.TH PCRE 3 .SH NAME PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions .SH SYNOPSIS .rs .sp .B #include .PP .SM .br .B pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *\fIcode\fP, int \fIoptions\fP, .ti +5n .B const char **\fIerrptr\fP); . .SH DESCRIPTION .rs .sp This function studies a compiled pattern, to see if additional information can be extracted that might speed up matching. Its arguments are: .sp \fIcode\fP A compiled regular expression \fIoptions\fP Options for \fBpcre_study()\fP \fIerrptr\fP Where to put an error message .sp If the function succeeds, it returns a value that can be passed to \fBpcre_exec()\fP via its \fIextra\fP argument. .P If the function returns NULL, either it could not find any additional information, or there was an error. You can tell the difference by looking at the error value. It is NULL in first case. .P There are currently no options defined; the value of the second argument should always be zero. .P There is a complete description of the PCRE native API in the .\" HREF \fBpcreapi\fP .\" page and a description of the POSIX API in the .\" HREF \fBpcreposix\fP .\" page.