and freely distributable Windows
205 specific header files and import libraries combined with GNU toolsets that
206 allow one to produce native Windows programs that do not rely on any
207 3rd-party C runtime DLLs.
209 The Cygwin home page (http://www.cygwin.com/) says this:
211 Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
213 . A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing
214 substantial Linux API functionality
216 . A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.
218 The Cygwin DLL currently works with all recent, commercially released x86 32
219 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows, with the exception of Windows CE.
221 On both MinGW and Cygwin, PCRE should build correctly using:
223 ./configure && make && make install
225 This should create two libraries called libpcre and libpcreposix, and, if you
226 have enabled building the C++ wrapper, a third one called libpcrecpp. These are
227 independent libraries: when you like with libpcreposix or libpcrecpp you must
228 also link with libpcre, which contains the basic functions. (Some earlier
229 releases of PCRE included the basic libpcre functions in libpcreposix. This no
232 A user submitted a special-purpose patch that makes it easy to create
233 "pcre.dll" under mingw32 using the "msys" environment. It provides "pcre.dll"
234 as a special target. If you use this target, no other files are built, and in
235 particular, the pcretest and pcregrep programs are not built. An example of how
236 this might be used is:
238 ./configure --enable-utf --disable-cpp CFLAGS="-03 -s"; make pcre.dll
240 Using Cygwin's compiler generates libraries and executables that depend on
241 cygwin1.dll. If a library that is generated this way is distributed,
242 cygwin1.dll has to be distributed as well. Since cygwin1.dll is under the GPL
243 licence, this forces not only PCRE to be under the GPL, but also the entire
244 application. A distributor who wants to keep their own code proprietary must
245 purchase an appropriate Cygwin licence.
247 MinGW has no such restrictions. The MinGW compiler generates a library or
248 executable that can run standalone on Windows without any third party dll or
251 But there is more complication:
253 If a Cygwin user uses the -mno-cygwin Cygwin gcc flag, what that really does is
254 to tell Cygwin's gcc to use the MinGW gcc. Cygwin's gcc is only acting as a
255 front end to MinGW's gcc (if you install Cygwin's gcc, you get both Cygwin's
256 gcc and MinGW's gcc). So, a user can:
258 . Build native binaries by using MinGW or by getting Cygwin and using
261 . Build binaries that depend on cygwin1.dll by using Cygwin with the normal
264 The test files that are supplied with PCRE are in Unix format, with LF
265 characters as line terminators. It may be necessary to change the line
266 terminators in order to get some of the tests to work. We hope to improve
267 things in this area in future.
270 BUILDING PCRE ON WINDOWS WITH CMAKE
272 CMake is an alternative build facility that can be used instead of the
273 traditional Unix "configure". CMake version 2.4.7 supports Borland makefiles,
274 MinGW makefiles, MSYS makefiles, NMake makefiles, UNIX makefiles, Visual Studio
275 6, Visual Studio 7, Visual Studio 8, and Watcom W8. The following instructions
276 were contributed by a PCRE user.
278 1. Download CMake 2.4.7 or above from http://www.cmake.org/, install and ensure
279 that cmake\bin is on your path.
281 2. Unzip (retaining folder structure) the PCRE source tree into a source
282 directory such as C:\pcre.
284 3. Create a new, empty build directory: C:\pcre\build\
286 4. Run CMakeSetup from the Shell envirornment of your build tool, e.g., Msys
287 for Msys/MinGW or Visual Studio Command Prompt for VC/VC++
289 5. Enter C:\pcre\pcre-xx and C:\pcre\build for the source and build
290 directories, respectively
292 6. Hit the "Configure" button.
294 7. Select the particular IDE / build tool that you are using (Visual Studio,
295 MSYS makefiles, MinGW makefiles, etc.)
297 8. The GUI will then list several configuration options. This is where you can
298 enable UTF-8 support, etc.
300 9. Hit "Configure" again. The adjacent "OK" button should now be active.
304 11. The build directory should now contain a usable build system, be it a
305 solution file for Visual Studio, makefiles for MinGW, etc.
308 USE OF RELATIVE PATHS WITH CMAKE ON WINDOWS
310 A PCRE user comments as follows:
312 I thought that others may want to know the current state of
313 CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS support on Windows.
316 -- AdditionalIncludeDirectories is only partially modified (only the
317 first path - see below)
318 -- Only some of the contained file paths are modified - shown below for
320 -- It properly modifies
322 I am sure CMake people can fix that if they want to. Until then one will
323 need to replace existing absolute paths in project files with relative
324 paths manually (e.g. from VS) - relative to project file location. I did
325 just that before being told to try CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS. Not a big
328 AdditionalIncludeDirectories="E:\builds\pcre\build;E:\builds\pcre\pcre-7.5;"
329 AdditionalIncludeDirectories=".;E:\builds\pcre\pcre-7.5;"
331 RelativePath="pcre.h">
332 RelativePath="pcre_chartables.c">
333 RelativePath="pcre_chartables.c.rule">
336 TESTING WITH RUNTEST.BAT
338 1. Copy RunTest.bat into the directory where pcretest.exe has been created.
340 2. Edit RunTest.bat and insert a line that indentifies the relative location of
341 the pcre source, e.g.:
343 set srcdir=..\pcre-7.4-RC3
345 3. Run RunTest.bat from a command shell environment. Test outputs will
346 automatically be compared to expected results, and discrepancies will
347 identified in the console output.
349 4. To test pcrecpp, run pcrecpp_unittest.exe, pcre_stringpiece_unittest.exe and
350 pcre_scanner_unittest.exe.
353 BUILDING UNDER WINDOWS WITH BCC5.5
355 Michael Roy sent these comments about building PCRE under Windows with BCC5.5:
357 Some of the core BCC libraries have a version of PCRE from 1998 built in,
358 which can lead to pcre_exec() giving an erroneous PCRE_ERROR_NULL from a
359 version mismatch. I'm including an easy workaround below, if you'd like to
360 include it in the non-unix instructions:
362 When linking a project with BCC5.5, pcre.lib must be included before any of
363 the libraries cw32.lib, cw32i.lib, cw32mt.lib, and cw32mti.lib on the command
367 BUILDING PCRE ON OPENVMS
369 Dan Mooney sent the following comments about building PCRE on OpenVMS. They
370 relate to an older version of PCRE that used fewer source files, so the exact
371 commands will need changing. See the current list of source files above.
373 "It was quite easy to compile and link the library. I don't have a formal
374 make file but the attached file [reproduced below] contains the OpenVMS DCL
375 commands I used to build the library. I had to add #define
376 POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD 10 to pcre.h since it was not defined anywhere.
378 The library was built on:
379 O/S: HP OpenVMS v7.3-1
380 Compiler: Compaq C v6.5-001-48BCD
383 The test results did not match 100% due to the issues you mention in your
384 documentation regarding isprint(), iscntrl(), isgraph() and ispunct(). I
385 modified some of the character tables temporarily and was able to get the
386 results to match. Tests using the fr locale did not match since I don't have
387 that locale loaded. The study size was always reported to be 3 less than the
388 value in the standard test output files."
390 =========================
391 $! This DCL procedure builds PCRE on OpenVMS
393 $! I followed the instructions in the non-unix-use file in the distribution.
395 $ COMPILE == "CC/LIST/NOMEMBER_ALIGNMENT/PREFIX_LIBRARY_ENTRIES=ALL_ENTRIES
397 $ LINK/EXE=DFTABLES.EXE DFTABLES.OBJ
398 $ RUN DFTABLES.EXE/OUTPUT=CHARTABLES.C
399 $ COMPILE MAKETABLES.C
402 $! I had to set POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD to 10 in PCRE.H since the symbol
403 $! did not seem to be defined anywhere.
404 $! I edited pcre.h and added #DEFINE SUPPORT_UTF8 to enable UTF8 support.
406 $ LIB/CREATE PCRE MAKETABLES.OBJ, GET.OBJ, STUDY.OBJ, PCRE.OBJ
407 $! I had to set POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD to 10 in PCRE.H since the symbol
408 $! did not seem to be defined anywhere.
409 $ COMPILE PCREPOSIX.C
410 $ LIB/CREATE PCREPOSIX PCREPOSIX.OBJ
412 $ LINK/EXE=PCRETEST.EXE PCRETEST.OBJ, PCRE/LIB, PCREPOSIX/LIB
413 $! C programs that want access to command line arguments must be
414 $! defined as a symbol
415 $ PCRETEST :== "$ SYS$ROADSUSERS:[DMOONEY.REGEXP]PCRETEST.EXE"
416 $! Arguments must be enclosed in quotes.
420 $! The test results did not match 100%. The functions isprint(), iscntrl(),
421 $! isgraph() and ispunct() on OpenVMS must not produce the same results
422 $! as the system that built the test output files provided with the
425 $! The study size did not match and was always 3 less on OpenVMS.
427 $! Locale could not be set to fr
429 =========================
431 Last Updated: 25 January 2008