| /*! |
| This crate provides routines for searching strings for matches of a [regular |
| expression] (aka "regex"). The regex syntax supported by this crate is similar |
| to other regex engines, but it lacks several features that are not known how to |
| implement efficiently. This includes, but is not limited to, look-around and |
| backreferences. In exchange, all regex searches in this crate have worst case |
| `O(m * n)` time complexity, where `m` is proportional to the size of the regex |
| and `n` is proportional to the size of the string being searched. |
| |
| [regular expression]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression |
| |
| If you just want API documentation, then skip to the [`Regex`] type. Otherwise, |
| here's a quick example showing one way of parsing the output of a grep-like |
| program: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?m)^([^:]+):([0-9]+):(.+)$").unwrap(); |
| let hay = "\ |
| path/to/foo:54:Blue Harvest |
| path/to/bar:90:Something, Something, Something, Dark Side |
| path/to/baz:3:It's a Trap! |
| "; |
| |
| let mut results = vec![]; |
| for (_, [path, lineno, line]) in re.captures_iter(hay).map(|c| c.extract()) { |
| results.push((path, lineno.parse::<u64>()?, line)); |
| } |
| assert_eq!(results, vec![ |
| ("path/to/foo", 54, "Blue Harvest"), |
| ("path/to/bar", 90, "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side"), |
| ("path/to/baz", 3, "It's a Trap!"), |
| ]); |
| # Ok::<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>>(()) |
| ``` |
| |
| # Overview |
| |
| The primary type in this crate is a [`Regex`]. Its most important methods are |
| as follows: |
| |
| * [`Regex::new`] compiles a regex using the default configuration. A |
| [`RegexBuilder`] permits setting a non-default configuration. (For example, |
| case insensitive matching, verbose mode and others.) |
| * [`Regex::is_match`] reports whether a match exists in a particular haystack. |
| * [`Regex::find`] reports the byte offsets of a match in a haystack, if one |
| exists. [`Regex::find_iter`] returns an iterator over all such matches. |
| * [`Regex::captures`] returns a [`Captures`], which reports both the byte |
| offsets of a match in a haystack and the byte offsets of each matching capture |
| group from the regex in the haystack. |
| [`Regex::captures_iter`] returns an iterator over all such matches. |
| |
| There is also a [`RegexSet`], which permits searching for multiple regex |
| patterns simultaneously in a single search. However, it currently only reports |
| which patterns match and *not* the byte offsets of a match. |
| |
| Otherwise, this top-level crate documentation is organized as follows: |
| |
| * [Usage](#usage) shows how to add the `regex` crate to your Rust project. |
| * [Examples](#examples) provides a limited selection of regex search examples. |
| * [Performance](#performance) provides a brief summary of how to optimize regex |
| searching speed. |
| * [Unicode](#unicode) discusses support for non-ASCII patterns. |
| * [Syntax](#syntax) enumerates the specific regex syntax supported by this |
| crate. |
| * [Untrusted input](#untrusted-input) discusses how this crate deals with regex |
| patterns or haystacks that are untrusted. |
| * [Crate features](#crate-features) documents the Cargo features that can be |
| enabled or disabled for this crate. |
| * [Other crates](#other-crates) links to other crates in the `regex` family. |
| |
| # Usage |
| |
| The `regex` crate is [on crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/regex) and can be |
| used by adding `regex` to your dependencies in your project's `Cargo.toml`. |
| Or more simply, just run `cargo add regex`. |
| |
| Here is a complete example that creates a new Rust project, adds a dependency |
| on `regex`, creates the source code for a regex search and then runs the |
| program. |
| |
| First, create the project in a new directory: |
| |
| ```text |
| $ mkdir regex-example |
| $ cd regex-example |
| $ cargo init |
| ``` |
| |
| Second, add a dependency on `regex`: |
| |
| ```text |
| $ cargo add regex |
| ``` |
| |
| Third, edit `src/main.rs`. Delete what's there and replace it with this: |
| |
| ``` |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| fn main() { |
| let re = Regex::new(r"Hello (?<name>\w+)!").unwrap(); |
| let Some(caps) = re.captures("Hello Murphy!") else { |
| println!("no match!"); |
| return; |
| }; |
| println!("The name is: {}", &caps["name"]); |
| } |
| ``` |
| |
| Fourth, run it with `cargo run`: |
| |
| ```text |
| $ cargo run |
| Compiling memchr v2.5.0 |
| Compiling regex-syntax v0.7.1 |
| Compiling aho-corasick v1.0.1 |
| Compiling regex v1.8.1 |
| Compiling regex-example v0.1.0 (/tmp/regex-example) |
| Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 4.22s |
| Running `target/debug/regex-example` |
| The name is: Murphy |
| ``` |
| |
| The first time you run the program will show more output like above. But |
| subsequent runs shouldn't have to re-compile the dependencies. |
| |
| # Examples |
| |
| This section provides a few examples, in tutorial style, showing how to |
| search a haystack with a regex. There are more examples throughout the API |
| documentation. |
| |
| Before starting though, it's worth defining a few terms: |
| |
| * A **regex** is a Rust value whose type is `Regex`. We use `re` as a |
| variable name for a regex. |
| * A **pattern** is the string that is used to build a regex. We use `pat` as |
| a variable name for a pattern. |
| * A **haystack** is the string that is searched by a regex. We use `hay` as a |
| variable name for a haystack. |
| |
| Sometimes the words "regex" and "pattern" are used interchangeably. |
| |
| General use of regular expressions in this crate proceeds by compiling a |
| **pattern** into a **regex**, and then using that regex to search, split or |
| replace parts of a **haystack**. |
| |
| ### Example: find a middle initial |
| |
| We'll start off with a very simple example: a regex that looks for a specific |
| name but uses a wildcard to match a middle initial. Our pattern serves as |
| something like a template that will match a particular name with *any* middle |
| initial. |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| // We use 'unwrap()' here because it would be a bug in our program if the |
| // pattern failed to compile to a regex. Panicking in the presence of a bug |
| // is okay. |
| let re = Regex::new(r"Homer (.)\. Simpson").unwrap(); |
| let hay = "Homer J. Simpson"; |
| let Some(caps) = re.captures(hay) else { return }; |
| assert_eq!("J", &caps[1]); |
| ``` |
| |
| There are a few things worth noticing here in our first example: |
| |
| * The `.` is a special pattern meta character that means "match any single |
| character except for new lines." (More precisely, in this crate, it means |
| "match any UTF-8 encoding of any Unicode scalar value other than `\n`.") |
| * We can match an actual `.` literally by escaping it, i.e., `\.`. |
| * We use Rust's [raw strings] to avoid needing to deal with escape sequences in |
| both the regex pattern syntax and in Rust's string literal syntax. If we didn't |
| use raw strings here, we would have had to use `\\.` to match a literal `.` |
| character. That is, `r"\."` and `"\\."` are equivalent patterns. |
| * We put our wildcard `.` instruction in parentheses. These parentheses have a |
| special meaning that says, "make whatever part of the haystack matches within |
| these parentheses available as a capturing group." After finding a match, we |
| access this capture group with `&caps[1]`. |
| |
| [raw strings]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/reference/tokens.html#raw-string-literals |
| |
| Otherwise, we execute a search using `re.captures(hay)` and return from our |
| function if no match occurred. We then reference the middle initial by asking |
| for the part of the haystack that matched the capture group indexed at `1`. |
| (The capture group at index 0 is implicit and always corresponds to the entire |
| match. In this case, that's `Homer J. Simpson`.) |
| |
| ### Example: named capture groups |
| |
| Continuing from our middle initial example above, we can tweak the pattern |
| slightly to give a name to the group that matches the middle initial: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| // Note that (?P<middle>.) is a different way to spell the same thing. |
| let re = Regex::new(r"Homer (?<middle>.)\. Simpson").unwrap(); |
| let hay = "Homer J. Simpson"; |
| let Some(caps) = re.captures(hay) else { return }; |
| assert_eq!("J", &caps["middle"]); |
| ``` |
| |
| Giving a name to a group can be useful when there are multiple groups in |
| a pattern. It makes the code referring to those groups a bit easier to |
| understand. |
| |
| ### Example: validating a particular date format |
| |
| This examples shows how to confirm whether a haystack, in its entirety, matches |
| a particular date format: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}$").unwrap(); |
| assert!(re.is_match("2010-03-14")); |
| ``` |
| |
| Notice the use of the `^` and `$` anchors. In this crate, every regex search is |
| run with an implicit `(?s:.)*?` at the beginning of its pattern, which allows |
| the regex to match anywhere in a haystack. Anchors, as above, can be used to |
| ensure that the full haystack matches a pattern. |
| |
| This crate is also Unicode aware by default, which means that `\d` might match |
| more than you might expect it to. For example: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}$").unwrap(); |
| assert!(re.is_match("𝟚𝟘𝟙𝟘-𝟘𝟛-𝟙𝟜")); |
| ``` |
| |
| To only match an ASCII decimal digit, all of the following are equivalent: |
| |
| * `[0-9]` |
| * `(?-u:\d)` |
| * `[[:digit:]]` |
| * `[\d&&\p{ascii}]` |
| |
| ### Example: finding dates in a haystack |
| |
| In the previous example, we showed how one might validate that a haystack, |
| in its entirety, corresponded to a particular date format. But what if we wanted |
| to extract all things that look like dates in a specific format from a haystack? |
| To do this, we can use an iterator API to find all matches (notice that we've |
| removed the anchors and switched to looking for ASCII-only digits): |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}").unwrap(); |
| let hay = "What do 1865-04-14, 1881-07-02, 1901-09-06 and 1963-11-22 have in common?"; |
| // 'm' is a 'Match', and 'as_str()' returns the matching part of the haystack. |
| let dates: Vec<&str> = re.find_iter(hay).map(|m| m.as_str()).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(dates, vec![ |
| "1865-04-14", |
| "1881-07-02", |
| "1901-09-06", |
| "1963-11-22", |
| ]); |
| ``` |
| |
| We can also iterate over [`Captures`] values instead of [`Match`] values, and |
| that in turn permits accessing each component of the date via capturing groups: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?<y>[0-9]{4})-(?<m>[0-9]{2})-(?<d>[0-9]{2})").unwrap(); |
| let hay = "What do 1865-04-14, 1881-07-02, 1901-09-06 and 1963-11-22 have in common?"; |
| // 'm' is a 'Match', and 'as_str()' returns the matching part of the haystack. |
| let dates: Vec<(&str, &str, &str)> = re.captures_iter(hay).map(|caps| { |
| // The unwraps are okay because every capture group must match if the whole |
| // regex matches, and in this context, we know we have a match. |
| // |
| // Note that we use `caps.name("y").unwrap().as_str()` instead of |
| // `&caps["y"]` because the lifetime of the former is the same as the |
| // lifetime of `hay` above, but the lifetime of the latter is tied to the |
| // lifetime of `caps` due to how the `Index` trait is defined. |
| let year = caps.name("y").unwrap().as_str(); |
| let month = caps.name("m").unwrap().as_str(); |
| let day = caps.name("d").unwrap().as_str(); |
| (year, month, day) |
| }).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(dates, vec![ |
| ("1865", "04", "14"), |
| ("1881", "07", "02"), |
| ("1901", "09", "06"), |
| ("1963", "11", "22"), |
| ]); |
| ``` |
| |
| ### Example: simpler capture group extraction |
| |
| One can use [`Captures::extract`] to make the code from the previous example a |
| bit simpler in this case: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"([0-9]{4})-([0-9]{2})-([0-9]{2})").unwrap(); |
| let hay = "What do 1865-04-14, 1881-07-02, 1901-09-06 and 1963-11-22 have in common?"; |
| let dates: Vec<(&str, &str, &str)> = re.captures_iter(hay).map(|caps| { |
| let (_, [year, month, day]) = caps.extract(); |
| (year, month, day) |
| }).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(dates, vec![ |
| ("1865", "04", "14"), |
| ("1881", "07", "02"), |
| ("1901", "09", "06"), |
| ("1963", "11", "22"), |
| ]); |
| ``` |
| |
| `Captures::extract` works by ensuring that the number of matching groups match |
| the number of groups requested via the `[year, month, day]` syntax. If they do, |
| then the substrings for each corresponding capture group are automatically |
| returned in an appropriately sized array. Rust's syntax for pattern matching |
| arrays does the rest. |
| |
| ### Example: replacement with named capture groups |
| |
| Building on the previous example, perhaps we'd like to rearrange the date |
| formats. This can be done by finding each match and replacing it with |
| something different. The [`Regex::replace_all`] routine provides a convenient |
| way to do this, including by supporting references to named groups in the |
| replacement string: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?<y>\d{4})-(?<m>\d{2})-(?<d>\d{2})").unwrap(); |
| let before = "1973-01-05, 1975-08-25 and 1980-10-18"; |
| let after = re.replace_all(before, "$m/$d/$y"); |
| assert_eq!(after, "01/05/1973, 08/25/1975 and 10/18/1980"); |
| ``` |
| |
| The replace methods are actually polymorphic in the replacement, which |
| provides more flexibility than is seen here. (See the documentation for |
| [`Regex::replace`] for more details.) |
| |
| ### Example: verbose mode |
| |
| When your regex gets complicated, you might consider using something other |
| than regex. But if you stick with regex, you can use the `x` flag to enable |
| insignificant whitespace mode or "verbose mode." In this mode, whitespace |
| is treated as insignificant and one may write comments. This may make your |
| patterns easier to comprehend. |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?x) |
| (?P<y>\d{4}) # the year, including all Unicode digits |
| - |
| (?P<m>\d{2}) # the month, including all Unicode digits |
| - |
| (?P<d>\d{2}) # the day, including all Unicode digits |
| ").unwrap(); |
| |
| let before = "1973-01-05, 1975-08-25 and 1980-10-18"; |
| let after = re.replace_all(before, "$m/$d/$y"); |
| assert_eq!(after, "01/05/1973, 08/25/1975 and 10/18/1980"); |
| ``` |
| |
| If you wish to match against whitespace in this mode, you can still use `\s`, |
| `\n`, `\t`, etc. For escaping a single space character, you can escape it |
| directly with `\ `, use its hex character code `\x20` or temporarily disable |
| the `x` flag, e.g., `(?-x: )`. |
| |
| ### Example: match multiple regular expressions simultaneously |
| |
| This demonstrates how to use a [`RegexSet`] to match multiple (possibly |
| overlapping) regexes in a single scan of a haystack: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::RegexSet; |
| |
| let set = RegexSet::new(&[ |
| r"\w+", |
| r"\d+", |
| r"\pL+", |
| r"foo", |
| r"bar", |
| r"barfoo", |
| r"foobar", |
| ]).unwrap(); |
| |
| // Iterate over and collect all of the matches. Each match corresponds to the |
| // ID of the matching pattern. |
| let matches: Vec<_> = set.matches("foobar").into_iter().collect(); |
| assert_eq!(matches, vec![0, 2, 3, 4, 6]); |
| |
| // You can also test whether a particular regex matched: |
| let matches = set.matches("foobar"); |
| assert!(!matches.matched(5)); |
| assert!(matches.matched(6)); |
| ``` |
| |
| # Performance |
| |
| This section briefly discusses a few concerns regarding the speed and resource |
| usage of regexes. |
| |
| ### Only ask for what you need |
| |
| When running a search with a regex, there are generally three different types |
| of information one can ask for: |
| |
| 1. Does a regex match in a haystack? |
| 2. Where does a regex match in a haystack? |
| 3. Where do each of the capturing groups match in a haystack? |
| |
| Generally speaking, this crate could provide a function to answer only #3, |
| which would subsume #1 and #2 automatically. However, it can be significantly |
| more expensive to compute the location of capturing group matches, so it's best |
| not to do it if you don't need to. |
| |
| Therefore, only ask for what you need. For example, don't use [`Regex::find`] |
| if you only need to test if a regex matches a haystack. Use [`Regex::is_match`] |
| instead. |
| |
| ### Unicode can impact memory usage and search speed |
| |
| This crate has first class support for Unicode and it is **enabled by default**. |
| In many cases, the extra memory required to support it will be negligible and |
| it typically won't impact search speed. But it can in some cases. |
| |
| With respect to memory usage, the impact of Unicode principally manifests |
| through the use of Unicode character classes. Unicode character classes |
| tend to be quite large. For example, `\w` by default matches around 140,000 |
| distinct codepoints. This requires additional memory, and tends to slow down |
| regex compilation. While a `\w` here and there is unlikely to be noticed, |
| writing `\w{100}` will for example result in quite a large regex by default. |
| Indeed, `\w` is considerably larger than its ASCII-only version, so if your |
| requirements are satisfied by ASCII, it's probably a good idea to stick to |
| ASCII classes. The ASCII-only version of `\w` can be spelled in a number of |
| ways. All of the following are equivalent: |
| |
| * `[0-9A-Za-z_]` |
| * `(?-u:\w)` |
| * `[[:word:]]` |
| * `[\w&&\p{ascii}]` |
| |
| With respect to search speed, Unicode tends to be handled pretty well, even when |
| using large Unicode character classes. However, some of the faster internal |
| regex engines cannot handle a Unicode aware word boundary assertion. So if you |
| don't need Unicode-aware word boundary assertions, you might consider using |
| `(?-u:\b)` instead of `\b`, where the former uses an ASCII-only definition of |
| a word character. |
| |
| ### Literals might accelerate searches |
| |
| This crate tends to be quite good at recognizing literals in a regex pattern |
| and using them to accelerate a search. If it is at all possible to include |
| some kind of literal in your pattern, then it might make search substantially |
| faster. For example, in the regex `\w+@\w+`, the engine will look for |
| occurrences of `@` and then try a reverse match for `\w+` to find the start |
| position. |
| |
| ### Avoid re-compiling regexes, especially in a loop |
| |
| It is an anti-pattern to compile the same pattern in a loop since regex |
| compilation is typically expensive. (It takes anywhere from a few microseconds |
| to a few **milliseconds** depending on the size of the pattern.) Not only is |
| compilation itself expensive, but this also prevents optimizations that reuse |
| allocations internally to the regex engine. |
| |
| In Rust, it can sometimes be a pain to pass regexes around if they're used from |
| inside a helper function. Instead, we recommend using crates like [`once_cell`] |
| and [`lazy_static`] to ensure that patterns are compiled exactly once. |
| |
| [`once_cell`]: https://crates.io/crates/once_cell |
| [`lazy_static`]: https://crates.io/crates/lazy_static |
| |
| This example shows how to use `once_cell`: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use { |
| once_cell::sync::Lazy, |
| regex::Regex, |
| }; |
| |
| fn some_helper_function(haystack: &str) -> bool { |
| static RE: Lazy<Regex> = Lazy::new(|| Regex::new(r"...").unwrap()); |
| RE.is_match(haystack) |
| } |
| |
| fn main() { |
| assert!(some_helper_function("abc")); |
| assert!(!some_helper_function("ac")); |
| } |
| ``` |
| |
| Specifically, in this example, the regex will be compiled when it is used for |
| the first time. On subsequent uses, it will reuse the previously built `Regex`. |
| Notice how one can define the `Regex` locally to a specific function. |
| |
| ### Sharing a regex across threads can result in contention |
| |
| While a single `Regex` can be freely used from multiple threads simultaneously, |
| there is a small synchronization cost that must be paid. Generally speaking, |
| one shouldn't expect to observe this unless the principal task in each thread |
| is searching with the regex *and* most searches are on short haystacks. In this |
| case, internal contention on shared resources can spike and increase latency, |
| which in turn may slow down each individual search. |
| |
| One can work around this by cloning each `Regex` before sending it to another |
| thread. The cloned regexes will still share the same internal read-only portion |
| of its compiled state (it's reference counted), but each thread will get |
| optimized access to the mutable space that is used to run a search. In general, |
| there is no additional cost in memory to doing this. The only cost is the added |
| code complexity required to explicitly clone the regex. (If you share the same |
| `Regex` across multiple threads, each thread still gets its own mutable space, |
| but accessing that space is slower.) |
| |
| # Unicode |
| |
| This section discusses what kind of Unicode support this regex library has. |
| Before showing some examples, we'll summarize the relevant points: |
| |
| * This crate almost fully implements "Basic Unicode Support" (Level 1) as |
| specified by the [Unicode Technical Standard #18][UTS18]. The full details |
| of what is supported are documented in [UNICODE.md] in the root of the regex |
| crate repository. There is virtually no support for "Extended Unicode Support" |
| (Level 2) from UTS#18. |
| * The top-level [`Regex`] runs searches *as if* iterating over each of the |
| codepoints in the haystack. That is, the fundamental atom of matching is a |
| single codepoint. |
| * [`bytes::Regex`], in contrast, permits disabling Unicode mode for part of all |
| of your pattern in all cases. When Unicode mode is disabled, then a search is |
| run *as if* iterating over each byte in the haystack. That is, the fundamental |
| atom of matching is a single byte. (A top-level `Regex` also permits disabling |
| Unicode and thus matching *as if* it were one byte at a time, but only when |
| doing so wouldn't permit matching invalid UTF-8.) |
| * When Unicode mode is enabled (the default), `.` will match an entire Unicode |
| scalar value, even when it is encoded using multiple bytes. When Unicode mode |
| is disabled (e.g., `(?-u:.)`), then `.` will match a single byte in all cases. |
| * The character classes `\w`, `\d` and `\s` are all Unicode-aware by default. |
| Use `(?-u:\w)`, `(?-u:\d)` and `(?-u:\s)` to get their ASCII-only definitions. |
| * Similarly, `\b` and `\B` use a Unicode definition of a "word" character. |
| To get ASCII-only word boundaries, use `(?-u:\b)` and `(?-u:\B)`. This also |
| applies to the special word boundary assertions. (That is, `\b{start}`, |
| `\b{end}`, `\b{start-half}`, `\b{end-half}`.) |
| * `^` and `$` are **not** Unicode-aware in multi-line mode. Namely, they only |
| recognize `\n` (assuming CRLF mode is not enabled) and not any of the other |
| forms of line terminators defined by Unicode. |
| * Case insensitive searching is Unicode-aware and uses simple case folding. |
| * Unicode general categories, scripts and many boolean properties are available |
| by default via the `\p{property name}` syntax. |
| * In all cases, matches are reported using byte offsets. Or more precisely, |
| UTF-8 code unit offsets. This permits constant time indexing and slicing of the |
| haystack. |
| |
| [UTS18]: https://unicode.org/reports/tr18/ |
| [UNICODE.md]: https://github.com/rust-lang/regex/blob/master/UNICODE.md |
| |
| Patterns themselves are **only** interpreted as a sequence of Unicode scalar |
| values. This means you can use Unicode characters directly in your pattern: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?i)Δ+").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find("ΔδΔ").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!((0, 6), (m.start(), m.end())); |
| // alternatively: |
| assert_eq!(0..6, m.range()); |
| ``` |
| |
| As noted above, Unicode general categories, scripts, script extensions, ages |
| and a smattering of boolean properties are available as character classes. For |
| example, you can match a sequence of numerals, Greek or Cherokee letters: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"[\pN\p{Greek}\p{Cherokee}]+").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find("abcΔᎠβⅠᏴγδⅡxyz").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!(3..23, m.range()); |
| ``` |
| |
| While not specific to Unicode, this library also supports character class set |
| operations. Namely, one can nest character classes arbitrarily and perform set |
| operations on them. Those set operations are union (the default), intersection, |
| difference and symmetric difference. These set operations tend to be most |
| useful with Unicode character classes. For example, to match any codepoint |
| that is both in the `Greek` script and in the `Letter` general category: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"[\p{Greek}&&\pL]+").unwrap(); |
| let subs: Vec<&str> = re.find_iter("ΔδΔ𐅌ΔδΔ").map(|m| m.as_str()).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(subs, vec!["ΔδΔ", "ΔδΔ"]); |
| |
| // If we just matches on Greek, then all codepoints would match! |
| let re = Regex::new(r"\p{Greek}+").unwrap(); |
| let subs: Vec<&str> = re.find_iter("ΔδΔ𐅌ΔδΔ").map(|m| m.as_str()).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(subs, vec!["ΔδΔ𐅌ΔδΔ"]); |
| ``` |
| |
| ### Opt out of Unicode support |
| |
| The [`bytes::Regex`] type that can be used to search `&[u8]` haystacks. By |
| default, haystacks are conventionally treated as UTF-8 just like it is with the |
| main `Regex` type. However, this behavior can be disabled by turning off the |
| `u` flag, even if doing so could result in matching invalid UTF-8. For example, |
| when the `u` flag is disabled, `.` will match any byte instead of any Unicode |
| scalar value. |
| |
| Disabling the `u` flag is also possible with the standard `&str`-based `Regex` |
| type, but it is only allowed where the UTF-8 invariant is maintained. For |
| example, `(?-u:\w)` is an ASCII-only `\w` character class and is legal in an |
| `&str`-based `Regex`, but `(?-u:\W)` will attempt to match *any byte* that |
| isn't in `(?-u:\w)`, which in turn includes bytes that are invalid UTF-8. |
| Similarly, `(?-u:\xFF)` will attempt to match the raw byte `\xFF` (instead of |
| `U+00FF`), which is invalid UTF-8 and therefore is illegal in `&str`-based |
| regexes. |
| |
| Finally, since Unicode support requires bundling large Unicode data |
| tables, this crate exposes knobs to disable the compilation of those |
| data tables, which can be useful for shrinking binary size and reducing |
| compilation times. For details on how to do that, see the section on [crate |
| features](#crate-features). |
| |
| # Syntax |
| |
| The syntax supported in this crate is documented below. |
| |
| Note that the regular expression parser and abstract syntax are exposed in |
| a separate crate, [`regex-syntax`](https://docs.rs/regex-syntax). |
| |
| ### Matching one character |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| . any character except new line (includes new line with s flag) |
| [0-9] any ASCII digit |
| \d digit (\p{Nd}) |
| \D not digit |
| \pX Unicode character class identified by a one-letter name |
| \p{Greek} Unicode character class (general category or script) |
| \PX Negated Unicode character class identified by a one-letter name |
| \P{Greek} negated Unicode character class (general category or script) |
| </pre> |
| |
| ### Character classes |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| [xyz] A character class matching either x, y or z (union). |
| [^xyz] A character class matching any character except x, y and z. |
| [a-z] A character class matching any character in range a-z. |
| [[:alpha:]] ASCII character class ([A-Za-z]) |
| [[:^alpha:]] Negated ASCII character class ([^A-Za-z]) |
| [x[^xyz]] Nested/grouping character class (matching any character except y and z) |
| [a-y&&xyz] Intersection (matching x or y) |
| [0-9&&[^4]] Subtraction using intersection and negation (matching 0-9 except 4) |
| [0-9--4] Direct subtraction (matching 0-9 except 4) |
| [a-g~~b-h] Symmetric difference (matching `a` and `h` only) |
| [\[\]] Escaping in character classes (matching [ or ]) |
| [a&&b] An empty character class matching nothing |
| </pre> |
| |
| Any named character class may appear inside a bracketed `[...]` character |
| class. For example, `[\p{Greek}[:digit:]]` matches any ASCII digit or any |
| codepoint in the `Greek` script. `[\p{Greek}&&\pL]` matches Greek letters. |
| |
| Precedence in character classes, from most binding to least: |
| |
| 1. Ranges: `[a-cd]` == `[[a-c]d]` |
| 2. Union: `[ab&&bc]` == `[[ab]&&[bc]]` |
| 3. Intersection, difference, symmetric difference. All three have equivalent |
| precedence, and are evaluated in left-to-right order. For example, |
| `[\pL--\p{Greek}&&\p{Uppercase}]` == `[[\pL--\p{Greek}]&&\p{Uppercase}]`. |
| 4. Negation: `[^a-z&&b]` == `[^[a-z&&b]]`. |
| |
| ### Composites |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| xy concatenation (x followed by y) |
| x|y alternation (x or y, prefer x) |
| </pre> |
| |
| This example shows how an alternation works, and what it means to prefer a |
| branch in the alternation over subsequent branches. |
| |
| ``` |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let haystack = "samwise"; |
| // If 'samwise' comes first in our alternation, then it is |
| // preferred as a match, even if the regex engine could |
| // technically detect that 'sam' led to a match earlier. |
| let re = Regex::new(r"samwise|sam").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!("samwise", re.find(haystack).unwrap().as_str()); |
| // But if 'sam' comes first, then it will match instead. |
| // In this case, it is impossible for 'samwise' to match |
| // because 'sam' is a prefix of it. |
| let re = Regex::new(r"sam|samwise").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!("sam", re.find(haystack).unwrap().as_str()); |
| ``` |
| |
| ### Repetitions |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| x* zero or more of x (greedy) |
| x+ one or more of x (greedy) |
| x? zero or one of x (greedy) |
| x*? zero or more of x (ungreedy/lazy) |
| x+? one or more of x (ungreedy/lazy) |
| x?? zero or one of x (ungreedy/lazy) |
| x{n,m} at least n x and at most m x (greedy) |
| x{n,} at least n x (greedy) |
| x{n} exactly n x |
| x{n,m}? at least n x and at most m x (ungreedy/lazy) |
| x{n,}? at least n x (ungreedy/lazy) |
| x{n}? exactly n x |
| </pre> |
| |
| ### Empty matches |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| ^ the beginning of a haystack (or start-of-line with multi-line mode) |
| $ the end of a haystack (or end-of-line with multi-line mode) |
| \A only the beginning of a haystack (even with multi-line mode enabled) |
| \z only the end of a haystack (even with multi-line mode enabled) |
| \b a Unicode word boundary (\w on one side and \W, \A, or \z on other) |
| \B not a Unicode word boundary |
| \b{start}, \< a Unicode start-of-word boundary (\W|\A on the left, \w on the right) |
| \b{end}, \> a Unicode end-of-word boundary (\w on the left, \W|\z on the right)) |
| \b{start-half} half of a Unicode start-of-word boundary (\W|\A on the left) |
| \b{end-half} half of a Unicode end-of-word boundary (\W|\z on the right) |
| </pre> |
| |
| The empty regex is valid and matches the empty string. For example, the |
| empty regex matches `abc` at positions `0`, `1`, `2` and `3`. When using the |
| top-level [`Regex`] on `&str` haystacks, an empty match that splits a codepoint |
| is guaranteed to never be returned. However, such matches are permitted when |
| using a [`bytes::Regex`]. For example: |
| |
| ```rust |
| let re = regex::Regex::new(r"").unwrap(); |
| let ranges: Vec<_> = re.find_iter("💩").map(|m| m.range()).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(ranges, vec![0..0, 4..4]); |
| |
| let re = regex::bytes::Regex::new(r"").unwrap(); |
| let ranges: Vec<_> = re.find_iter("💩".as_bytes()).map(|m| m.range()).collect(); |
| assert_eq!(ranges, vec![0..0, 1..1, 2..2, 3..3, 4..4]); |
| ``` |
| |
| Note that an empty regex is distinct from a regex that can never match. |
| For example, the regex `[a&&b]` is a character class that represents the |
| intersection of `a` and `b`. That intersection is empty, which means the |
| character class is empty. Since nothing is in the empty set, `[a&&b]` matches |
| nothing, not even the empty string. |
| |
| ### Grouping and flags |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| (exp) numbered capture group (indexed by opening parenthesis) |
| (?P<name>exp) named (also numbered) capture group (names must be alpha-numeric) |
| (?<name>exp) named (also numbered) capture group (names must be alpha-numeric) |
| (?:exp) non-capturing group |
| (?flags) set flags within current group |
| (?flags:exp) set flags for exp (non-capturing) |
| </pre> |
| |
| Capture group names must be any sequence of alpha-numeric Unicode codepoints, |
| in addition to `.`, `_`, `[` and `]`. Names must start with either an `_` or |
| an alphabetic codepoint. Alphabetic codepoints correspond to the `Alphabetic` |
| Unicode property, while numeric codepoints correspond to the union of the |
| `Decimal_Number`, `Letter_Number` and `Other_Number` general categories. |
| |
| Flags are each a single character. For example, `(?x)` sets the flag `x` |
| and `(?-x)` clears the flag `x`. Multiple flags can be set or cleared at |
| the same time: `(?xy)` sets both the `x` and `y` flags and `(?x-y)` sets |
| the `x` flag and clears the `y` flag. |
| |
| All flags are by default disabled unless stated otherwise. They are: |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| i case-insensitive: letters match both upper and lower case |
| m multi-line mode: ^ and $ match begin/end of line |
| s allow . to match \n |
| R enables CRLF mode: when multi-line mode is enabled, \r\n is used |
| U swap the meaning of x* and x*? |
| u Unicode support (enabled by default) |
| x verbose mode, ignores whitespace and allow line comments (starting with `#`) |
| </pre> |
| |
| Note that in verbose mode, whitespace is ignored everywhere, including within |
| character classes. To insert whitespace, use its escaped form or a hex literal. |
| For example, `\ ` or `\x20` for an ASCII space. |
| |
| Flags can be toggled within a pattern. Here's an example that matches |
| case-insensitively for the first part but case-sensitively for the second part: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?i)a+(?-i)b+").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find("AaAaAbbBBBb").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!(m.as_str(), "AaAaAbb"); |
| ``` |
| |
| Notice that the `a+` matches either `a` or `A`, but the `b+` only matches |
| `b`. |
| |
| Multi-line mode means `^` and `$` no longer match just at the beginning/end of |
| the input, but also at the beginning/end of lines: |
| |
| ``` |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?m)^line \d+").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find("line one\nline 2\n").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!(m.as_str(), "line 2"); |
| ``` |
| |
| Note that `^` matches after new lines, even at the end of input: |
| |
| ``` |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?m)^").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find_iter("test\n").last().unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!((m.start(), m.end()), (5, 5)); |
| ``` |
| |
| When both CRLF mode and multi-line mode are enabled, then `^` and `$` will |
| match either `\r` and `\n`, but never in the middle of a `\r\n`: |
| |
| ``` |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?mR)^foo$").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find("\r\nfoo\r\n").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!(m.as_str(), "foo"); |
| ``` |
| |
| Unicode mode can also be selectively disabled, although only when the result |
| *would not* match invalid UTF-8. One good example of this is using an ASCII |
| word boundary instead of a Unicode word boundary, which might make some regex |
| searches run faster: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use regex::Regex; |
| |
| let re = Regex::new(r"(?-u:\b).+(?-u:\b)").unwrap(); |
| let m = re.find("$$abc$$").unwrap(); |
| assert_eq!(m.as_str(), "abc"); |
| ``` |
| |
| ### Escape sequences |
| |
| Note that this includes all possible escape sequences, even ones that are |
| documented elsewhere. |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| \* literal *, applies to all ASCII except [0-9A-Za-z<>] |
| \a bell (\x07) |
| \f form feed (\x0C) |
| \t horizontal tab |
| \n new line |
| \r carriage return |
| \v vertical tab (\x0B) |
| \A matches at the beginning of a haystack |
| \z matches at the end of a haystack |
| \b word boundary assertion |
| \B negated word boundary assertion |
| \b{start}, \< start-of-word boundary assertion |
| \b{end}, \> end-of-word boundary assertion |
| \b{start-half} half of a start-of-word boundary assertion |
| \b{end-half} half of a end-of-word boundary assertion |
| \123 octal character code, up to three digits (when enabled) |
| \x7F hex character code (exactly two digits) |
| \x{10FFFF} any hex character code corresponding to a Unicode code point |
| \u007F hex character code (exactly four digits) |
| \u{7F} any hex character code corresponding to a Unicode code point |
| \U0000007F hex character code (exactly eight digits) |
| \U{7F} any hex character code corresponding to a Unicode code point |
| \p{Letter} Unicode character class |
| \P{Letter} negated Unicode character class |
| \d, \s, \w Perl character class |
| \D, \S, \W negated Perl character class |
| </pre> |
| |
| ### Perl character classes (Unicode friendly) |
| |
| These classes are based on the definitions provided in |
| [UTS#18](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr18/#Compatibility_Properties): |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| \d digit (\p{Nd}) |
| \D not digit |
| \s whitespace (\p{White_Space}) |
| \S not whitespace |
| \w word character (\p{Alphabetic} + \p{M} + \d + \p{Pc} + \p{Join_Control}) |
| \W not word character |
| </pre> |
| |
| ### ASCII character classes |
| |
| These classes are based on the definitions provided in |
| [UTS#18](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr18/#Compatibility_Properties): |
| |
| <pre class="rust"> |
| [[:alnum:]] alphanumeric ([0-9A-Za-z]) |
| [[:alpha:]] alphabetic ([A-Za-z]) |
| [[:ascii:]] ASCII ([\x00-\x7F]) |
| [[:blank:]] blank ([\t ]) |
| [[:cntrl:]] control ([\x00-\x1F\x7F]) |
| [[:digit:]] digits ([0-9]) |
| [[:graph:]] graphical ([!-~]) |
| [[:lower:]] lower case ([a-z]) |
| [[:print:]] printable ([ -~]) |
| [[:punct:]] punctuation ([!-/:-@\[-`{-~]) |
| [[:space:]] whitespace ([\t\n\v\f\r ]) |
| [[:upper:]] upper case ([A-Z]) |
| [[:word:]] word characters ([0-9A-Za-z_]) |
| [[:xdigit:]] hex digit ([0-9A-Fa-f]) |
| </pre> |
| |
| # Untrusted input |
| |
| This crate is meant to be able to run regex searches on untrusted haystacks |
| without fear of [ReDoS]. This crate also, to a certain extent, supports |
| untrusted patterns. |
| |
| [ReDoS]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReDoS |
| |
| This crate differs from most (but not all) other regex engines in that it |
| doesn't use unbounded backtracking to run a regex search. In those cases, |
| one generally cannot use untrusted patterns *or* untrusted haystacks because |
| it can be very difficult to know whether a particular pattern will result in |
| catastrophic backtracking or not. |
| |
| We'll first discuss how this crate deals with untrusted inputs and then wrap |
| it up with a realistic discussion about what practice really looks like. |
| |
| ### Panics |
| |
| Outside of clearly documented cases, most APIs in this crate are intended to |
| never panic regardless of the inputs given to them. For example, `Regex::new`, |
| `Regex::is_match`, `Regex::find` and `Regex::captures` should never panic. That |
| is, it is an API promise that those APIs will never panic no matter what inputs |
| are given to them. With that said, regex engines are complicated beasts, and |
| providing a rock solid guarantee that these APIs literally never panic is |
| essentially equivalent to saying, "there are no bugs in this library." That is |
| a bold claim, and not really one that can be feasibly made with a straight |
| face. |
| |
| Don't get the wrong impression here. This crate is extensively tested, not just |
| with unit and integration tests, but also via fuzz testing. For example, this |
| crate is part of the [OSS-fuzz project]. Panics should be incredibly rare, but |
| it is possible for bugs to exist, and thus possible for a panic to occur. If |
| you need a rock solid guarantee against panics, then you should wrap calls into |
| this library with [`std::panic::catch_unwind`]. |
| |
| It's also worth pointing out that this library will *generally* panic when |
| other regex engines would commit undefined behavior. When undefined behavior |
| occurs, your program might continue as if nothing bad has happened, but it also |
| might mean your program is open to the worst kinds of exploits. In contrast, |
| the worst thing a panic can do is a denial of service. |
| |
| [OSS-fuzz project]: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/oss-fuzz/+/refs/tags/android-t-preview-1/projects/rust-regex/ |
| [`std::panic::catch_unwind`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/panic/fn.catch_unwind.html |
| |
| ### Untrusted patterns |
| |
| The principal way this crate deals with them is by limiting their size by |
| default. The size limit can be configured via [`RegexBuilder::size_limit`]. The |
| idea of a size limit is that compiling a pattern into a `Regex` will fail if it |
| becomes "too big." Namely, while *most* resources consumed by compiling a regex |
| are approximately proportional (albeit with some high constant factors in some |
| cases, such as with Unicode character classes) to the length of the pattern |
| itself, there is one particular exception to this: counted repetitions. Namely, |
| this pattern: |
| |
| ```text |
| a{5}{5}{5}{5}{5}{5} |
| ``` |
| |
| Is equivalent to this pattern: |
| |
| ```text |
| a{15625} |
| ``` |
| |
| In both of these cases, the actual pattern string is quite small, but the |
| resulting `Regex` value is quite large. Indeed, as the first pattern shows, |
| it isn't enough to locally limit the size of each repetition because they can |
| be stacked in a way that results in exponential growth. |
| |
| To provide a bit more context, a simplified view of regex compilation looks |
| like this: |
| |
| * The pattern string is parsed into a structured representation called an AST. |
| Counted repetitions are not expanded and Unicode character classes are not |
| looked up in this stage. That is, the size of the AST is proportional to the |
| size of the pattern with "reasonable" constant factors. In other words, one |
| can reasonably limit the memory used by an AST by limiting the length of the |
| pattern string. |
| * The AST is translated into an HIR. Counted repetitions are still *not* |
| expanded at this stage, but Unicode character classes are embedded into the |
| HIR. The memory usage of a HIR is still proportional to the length of the |
| original pattern string, but the constant factors---mostly as a result of |
| Unicode character classes---can be quite high. Still though, the memory used by |
| an HIR can be reasonably limited by limiting the length of the pattern string. |
| * The HIR is compiled into a [Thompson NFA]. This is the stage at which |
| something like `\w{5}` is rewritten to `\w\w\w\w\w`. Thus, this is the stage |
| at which [`RegexBuilder::size_limit`] is enforced. If the NFA exceeds the |
| configured size, then this stage will fail. |
| |
| [Thompson NFA]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson%27s_construction |
| |
| The size limit helps avoid two different kinds of exorbitant resource usage: |
| |
| * It avoids permitting exponential memory usage based on the size of the |
| pattern string. |
| * It avoids long search times. This will be discussed in more detail in the |
| next section, but worst case search time *is* dependent on the size of the |
| regex. So keeping regexes limited to a reasonable size is also a way of keeping |
| search times reasonable. |
| |
| Finally, it's worth pointing out that regex compilation is guaranteed to take |
| worst case `O(m)` time, where `m` is proportional to the size of regex. The |
| size of the regex here is *after* the counted repetitions have been expanded. |
| |
| **Advice for those using untrusted regexes**: limit the pattern length to |
| something small and expand it as needed. Configure [`RegexBuilder::size_limit`] |
| to something small and then expand it as needed. |
| |
| ### Untrusted haystacks |
| |
| The main way this crate guards against searches from taking a long time is by |
| using algorithms that guarantee a `O(m * n)` worst case time and space bound. |
| Namely: |
| |
| * `m` is proportional to the size of the regex, where the size of the regex |
| includes the expansion of all counted repetitions. (See the previous section on |
| untrusted patterns.) |
| * `n` is proportional to the length, in bytes, of the haystack. |
| |
| In other words, if you consider `m` to be a constant (for example, the regex |
| pattern is a literal in the source code), then the search can be said to run |
| in "linear time." Or equivalently, "linear time with respect to the size of the |
| haystack." |
| |
| But the `m` factor here is important not to ignore. If a regex is |
| particularly big, the search times can get quite slow. This is why, in part, |
| [`RegexBuilder::size_limit`] exists. |
| |
| **Advice for those searching untrusted haystacks**: As long as your regexes |
| are not enormous, you should expect to be able to search untrusted haystacks |
| without fear. If you aren't sure, you should benchmark it. Unlike backtracking |
| engines, if your regex is so big that it's likely to result in slow searches, |
| this is probably something you'll be able to observe regardless of what the |
| haystack is made up of. |
| |
| ### Iterating over matches |
| |
| One thing that is perhaps easy to miss is that the worst case time |
| complexity bound of `O(m * n)` applies to methods like [`Regex::is_match`], |
| [`Regex::find`] and [`Regex::captures`]. It does **not** apply to |
| [`Regex::find_iter`] or [`Regex::captures_iter`]. Namely, since iterating over |
| all matches can execute many searches, and each search can scan the entire |
| haystack, the worst case time complexity for iterators is `O(m * n^2)`. |
| |
| One example of where this occurs is when a pattern consists of an alternation, |
| where an earlier branch of the alternation requires scanning the entire |
| haystack only to discover that there is no match. It also requires a later |
| branch of the alternation to have matched at the beginning of the search. For |
| example, consider the pattern `.*[^A-Z]|[A-Z]` and the haystack `AAAAA`. The |
| first search will scan to the end looking for matches of `.*[^A-Z]` even though |
| a finite automata engine (as in this crate) knows that `[A-Z]` has already |
| matched the first character of the haystack. This is due to the greedy nature |
| of regex searching. That first search will report a match at the first `A` only |
| after scanning to the end to discover that no other match exists. The next |
| search then begins at the second `A` and the behavior repeats. |
| |
| There is no way to avoid this. This means that if both patterns and haystacks |
| are untrusted and you're iterating over all matches, you're susceptible to |
| worst case quadratic time complexity. One possible way to mitigate this |
| is to drop down to the lower level `regex-automata` crate and use its |
| `meta::Regex` iterator APIs. There, you can configure the search to operate |
| in "earliest" mode by passing a `Input::new(haystack).earliest(true)` to |
| `meta::Regex::find_iter` (for example). By enabling this mode, you give up |
| the normal greedy match semantics of regex searches and instead ask the regex |
| engine to immediately stop as soon as a match has been found. Enabling this |
| mode will thus restore the worst case `O(m * n)` time complexity bound, but at |
| the cost of different semantics. |
| |
| ### Untrusted inputs in practice |
| |
| While providing a `O(m * n)` worst case time bound on all searches goes a long |
| way toward preventing [ReDoS], that doesn't mean every search you can possibly |
| run will complete without burning CPU time. In general, there are a few ways |
| for the `m * n` time bound to still bite you: |
| |
| * You are searching an exceptionally long haystack. No matter how you slice |
| it, a longer haystack will take more time to search. This crate may often make |
| very quick work of even long haystacks because of its literal optimizations, |
| but those aren't available for all regexes. |
| * Unicode character classes can cause searches to be quite slow in some cases. |
| This is especially true when they are combined with counted repetitions. While |
| the regex size limit above will protect you from the most egregious cases, |
| the default size limit still permits pretty big regexes that can execute more |
| slowly than one might expect. |
| * While routines like [`Regex::find`] and [`Regex::captures`] guarantee |
| worst case `O(m * n)` search time, routines like [`Regex::find_iter`] and |
| [`Regex::captures_iter`] actually have worst case `O(m * n^2)` search time. |
| This is because `find_iter` runs many searches, and each search takes worst |
| case `O(m * n)` time. Thus, iteration of all matches in a haystack has |
| worst case `O(m * n^2)`. A good example of a pattern that exhibits this is |
| `(?:A+){1000}|` or even `.*[^A-Z]|[A-Z]`. |
| |
| In general, unstrusted haystacks are easier to stomach than untrusted patterns. |
| Untrusted patterns give a lot more control to the caller to impact the |
| performance of a search. In many cases, a regex search will actually execute in |
| average case `O(n)` time (i.e., not dependent on the size of the regex), but |
| this can't be guaranteed in general. Therefore, permitting untrusted patterns |
| means that your only line of defense is to put a limit on how big `m` (and |
| perhaps also `n`) can be in `O(m * n)`. `n` is limited by simply inspecting |
| the length of the haystack while `m` is limited by *both* applying a limit to |
| the length of the pattern *and* a limit on the compiled size of the regex via |
| [`RegexBuilder::size_limit`]. |
| |
| It bears repeating: if you're accepting untrusted patterns, it would be a good |
| idea to start with conservative limits on `m` and `n`, and then carefully |
| increase them as needed. |
| |
| # Crate features |
| |
| By default, this crate tries pretty hard to make regex matching both as fast |
| as possible and as correct as it can be. This means that there is a lot of |
| code dedicated to performance, the handling of Unicode data and the Unicode |
| data itself. Overall, this leads to more dependencies, larger binaries and |
| longer compile times. This trade off may not be appropriate in all cases, and |
| indeed, even when all Unicode and performance features are disabled, one is |
| still left with a perfectly serviceable regex engine that will work well in |
| many cases. (Note that code is not arbitrarily reducible, and for this reason, |
| the [`regex-lite`](https://docs.rs/regex-lite) crate exists to provide an even |
| more minimal experience by cutting out Unicode and performance, but still |
| maintaining the linear search time bound.) |
| |
| This crate exposes a number of features for controlling that trade off. Some |
| of these features are strictly performance oriented, such that disabling them |
| won't result in a loss of functionality, but may result in worse performance. |
| Other features, such as the ones controlling the presence or absence of Unicode |
| data, can result in a loss of functionality. For example, if one disables the |
| `unicode-case` feature (described below), then compiling the regex `(?i)a` |
| will fail since Unicode case insensitivity is enabled by default. Instead, |
| callers must use `(?i-u)a` to disable Unicode case folding. Stated differently, |
| enabling or disabling any of the features below can only add or subtract from |
| the total set of valid regular expressions. Enabling or disabling a feature |
| will never modify the match semantics of a regular expression. |
| |
| Most features below are enabled by default. Features that aren't enabled by |
| default are noted. |
| |
| ### Ecosystem features |
| |
| * **std** - |
| When enabled, this will cause `regex` to use the standard library. In terms |
| of APIs, `std` causes error types to implement the `std::error::Error` |
| trait. Enabling `std` will also result in performance optimizations, |
| including SIMD and faster synchronization primitives. Notably, **disabling |
| the `std` feature will result in the use of spin locks**. To use a regex |
| engine without `std` and without spin locks, you'll need to drop down to |
| the [`regex-automata`](https://docs.rs/regex-automata) crate. |
| * **logging** - |
| When enabled, the `log` crate is used to emit messages about regex |
| compilation and search strategies. This is **disabled by default**. This is |
| typically only useful to someone working on this crate's internals, but might |
| be useful if you're doing some rabbit hole performance hacking. Or if you're |
| just interested in the kinds of decisions being made by the regex engine. |
| |
| ### Performance features |
| |
| * **perf** - |
| Enables all performance related features except for `perf-dfa-full`. This |
| feature is enabled by default is intended to cover all reasonable features |
| that improve performance, even if more are added in the future. |
| * **perf-dfa** - |
| Enables the use of a lazy DFA for matching. The lazy DFA is used to compile |
| portions of a regex to a very fast DFA on an as-needed basis. This can |
| result in substantial speedups, usually by an order of magnitude on large |
| haystacks. The lazy DFA does not bring in any new dependencies, but it can |
| make compile times longer. |
| * **perf-dfa-full** - |
| Enables the use of a full DFA for matching. Full DFAs are problematic because |
| they have worst case `O(2^n)` construction time. For this reason, when this |
| feature is enabled, full DFAs are only used for very small regexes and a |
| very small space bound is used during determinization to avoid the DFA |
| from blowing up. This feature is not enabled by default, even as part of |
| `perf`, because it results in fairly sizeable increases in binary size and |
| compilation time. It can result in faster search times, but they tend to be |
| more modest and limited to non-Unicode regexes. |
| * **perf-onepass** - |
| Enables the use of a one-pass DFA for extracting the positions of capture |
| groups. This optimization applies to a subset of certain types of NFAs and |
| represents the fastest engine in this crate for dealing with capture groups. |
| * **perf-backtrack** - |
| Enables the use of a bounded backtracking algorithm for extracting the |
| positions of capture groups. This usually sits between the slowest engine |
| (the PikeVM) and the fastest engine (one-pass DFA) for extracting capture |
| groups. It's used whenever the regex is not one-pass and is small enough. |
| * **perf-inline** - |
| Enables the use of aggressive inlining inside match routines. This reduces |
| the overhead of each match. The aggressive inlining, however, increases |
| compile times and binary size. |
| * **perf-literal** - |
| Enables the use of literal optimizations for speeding up matches. In some |
| cases, literal optimizations can result in speedups of _several_ orders of |
| magnitude. Disabling this drops the `aho-corasick` and `memchr` dependencies. |
| * **perf-cache** - |
| This feature used to enable a faster internal cache at the cost of using |
| additional dependencies, but this is no longer an option. A fast internal |
| cache is now used unconditionally with no additional dependencies. This may |
| change in the future. |
| |
| ### Unicode features |
| |
| * **unicode** - |
| Enables all Unicode features. This feature is enabled by default, and will |
| always cover all Unicode features, even if more are added in the future. |
| * **unicode-age** - |
| Provide the data for the |
| [Unicode `Age` property](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr44/tr44-24.html#Character_Age). |
| This makes it possible to use classes like `\p{Age:6.0}` to refer to all |
| codepoints first introduced in Unicode 6.0 |
| * **unicode-bool** - |
| Provide the data for numerous Unicode boolean properties. The full list |
| is not included here, but contains properties like `Alphabetic`, `Emoji`, |
| `Lowercase`, `Math`, `Uppercase` and `White_Space`. |
| * **unicode-case** - |
| Provide the data for case insensitive matching using |
| [Unicode's "simple loose matches" specification](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr18/#Simple_Loose_Matches). |
| * **unicode-gencat** - |
| Provide the data for |
| [Unicode general categories](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr44/tr44-24.html#General_Category_Values). |
| This includes, but is not limited to, `Decimal_Number`, `Letter`, |
| `Math_Symbol`, `Number` and `Punctuation`. |
| * **unicode-perl** - |
| Provide the data for supporting the Unicode-aware Perl character classes, |
| corresponding to `\w`, `\s` and `\d`. This is also necessary for using |
| Unicode-aware word boundary assertions. Note that if this feature is |
| disabled, the `\s` and `\d` character classes are still available if the |
| `unicode-bool` and `unicode-gencat` features are enabled, respectively. |
| * **unicode-script** - |
| Provide the data for |
| [Unicode scripts and script extensions](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr24/). |
| This includes, but is not limited to, `Arabic`, `Cyrillic`, `Hebrew`, |
| `Latin` and `Thai`. |
| * **unicode-segment** - |
| Provide the data necessary to provide the properties used to implement the |
| [Unicode text segmentation algorithms](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29/). |
| This enables using classes like `\p{gcb=Extend}`, `\p{wb=Katakana}` and |
| `\p{sb=ATerm}`. |
| |
| # Other crates |
| |
| This crate has two required dependencies and several optional dependencies. |
| This section briefly describes them with the goal of raising awareness of how |
| different components of this crate may be used independently. |
| |
| It is somewhat unusual for a regex engine to have dependencies, as most regex |
| libraries are self contained units with no dependencies other than a particular |
| environment's standard library. Indeed, for other similarly optimized regex |
| engines, most or all of the code in the dependencies of this crate would |
| normally just be unseparable or coupled parts of the crate itself. But since |
| Rust and its tooling ecosystem make the use of dependencies so easy, it made |
| sense to spend some effort de-coupling parts of this crate and making them |
| independently useful. |
| |
| We only briefly describe each crate here. |
| |
| * [`regex-lite`](https://docs.rs/regex-lite) is not a dependency of `regex`, |
| but rather, a standalone zero-dependency simpler version of `regex` that |
| prioritizes compile times and binary size. In exchange, it eschews Unicode |
| support and performance. Its match semantics are as identical as possible to |
| the `regex` crate, and for the things it supports, its APIs are identical to |
| the APIs in this crate. In other words, for a lot of use cases, it is a drop-in |
| replacement. |
| * [`regex-syntax`](https://docs.rs/regex-syntax) provides a regular expression |
| parser via `Ast` and `Hir` types. It also provides routines for extracting |
| literals from a pattern. Folks can use this crate to do analysis, or even to |
| build their own regex engine without having to worry about writing a parser. |
| * [`regex-automata`](https://docs.rs/regex-automata) provides the regex engines |
| themselves. One of the downsides of finite automata based regex engines is that |
| they often need multiple internal engines in order to have similar or better |
| performance than an unbounded backtracking engine in practice. `regex-automata` |
| in particular provides public APIs for a PikeVM, a bounded backtracker, a |
| one-pass DFA, a lazy DFA, a fully compiled DFA and a meta regex engine that |
| combines all them together. It also has native multi-pattern support and |
| provides a way to compile and serialize full DFAs such that they can be loaded |
| and searched in a no-std no-alloc environment. `regex-automata` itself doesn't |
| even have a required dependency on `regex-syntax`! |
| * [`memchr`](https://docs.rs/memchr) provides low level SIMD vectorized |
| routines for quickly finding the location of single bytes or even substrings |
| in a haystack. In other words, it provides fast `memchr` and `memmem` routines. |
| These are used by this crate in literal optimizations. |
| * [`aho-corasick`](https://docs.rs/aho-corasick) provides multi-substring |
| search. It also provides SIMD vectorized routines in the case where the number |
| of substrings to search for is relatively small. The `regex` crate also uses |
| this for literal optimizations. |
| */ |
| |
| #![no_std] |
| #![deny(missing_docs)] |
| #![cfg_attr(feature = "pattern", feature(pattern))] |
| #![warn(missing_debug_implementations)] |
| |
| #[cfg(doctest)] |
| doc_comment::doctest!("../README.md"); |
| |
| extern crate alloc; |
| #[cfg(any(test, feature = "std"))] |
| extern crate std; |
| |
| pub use crate::error::Error; |
| |
| pub use crate::{builders::string::*, regex::string::*, regexset::string::*}; |
| |
| mod builders; |
| pub mod bytes; |
| mod error; |
| mod find_byte; |
| #[cfg(feature = "pattern")] |
| mod pattern; |
| mod regex; |
| mod regexset; |
| |
| /// Escapes all regular expression meta characters in `pattern`. |
| /// |
| /// The string returned may be safely used as a literal in a regular |
| /// expression. |
| pub fn escape(pattern: &str) -> alloc::string::String { |
| regex_syntax::escape(pattern) |
| } |