
pcre.pl -- Perl compatible regular expression matching for SWI-Prolog
This module provides an interface to the PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) library. This Prolog interface provides an almost comprehensive wrapper around PCRE.
Regular expressions are created from a pattern and options and represented as a SWI-Prolog blob. This implies they are subject to (atom) garbage collection. Compiled regular expressions can safely be used in multiple threads. Most predicates accept both an explicitly compiled regular expression, a pattern or a term Pattern/Flags. In the latter two cases a regular expression blob is created and stored in a cache. The cache can be cleared using re_flush/0.
re_match(+Regex, +String) is semidet
re_match(+Regex, +String, +Options) is semidet- Succeeds if String matches Regex. For example:
?- re_match("^needle"/i, "Needle in a haystack"). true.Options:
- anchored(Bool)
- If
true, match only at the first position - bol(Bool)
- Subject string is the beginning of a line (default
false) - bsr(Mode)
- If
anycrlf, \R only matches CR, LF or CRLF. Ifunicode, \R matches all Unicode line endings. Subject string is the end of a line (defaultfalse) - empty(Bool)
- An empty string is a valid match (default
true) - empty_atstart(Bool)
- An empty string at the start of the subject is a valid match
(default
true) - eol(Bool)
- Subject string is the end of a line (default
false) - newline(Mode)
- If
any, recognize any Unicode newline sequence, ifanycrlf, recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline sequences, ifcr, recognize CR, iflf, recognize LF and finally ifcrlfrecognize CRLF as newline. - start(+From)
- Start at the given character index
re_matchsub(+Regex, +String, -Sub:dict, +Options) is semidet- Match String against Regex. On success, Sub is a dict containing
integer keys for the numbered capture group and atom keys for the
named capture groups. The associated value is determined by the
capture_type(Type)option passed to re_compile/3, may be specified using flags if Regex is of the form Pattern/Flags and may be specified at the level of individual captures using a naming convention for the caption name. See re_compile/3 for details.The example below exploits the typed groups to parse a date specification:
?- re_matchsub("(?<date> (?<year_I>(?:\\d\\d)?\\d\\d) - (?<month_I>\\d\\d) - (?<day_I>\\d\\d) )"/e, "2017-04-20", Sub, []). Sub = re_match{0:"2017-04-20", date:"2017-04-20", day:20, month:4, year:2017}.
re_foldl(:Goal, +Regex, +String, ?V0, ?V, +Options) is semidet- Fold all matches of Regex on String. Each match is represented by
a dict as specified for re_matchsub/4. V0 and V are related using a
sequence of invocations of Goal as illustrated below.
call(Goal, Dict1, V0, V1), call(Goal, Dict2, V1, V2), ... call(Goal, Dictn, Vn, V).
This predicate is used to implement re_split/4 and re_replace/4. For example, we can count all matches of a Regex on String using this code:
re_match_count(Regex, String, Count) :- re_foldl(increment, Regex, String, 0, Count, []). increment(_Match, V0, V1) :- V1 is V0+1.After which we can query
?- re_match_count("a", "aap", X). X = 2.
re_split(+Pattern, +String, -Split:list) is det
re_split(+Pattern, +String, -Split:list, +Options) is det- Split String using the regular expression Pattern. Split is a list
of strings holding alternating matches of Pattern and skipped parts
of the String, starting with a skipped part. The Split lists ends
with a string of the content of String after the last match. If
Pattern does not appear in String, Split is a list holding a copy of
String. This implies the number of elements in Split is always
odd. For example:
?- re_split("a+", "abaac", Split, []). Split = ["","a","b","aa","c"]. ?- re_split(":\\s*"/n, "Age: 33", Split, []). Split = ['Age', ': ', 33].
re_replace(+Pattern, +With, +String, -NewString)- Replace matches of the regular expression Pattern in String with With. With may reference captured substrings using \N or $Name. Both N and Name may be written as {N} and {Name} to avoid ambiguities.
re_compile(+Pattern, -Regex, +Options) is det- Compiles Pattern to a Regex blob of type
regex(see blob/2). Defined Options are defined below. Please consult the PCRE documentation for details.- anchored(Bool)
- Force pattern anchoring
- bsr(Mode)
- If
anycrlf, \R only matches CR, LF or CRLF. Ifunicode, \R matches all Unicode line endings. - caseless(Bool)
- If
true, do caseless matching. - dollar_endonly(Bool)
- If
true, $ not to match newline at end - dotall(Bool)
- If
true, . matches anything including NL - dupnames(Bool)
- If
true, allow duplicate names for subpatterns - extended(Bool)
- If
true, ignore white space and # comments - extra(Bool)
- If
true, PCRE extra features (not much use currently) - firstline(Bool)
- If
true, force matching to be before newline - compat(With)
- If
javascript, JavaScript compatibility - multiline(Bool)
- If
true, ^ and $ match newlines within data - newline(Mode)
- If
any, recognize any Unicode newline sequence, ifanycrlf(default), recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline sequences, ifcr, recognize CR, iflf, recognize LF and finally ifcrlfrecognize CRLF as newline. - ucp(Bool)
- If
true, use Unicode properties for \d, \w, etc. - ungreedy(Bool)
- If
true, invert greediness of quantifiers
In addition to the options above that directly map to pcre flags the following options are processed:
- optimize(Bool)
- If
true, study the regular expression. - capture_type(+Type)
- How to return the matched part of the input and possibly captured
groups in there. Possible values are:
- string
- Return the captured string as a string (default).
- atom
- Return the captured string as an atom.
- range
- Return the captured string as a pair
Start-Length. Note the we useStart-Length` rather than the more conventionalStart-Endto allow for immediate use with sub_atom/5 and sub_string/5. - term
- Parse the captured string as a Prolog term. This is notably practical if you capture a number.
The
capture_typespecifies the default for this pattern. The interface supports a different type for each named group using the syntax(?<name_T>...), whereTis one ofS(string),A(atom),I(integer),F(float),N(number),T(term) andR(range). In the current implementationI,FandNare synonyms forT. Future versions may act different if the parsed value is not of the requested numeric type.
re_flush- Clean pattern and replacement caches.
re_config(+Term)- Extract configuration information from the pcre library. Term is of
the form Name(Value). Name is derived from the
PCRE_CONFIG_*constant after removing =PCRE_CONFIG_= and mapping the name to lower case, e.g.utf8,unicode_properties, etc. Value is either a Prolog boolean, integer or atom.Finally, the functionality of
pcre_version()is available using the configuration nameversion.
re_match(+Regex, +String) is semidet
re_match(+Regex, +String, +Options) is semidet- Succeeds if String matches Regex. For example:
?- re_match("^needle"/i, "Needle in a haystack"). true.Options:
- anchored(Bool)
- If
true, match only at the first position - bol(Bool)
- Subject string is the beginning of a line (default
false) - bsr(Mode)
- If
anycrlf, \R only matches CR, LF or CRLF. Ifunicode, \R matches all Unicode line endings. Subject string is the end of a line (defaultfalse) - empty(Bool)
- An empty string is a valid match (default
true) - empty_atstart(Bool)
- An empty string at the start of the subject is a valid match
(default
true) - eol(Bool)
- Subject string is the end of a line (default
false) - newline(Mode)
- If
any, recognize any Unicode newline sequence, ifanycrlf, recognize CR, LF, and CRLF as newline sequences, ifcr, recognize CR, iflf, recognize LF and finally ifcrlfrecognize CRLF as newline. - start(+From)
- Start at the given character index
re_split(+Pattern, +String, -Split:list) is det
re_split(+Pattern, +String, -Split:list, +Options) is det- Split String using the regular expression Pattern. Split is a list
of strings holding alternating matches of Pattern and skipped parts
of the String, starting with a skipped part. The Split lists ends
with a string of the content of String after the last match. If
Pattern does not appear in String, Split is a list holding a copy of
String. This implies the number of elements in Split is always
odd. For example:
?- re_split("a+", "abaac", Split, []). Split = ["","a","b","aa","c"]. ?- re_split(":\\s*"/n, "Age: 33", Split, []). Split = ['Age', ': ', 33].