Standards
| Standards / Extensions |
C or C++ |
Dependencies |
|---|
XPG4
XPG4.2
|
both |
|
Format
#define _XOPEN_SOURCE
#include <regexp.h>
int step(const char *string, const char *expbuf);
extern char *loc1, *loc2;
General description
Restriction: This function is not supported
in AMODE 64.
The step() function attempts to match an input
string of characters with the compiled regular expression which was
obtained by an earlier call to compile().
The first parameter string is
a pointer to a string of characters to be checked for a match.
expbuf is
the pointer to the regular expression which was previously obtained
by a call to compile().
Usage notes
- The external variables cirf, sed,
and nbra are reserved.
- The application must provide the proper serialization for the
compile(), step(), and advance() functions if they are run under a
multithreaded environment.
- The compile(), step() and advance() functions are provided for
historical reasons. These functions were part of the Legacy Feature
in Single UNIX Specification,
Version 2. They have been withdrawn and are not supported as part
of Single UNIX Specification,
Version 3. New applications should use the newer functions fnmatch(),
glob(), regcomp(), and regexec(), which provide full internationalized
regular expression functionality compatible with ISO POSIX.2 standard.
Returned value
If some substring of string matches
the regular expression in expbuf, step()
returns nonzero.
If there is no match, step() returns 0.
If
there is a match, step() sets two external pointers, as follows:
- The variable loc1 points to the first
character that matched the regular expression.
- The variable loc2 points to the character
after the last character that matched the regular expression.
For example, if the regular expression matches the entire input
loc1 will
point to the first character of
string and
loc2 will
point to the NULL at the end of
string.