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PCREJIT(3)                           Library Functions Manual                          PCREJIT(3)



NAME
       PCRE - Perl-compatible regular expressions

PCRE JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER SUPPORT

       Just-in-time  compiling  is  a  heavyweight optimization that can greatly speed up pattern
       matching. However, it comes at the cost of extra processing before the match is performed.
       Therefore,  it is of most benefit when the same pattern is going to be matched many times.
       This does not necessarily mean many calls of a matching function; if the  pattern  is  not
       anchored, matching attempts may take place many times at various positions in the subject,
       even for a single call.  Therefore, if the subject string is very long, it may  still  pay
       to use JIT for one-off matches.

       JIT  support  applies  only to the traditional Perl-compatible matching function.  It does
       not apply when the DFA matching function is being used. The  code  for  this  support  was
       written by Zoltan Herczeg.

8-BIT, 16-BIT AND 32-BIT SUPPORT

       JIT  support  is available for all of the 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit PCRE libraries. To keep
       this documentation simple, only the 8-bit interface is described in what follows.  If  you
       are  using  the 16-bit library, substitute the 16-bit functions and 16-bit structures (for
       example, pcre16_jit_stack instead of pcre_jit_stack). If you are using the 32-bit library,
       substitute  the  32-bit  functions  and  32-bit  structures (for example, pcre32_jit_stack
       instead of pcre_jit_stack).

AVAILABILITY OF JIT SUPPORT

       JIT support is an optional feature of PCRE. The "configure" option --enable-jit (or equiv‐
       alent  CMake option) must be set when PCRE is built if you want to use JIT. The support is
       limited to the following hardware platforms:

         ARM v5, v7, and Thumb2
         Intel x86 32-bit and 64-bit
         MIPS 32-bit
         Power PC 32-bit and 64-bit
         SPARC 32-bit (experimental)

       If --enable-jit is set on an unsupported platform, compilation fails.

       A program that is linked with PCRE 8.20 or later can tell if JIT support is  available  by
       calling  pcre_config() with the PCRE_CONFIG_JIT option. The result is 1 when JIT is avail‐
       able, and 0 otherwise. However, a simple program does not need to check this in  order  to
       use  JIT.  The normal API is implemented in a way that falls back to the interpretive code
       if JIT is not available. For programs that need the best possible  performance,  there  is
       also a "fast path" API that is JIT-specific.

       If  your  program  may sometimes be linked with versions of PCRE that are older than 8.20,
       but you want to use JIT when it is available, you can test the values  of  PCRE_MAJOR  and
       PCRE_MINOR, or the existence of a JIT macro such as PCRE_CONFIG_JIT, for compile-time con‐
       trol of your code.

SIMPLE USE OF JIT

       You have to do two things to make use of the JIT support in the simplest way:

         (1) Call pcre_study() with the PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE option for
             each compiled pattern, and pass the resulting pcre_extra block to
             pcre_exec().

         (2) Use pcre_free_study() to free the pcre_extra block when it is
             no longer needed, instead of just freeing it yourself. This ensures that
             any JIT data is also freed.

       For a program that may be linked with pre-8.20 versions of PCRE, you can insert

         #ifndef PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE
         #define PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE 0
         #endif

       so that no option is passed to pcre_study(), and then use something like this to free  the
       study data:

         #ifdef PCRE_CONFIG_JIT
             pcre_free_study(study_ptr);
         #else
             pcre_free(study_ptr);
         #endif

       PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE requests the JIT compiler to generate code for complete matches. If
       you want to run partial matches using the PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD or  PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT  options
       of  pcre_exec(),  you  should  set one or both of the following options in addition to, or
       instead of, PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE when you call pcre_study():

         PCRE_STUDY_JIT_PARTIAL_HARD_COMPILE
         PCRE_STUDY_JIT_PARTIAL_SOFT_COMPILE

       The JIT compiler generates different optimized code for each of the three  modes  (normal,
       soft partial, hard partial). When pcre_exec() is called, the appropriate code is run if it
       is available. Otherwise, the pattern is matched using interpretive code.

       In some circumstances you may need to call additional functions. These  are  described  in
       the section entitled "Controlling the JIT stack" below.

       If  JIT support is not available, PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE etc. are ignored, and no JIT data
       is created. Otherwise, the compiled pattern is passed to the JIT compiler, which turns  it
       into  machine  code  that  executes  much  faster  than the normal interpretive code. When
       pcre_exec() is passed a pcre_extra block containing a pointer to JIT code of the appropri‐
       ate  mode  (normal or hard/soft partial), it obeys that code instead of running the inter‐
       preter. The result is identical, but the compiled JIT code runs much faster.

       There are some pcre_exec() options that are not supported for  JIT  execution.  There  are
       also  some  pattern  items that JIT cannot handle. Details are given below. In both cases,
       execution automatically falls back to the interpretive code. If you want to  know  whether
       JIT  was actually used for a particular match, you should arrange for a JIT callback func‐
       tion to be set up as described in the section entitled "Controlling the JIT stack"  below,
       even  if  you  do  not need to supply a non-default JIT stack. Such a callback function is
       called whenever JIT code is about to be obeyed. If the execution options are not right for
       JIT execution, the callback function is not obeyed.

       If  the JIT compiler finds an unsupported item, no JIT data is generated. You can find out
       if JIT execution is available after studying a pattern by calling pcre_fullinfo() with the
       PCRE_INFO_JIT option. A result of 1 means that JIT compilation was successful. A result of
       0 means that  JIT  support  is  not  available,  or  the  pattern  was  not  studied  with
       PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE etc., or the JIT compiler was not able to handle the pattern.

       Once  a pattern has been studied, with or without JIT, it can be used as many times as you
       like for matching different subject strings.

UNSUPPORTED OPTIONS AND PATTERN ITEMS

       The only pcre_exec() options that are supported for JIT execution are  PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK,
       PCRE_NO_UTF16_CHECK,   PCRE_NO_UTF32_CHECK,   PCRE_NOTBOL,   PCRE_NOTEOL,   PCRE_NOTEMPTY,
       PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART, PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD, and PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT.

       The only unsupported pattern items are \C (match a single data unit) when running in a UTF
       mode, and a callout immediately before an assertion condition in a conditional group.

RETURN VALUES FROM JIT EXECUTION

       When  a  pattern  is  matched using JIT execution, the return values are the same as those
       given by the interpretive pcre_exec() code, with the  addition  of  one  new  error  code:
       PCRE_ERROR_JIT_STACKLIMIT.  This means that the memory used for the JIT stack was insuffi‐
       cient. See "Controlling the JIT stack" below for a discussion of JIT stack usage. For com‐
       patibility  with the interpretive pcre_exec() code, no more than two-thirds of the ovector
       argument is used for passing back captured substrings.

       The error code PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT is returned by the JIT code if searching a very large
       pattern tree goes on for too long, as it is in the same circumstance when JIT is not used,
       but the details of exactly what is counted are not the same. The PCRE_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT
       error code is never returned by JIT execution.

SAVING AND RESTORING COMPILED PATTERNS

       The code that is generated by the JIT compiler is architecture-specific, and is also posi‐
       tion dependent. For those reasons it cannot be saved (in a file or database) and  restored
       later  like  the  bytecode and other data of a compiled pattern. Saving and restoring com‐
       piled patterns is not something many people do. More detail about this facility  is  given
       in  the pcreprecompile documentation. It should be possible to run pcre_study() on a saved
       and restored pattern, and thereby recreate the JIT data, but because JIT compilation  uses
       significant  resources,  it  is probably not worth doing this; you might as well recompile
       the original pattern.

CONTROLLING THE JIT STACK

       When the compiled JIT code runs, it needs a block  of  memory  to  use  as  a  stack.   By
       default,  it  uses  32K  on the machine stack. However, some large or complicated patterns
       need more than this. The error PCRE_ERROR_JIT_STACKLIMIT is given when there is not enough
       stack.  Three  functions are provided for managing blocks of memory for use as JIT stacks.
       There is further discussion about the use of JIT stacks in the section entitled "JIT stack
       FAQ" below.

       The pcre_jit_stack_alloc() function creates a JIT stack. Its arguments are a starting size
       and  a  maximum  size,  and  it  returns  a  pointer  to  an  opaque  structure  of   type
       pcre_jit_stack,  or  NULL  if there is an error. The pcre_jit_stack_free() function can be
       used to free a stack that is no longer needed. (For the technically  minded:  the  address
       space is allocated by mmap or VirtualAlloc.)

       JIT  uses  far  less  memory for recursion than the interpretive code, and a maximum stack
       size of 512K to 1M should be more than enough for any pattern.

       The pcre_assign_jit_stack() function specifies which stack JIT code should use. Its  argu‐
       ments are as follows:

         pcre_extra         *extra
         pcre_jit_callback  callback
         void               *data

       The  extra  argument  must be the result of studying a pattern with PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE
       etc. There are three cases for the values of the other two options:

         (1) If callback is NULL and data is NULL, an internal 32K block
             on the machine stack is used.

         (2) If callback is NULL and data is not NULL, data must be
             a valid JIT stack, the result of calling pcre_jit_stack_alloc().

         (3) If callback is not NULL, it must point to a function that is
             called with data as an argument at the start of matching, in
             order to set up a JIT stack. If the return from the callback
             function is NULL, the internal 32K stack is used; otherwise the
             return value must be a valid JIT stack, the result of calling
             pcre_jit_stack_alloc().

       A callback function is obeyed whenever JIT code is about to be run; it is not obeyed  when
       pcre_exec()  is  called  with  options that are incompatible for JIT execution. A callback
       function can therefore be used to determine whether a match operation was executed by  JIT
       or by the interpreter.

       You  may  safely  use  the  same  JIT stack for more than one pattern (either by assigning
       directly or by callback), as long as the patterns are all matched sequentially in the same
       thread.  In a multithread application, if you do not specify a JIT stack, or if you assign
       or pass back NULL from a callback, that is thread-safe, because each thread  has  its  own
       machine  stack.  However,  if you assign or pass back a non-NULL JIT stack, this must be a
       different stack for each thread so that the application is thread-safe.

       Strictly speaking, even more is allowed. You can assign the same  non-NULL  stack  to  any
       number  of  patterns  as long as they are not used for matching by multiple threads at the
       same time. For example, you can assign the same stack to all compiled patterns, and use  a
       global  mutex  in the callback to wait until the stack is available for use. However, this
       is an inefficient solution, and not recommended.

       This is a suggestion for how a multithreaded program that needs to set up non-default  JIT
       stacks might operate:

         During thread initalization
           thread_local_var = pcre_jit_stack_alloc(...)

         During thread exit
           pcre_jit_stack_free(thread_local_var)

         Use a one-line callback function
           return thread_local_var

       All  the  functions  described  in  this  section  do nothing if JIT is not available, and
       pcre_assign_jit_stack() does nothing unless the extra argument is non-NULL and points to a
       pcre_extra block that is the result of a successful study with PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE etc.

JIT STACK FAQ

       (1) Why do we need JIT stacks?

       PCRE  (and  JIT)  is  a recursive, depth-first engine, so it needs a stack where the local
       data of the current node is pushed before  checking  its  child  nodes.   Allocating  real
       machine  stack  on  some  platforms is difficult. For example, the stack chain needs to be
       updated every time if we extend the stack on PowerPC.  Although it is possible, its updat‐
       ing time overhead decreases performance. So we do the recursion in memory.

       (2) Why don't we simply allocate blocks of memory with malloc()?

       Modern operating systems have a nice feature: they can reserve an address space instead of
       allocating memory. We can safely allocate memory pages inside this address space,  so  the
       stack  could grow without moving memory data (this is important because of pointers). Thus
       we can allocate 1M address space, and use only a single memory page (usually 4K)  if  that
       is enough. However, we can still grow up to 1M anytime if needed.

       (3) Who "owns" a JIT stack?

       The  owner of the stack is the user program, not the JIT studied pattern or anything else.
       The user program must ensure that if a stack is used  by  pcre_exec(),  (that  is,  it  is
       assigned  to  the  pattern  currently  running),  that stack must not be used by any other
       threads (to avoid overwriting the same memory area). The best practice  for  multithreaded
       programs  is  to  allocate  a stack for each thread, and return this stack through the JIT
       callback function.

       (4) When should a JIT stack be freed?

       You can free a JIT stack at any time, as long as it will not be used by pcre_exec() again.
       When  you  assign  the  stack  to  a pattern, only a pointer is set. There is no reference
       counting or any other magic. You can free the patterns and stacks in any  order,  anytime.
       Just  do  not  call pcre_exec() with a pattern pointing to an already freed stack, as that
       will cause SEGFAULT. (Also, do not free a stack currently used by pcre_exec()  in  another
       thread).  You  can also replace the stack for a pattern at any time. You can even free the
       previous stack before assigning a replacement.

       (5) Should I allocate/free a stack every time before/after calling pcre_exec()?

       No, because this is too costly in terms of resources. However, you  could  implement  some
       clever  idea  which  release the stack if it is not used in let's say two minutes. The JIT
       callback can help to achieve this without keeping a list of the currently JIT studied pat‐
       terns.

       (6) OK, the stack is for long term memory allocation. But what happens if a pattern causes
       stack overflow with a stack of 1M? Is that 1M kept until the stack is freed?

       Especially on embedded sytems, it might be a good idea to release memory sometimes without
       freeing the stack. There is no API for this at the moment.  Probably a function call which
       returns with the currently allocated memory for any stack and another which allows releas‐
       ing memory (shrinking the stack) would be a good idea if someone needs this.

       (7)  This  is  too  much of a headache. Isn't there any better solution for JIT stack han‐
       dling?

       No, thanks to Windows. If POSIX threads were used everywhere, we could throw out this com‐
       plicated API.

EXAMPLE CODE

       This is a single-threaded example that specifies a JIT stack without using a callback.

         int rc;
         int ovector[30];
         pcre *re;
         pcre_extra *extra;
         pcre_jit_stack *jit_stack;

         re = pcre_compile(pattern, 0, &error, &erroffset, NULL);
         /* Check for errors */
         extra = pcre_study(re, PCRE_STUDY_JIT_COMPILE, &error);
         jit_stack = pcre_jit_stack_alloc(32*1024, 512*1024);
         /* Check for error (NULL) */
         pcre_assign_jit_stack(extra, NULL, jit_stack);
         rc = pcre_exec(re, extra, subject, length, 0, 0, ovector, 30);
         /* Check results */
         pcre_free(re);
         pcre_free_study(extra);
         pcre_jit_stack_free(jit_stack);


JIT FAST PATH API

       Because the API described above falls back to interpreted execution when JIT is not avail‐
       able, it is convenient for programs that are written for general use in many environments.
       However,  calling  JIT  via  pcre_exec() does have a performance impact. Programs that are
       written for use where JIT is known to be available, and which need the best possible  per‐
       formance,  can  instead  use  a  "fast path" API to call JIT execution directly instead of
       calling pcre_exec() (obviously only for patterns that have been  successfully  studied  by
       JIT).

       The  fast path function is called pcre_jit_exec(), and it takes exactly the same arguments
       as pcre_exec(), plus one additional argument that must point to a JIT stack. The JIT stack
       arrangements  described  above  do  not  apply.  The  return  values  are  the same as for
       pcre_exec().

       When you call pcre_exec(), as well as testing for invalid options, a number of other  san‐
       ity checks are performed on the arguments. For example, if the subject pointer is NULL, or
       its length is negative, an immediate error is given. Also, unless PCRE_NO_UTF[8|16|32]  is
       set,  a UTF subject string is tested for validity. In the interests of speed, these checks
       do not happen on the JIT fast path, and if invalid data is passed,  the  result  is  unde‐
       fined.

       Bypassing  the  sanity  checks and the pcre_exec() wrapping can give speedups of more than
       10%.

SEE ALSO

       pcreapi(3)

AUTHOR

       Philip Hazel (FAQ by Zoltan Herczeg)
       University Computing Service
       Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.

REVISION

       Last updated: 17 March 2013
       Copyright (c) 1997-2013 University of Cambridge.



PCRE 8.33                                 17 March 2013                                PCREJIT(3)


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