pcre/NEWS

News about PCRE2 releases
-------------------------

Version 10.30-RC1 18-July-2017
------------------------------

The full list of changes that includes bugfixes and tidies is, as always, in
ChangeLog. These are the most important new features:

1. The main interpreter, pcre2_match(), has been refactored into a new version
that does not use recursive function calls (and therefore the system stack) for
remembering backtracking positions. This makes --disable-stack-for-recursion a
NOOP. The new implementation allows backtracking into recursive group calls in
patterns, making it more compatible with Perl, and also fixes some other
previously hard-to-do issues. For patterns that have a lot of backtracking, the
heap is now used, and there is explicit limit on the amount, settable by
pcre2_set_heap_limit() or (*LIMIT_HEAP=xxx). The "recursion limit" is retained,
but is renamed as "depth limit" (though the old names remain for
compatibility).

There is also a change in the way callouts from pcre2_match() are handled. The
offset_vector field in the callout block is no longer a pointer to the
actual ovector that was passed to the matching function in the match data
block. Instead it points to an internal ovector of a size large enough to hold
all possible captured substrings in the pattern.

2. The new option PCRE2_ENDANCHORED insists that a pattern match must end at
the end of the subject.

3. The new option PCRE2_EXTENDED_MORE implements Perl's /xx feature, and
pcre2test is upgraded to support it. Setting within the pattern by (?xx) is
also supported.

4. (?n) can be used to set PCRE2_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE, because Perl now has this.

5. Additional compile options in the compile context are now available, and the
first two are: PCRE2_EXTRA_ALLOW_SURROGATE_ESCAPES and
PCRE2_EXTRA_BAD_ESCAPE_IS LITERAL.

6. The newline type PCRE2_NEWLINE_NUL is now available.

7. The match limit value now also applies to pcre2_dfa_match() as there are
patterns that can use up a lot of resources without necessarily recursing very
deeply.

8. The option REG_PEND (a GNU extension) is now available for the POSIX
wrapper. Also there is a new option PCRE2_LITERAL which is used to support
REG_NOSPEC.

9. PCRE2_EXTRA_MATCH_LINE and PCRE2_EXTRA_MATCH_WORD are implemented for the
benefit of pcre2grep, and pcre2grep's -F, -w, and -x options are re-implemented
using PCRE2_LITERAL, PCRE2_EXTRA_MATCH_WORD, and PCRE2_EXTRA_MATCH_LINE. This
is tidier and also fixes some bugs.

10. The Unicode tables are upgraded from Unicode 8.0.0 to Unicode 10.0.0.

11. There are some experimental functions for converting foreign patterns
(globs and POSIX patterns) into PCRE2 patterns.


Version 10.23 14-February-2017
------------------------------

1. ChangeLog has the details of a lot of bug fixes and tidies.

2. There has been a major re-factoring of the pcre2_compile.c file. Most syntax
checking is now done in the pre-pass that identifies capturing groups. This has
reduced the amount of duplication and made the code tidier. While doing this,
some minor bugs and Perl incompatibilities were fixed (see ChangeLog for
details.)

3. Back references are now permitted in lookbehind assertions when there are
no duplicated group numbers (that is, (?| has not been used), and, if the
reference is by name, there is only one group of that name. The referenced
group must, of course be of fixed length.

4. \g{+<number>} (e.g. \g{+2} ) is now supported. It is a "forward back
reference" and can be useful in repetitions (compare \g{-<number>} ). Perl does
not recognize this syntax.

5. pcre2grep now automatically expands its buffer up to a maximum set by
--max-buffer-size.

6. The -t option (grand total) has been added to pcre2grep.

7. A new function called pcre2_code_copy_with_tables() exists to copy a
compiled pattern along with a private copy of the character tables that is
uses.

8. A user supplied a number of patches to upgrade pcre2grep under Windows and
tidy the code.

9. Several updates have been made to pcre2test and test scripts (see
ChangeLog).


Version 10.22 29-July-2016
--------------------------

1. ChangeLog has the details of a number of bug fixes.

2. The POSIX wrapper function regcomp() did not used to support back references
and subroutine calls if called with the REG_NOSUB option. It now does.

3. A new function, pcre2_code_copy(), is added, to make a copy of a compiled
pattern.

4. Support for string callouts is added to pcre2grep.

5. Added the PCRE2_NO_JIT option to pcre2_match().

6. The pcre2_get_error_message() function now returns with a negative error
code if the error number it is given is unknown.

7. Several updates have been made to pcre2test and test scripts (see
ChangeLog).


Version 10.21 12-January-2016
-----------------------------

1. Many bugs have been fixed. A large number of them were provoked only by very
strange pattern input, and were discovered by fuzzers. Some others were
discovered by code auditing. See ChangeLog for details.

2. The Unicode tables have been updated to Unicode version 8.0.0.

3. For Perl compatibility in EBCDIC environments, ranges such as a-z in a
class, where both values are literal letters in the same case, omit the
non-letter EBCDIC code points within the range.

4. There have been a number of enhancements to the pcre2_substitute() function,
giving more flexibility to replacement facilities. It is now also possible to
cause the function to return the needed buffer size if the one given is too
small.

5. The PCRE2_ALT_VERBNAMES option causes the "name" parts of special verbs such
as (*THEN:name) to be processed for backslashes and to take note of
PCRE2_EXTENDED.

6. PCRE2_INFO_HASBACKSLASHC makes it possible for a client to find out if a
pattern uses \C, and --never-backslash-C makes it possible to compile a version
PCRE2 in which the use of \C is always forbidden.

7. A limit to the length of pattern that can be handled can now be set by
calling pcre2_set_max_pattern_length().

8. When matching an unanchored pattern, a match can be required to begin within
a given number of code units after the start of the subject by calling
pcre2_set_offset_limit().

9. The pcre2test program has been extended to test new facilities, and it can
now run the tests when LF on its own is not a valid newline sequence.

10. The RunTest script has also been updated to enable more tests to be run.

11. There have been some minor performance enhancements.


Version 10.20 30-June-2015
--------------------------

1. Callouts with string arguments and the pcre2_callout_enumerate() function
have been implemented.

2. The PCRE2_NEVER_BACKSLASH_C option, which locks out the use of \C, is added.

3. The PCRE2_ALT_CIRCUMFLEX option lets ^ match after a newline at the end of a
subject in multiline mode.

4. The way named subpatterns are handled has been refactored. The previous
approach had several bugs.

5. The handling of \c in EBCDIC environments has been changed to conform to the
perlebcdic document. This is an incompatible change.

6. Bugs have been mended, many of them discovered by fuzzers.


Version 10.10 06-March-2015
---------------------------

1. Serialization and de-serialization functions have been added to the API,
making it possible to save and restore sets of compiled patterns, though
restoration must be done in the same environment that was used for compilation.

2. The (*NO_JIT) feature has been added; this makes it possible for a pattern
creator to specify that JIT is not to be used.

3. A number of bugs have been fixed. In particular, bugs that caused building
on Windows using CMake to fail have been mended.


Version 10.00 05-January-2015
-----------------------------

Version 10.00 is the first release of PCRE2, a revised API for the PCRE
library. Changes prior to 10.00 are logged in the ChangeLog file for the old
API, up to item 20 for release 8.36. New programs are recommended to use the
new library. Programs that use the original (PCRE1) API will need changing
before linking with the new library.

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