pcrestack(3)

NAME

       PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

PCRE DISCUSSION OF STACK USAGE

       When  you call pcre_exec(), it makes use of an internal function called
       match(). This calls itself recursively at branch points in the pattern,
       in  order to remember the state of the match so that it can back up and
       try a different alternative if the first one fails.  As  matching  pro-
       ceeds  deeper  and deeper into the tree of possibilities, the recursion
       depth increases.

       Not all calls of match() increase the recursion depth; for an item such
       as  a* it may be called several times at the same level, after matching
       different numbers of a's. Furthermore, in a number of cases  where  the
       result  of  the  recursive call would immediately be passed back as the
       result of the current call (a "tail recursion"), the function  is  just
       restarted instead.

       The pcre_dfa_exec() function operates in an entirely different way, and
       hardly uses recursion at all. The limit on its complexity is the amount
       of  workspace  it  is  given.  The comments that follow do NOT apply to
       pcre_dfa_exec(); they are relevant only for pcre_exec().

       You can set limits on the number of times that match() is called,  both
       in  total  and  recursively. If the limit is exceeded, an error occurs.
       For details, see the section on  extra  data  for  pcre_exec()  in  the
       pcreapi documentation.

       Each  time  that match() is actually called recursively, it uses memory
       from the process stack. For certain kinds of  pattern  and  data,  very
       large  amounts of stack may be needed, despite the recognition of "tail
       recursion".  You can often reduce the amount of recursion,  and  there-
       fore  the  amount of stack used, by modifying the pattern that is being
       matched. Consider, for example, this pattern:

         ([^<]|<(?!inet))+

       It matches from wherever it starts until it encounters "<inet"  or  the
       end  of  the  data,  and is the kind of pattern that might be used when
       processing an XML file. Each iteration of the outer parentheses matches
       either  one  character that is not "<" or a "<" that is not followed by
       "inet". However, each time a  parenthesis  is  processed,  a  recursion
       occurs, so this formulation uses a stack frame for each matched charac-
       ter. For a long string, a lot of stack is required. Consider  now  this
       rewritten pattern, which matches exactly the same strings:

         ([^<]++|<(?!inet))+

       This  uses very much less stack, because runs of characters that do not
       contain "<" are "swallowed" in one item inside the parentheses.  Recur-
       sion  happens  only when a "<" character that is not followed by "inet"
       is encountered (and we assume this is relatively  rare).  A  possessive
       quantifier  is  used  to stop any backtracking into the runs of non-"<"
       characters, but that is not related to stack usage.

       This example shows that one way of avoiding stack problems when  match-
       ing long subject strings is to write repeated parenthesized subpatterns
       to match more than one character whenever possible.

       In environments where stack memory is constrained, you  might  want  to
       compile  PCRE to use heap memory instead of stack for remembering back-
       up points. This makes it run a lot more slowly, however. Details of how
       to do this are given in the pcrebuild documentation. When built in this
       way, instead of using the stack, PCRE obtains and frees memory by call-
       ing  the  functions  that  are  pointed to by the pcre_stack_malloc and
       pcre_stack_free variables. By default,  these  point  to  malloc()  and
       free(),  but you can replace the pointers to cause PCRE to use your own
       functions. Since the block sizes are always the same,  and  are  always
       freed in reverse order, it may be possible to implement customized mem-
       ory handlers that are more efficient than the standard functions.

       In Unix-like environments, there is not often a problem with the  stack
       unless  very  long  strings  are  involved, though the default limit on
       stack size varies from system to system. Values from 8Mb  to  64Mb  are
       common. You can find your default limit by running the command:

         ulimit -s

       Unfortunately,  the  effect  of  running out of stack is often SIGSEGV,
       though sometimes a more explicit error message is given. You  can  nor-
       mally increase the limit on stack size by code such as this:

         struct rlimit rlim;
         getrlimit(RLIMIT_STACK, &rlim);
         rlim.rlim_cur = 100*1024*1024;
         setrlimit(RLIMIT_STACK, &rlim);

       This  reads  the current limits (soft and hard) using getrlimit(), then
       attempts to increase the soft limit to  100Mb  using  setrlimit().  You
       must do this before calling pcre_exec().

       PCRE  has  an  internal  counter that can be used to limit the depth of
       recursion, and thus cause pcre_exec() to give an error code  before  it
       runs  out  of  stack. By default, the limit is very large, and unlikely
       ever to operate. It can be changed when PCRE is built, and it can  also
       be set when pcre_exec() is called. For details of these interfaces, see
       the pcrebuild and pcreapi documentation.

       As a very rough rule of thumb, you should reckon on about 500 bytes per
       recursion.  Thus,  if  you  want  to limit your stack usage to 8Mb, you
       should set the limit at 16000 recursions. A 64Mb stack,  on  the  other
       hand,  can  support around 128000 recursions. The pcretest test program
       has a command line option (-S) that can be used to increase the size of
       its stack.

AUTHOR

       Philip Hazel
       University Computing Service
       Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.

REVISION

       Last updated: 05 June 2007
       Copyright (c) 1997-2007 University of Cambridge.

                                                                  PCRESTACK(3)