Can someone help me understand how to use PCRE with C++?

I am a beginner to C++, working on Win 7 x64. I've got myself set up with MinGW and Visual Studio 2010.

I would like to use PCRE for RegEx, but I have no idea how to install it to work with these two compilers. I tried to research this, but the people who write PCRE are upfront about knowing nothing about Windows, and so don't provide much assistance. And what little information I can find is clearly written for experienced programmers, and is not easily understood by someone new.

Is there anyone familiar with this who can help walk me through the process of setting up PCRE 8.12 with MinGW and Visual Studio?

Alternately, if a good guide exists, you can just point me in the right direction. But so far, I haven't been able to find anything appropriate.


Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KenLP

Is there anyone familiar with this who can help walk me through the process of setting up PCRE 8.12 with MinGW and Visual Studio?

Alternately, if a good guide exists, you can just point me in the right direction. But so far, I haven't been able to find anything appropriate.

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The compiler that comes with Visual Studio 2010 comes with the TR1 extensions to the standard library, including the regular expressions library. The functionality provided by <regex>, which is soon to be included in the C++ standard, to be ratified later this year. A quick search brings up this tutorial on Getting started with C++ TR1 regular expressions, and you should be able to test with this program:

Code:

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#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    using namespace std;
    string str = "Hello world";
    tr1::regex rx("ello");

    if (regex_match(str.begin(), str.end(), rx))
    {
        cout << "Match" << endl;
    }
    else
    {
        cout << "No match" << endl;
    }

    if (regex_search(str.begin(), str.end(), rx))
    {
        cout << "Found" << endl;
    }
    else
    {
        cout << "Not found" << endl;
    }
}

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Thanks, but I'm looking to use PCRE specifically.

Unless you really do need certain PCRE specific syntax, it seems that the ECMAScript option will be good enough for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by laserlight

Unless you really do need certain PCRE specific syntax, it seems that the ECMAScript option will be good enough for you.

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ECMAScript, to my knowledge, is equivalent to JavaScript RegEx, which is extremely limiting. PCRE is significantly more capable, as far as RegEx is concerned, and from what I was able to find, far outstrips TR1 in terms of performance.

Thus, PCRE is what I'm looking to use. I'm asking how to use it.

Quote:

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...far outstrips TR1 in terms of performance...

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o_O
Outstrips which TR1 implementation?
I'd be careful with such statements since every compiler vendor can implement it differently.
Unless PCRE has a lower time complexity than TR1, such statements are dangerous.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elysia

o_O
Outstrips which TR1 implementation?
I'd be careful with such statements since every compiler vendor can implement it differently.
Unless PCRE has a lower time complexity than TR1, such statements are dangerous.

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My apologies if I was incorrect. I was working off of this:

August « 2008 « Software Ramblings

It compares PCRE with vc9_fp1 and vc9_sp1, and there is no comparison between them.


That being said, the issues of RegEx capability alone is enough for me to need PCRE, so that's still what I'm looking to use. If I can figure out how. :)

Unless you can get a MinGW maintainer to do it for you, you might have to do this yourself (though they may offer some guidance - join their mailing lists and forums).

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions leading to Pcre for Windows
One thing you could do there is compare the "pcre" release with the MinGW port of it, to see what was actually involved. Hopefully, the changes should be minimal.

Following that, you might try to emulate those changes with the latest "pcre" release and port that to the latest MinGW. Again, the MinGW maintainers should be able to advise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Salem

Unless you can get a MinGW maintainer to do it for you, you might have to do this yourself (though they may offer some guidance - join their mailing lists and forums).

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions leading to Pcre for Windows
One thing you could do there is compare the "pcre" release with the MinGW port of it, to see what was actually involved. Hopefully, the changes should be minimal.

Following that, you might try to emulate those changes with the latest "pcre" release and port that to the latest MinGW. Again, the MinGW maintainers should be able to advise.

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The latest version of PCRE is 8.12. The Windows port is 7.0. That's far too behind for me.

That's why I was asking about how to work with the full version in its standard form. I'll try asking the MinGW folks, but I'm not sure anyone there is going to be able to help me.