On Thu, 17 Jun 2010, Giuseppe Attardi wrote:

> Is there a way to get back the original string pattern from a compiled pcre?

No. PCRE does not save the original string. It would be possible to 
write a function that generates an equivalent string, but it would not 
necessarily be the same as the original. For example, "a{0,}" might 
become "a*" and "a{0}" might be omitted altogether, "[abcd]" might be 
shown as "[a-d]". There are also optimizations: "a+b" would be shown as 
"a++b", for example, because PCRE optimizes it that way.

If you run the pcretest program with the -d option, it shows you a form 
of the compiled pattern, item by item, but not as a single string.

Why do you want this?

Philip

-- 
Philip Hazel

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