. \"  @(#)patmatch.3	1.2 00/11/12 Copyright 1985,1995 J. Schilling
. \"  Manual Seite fuer patmatch
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.TH PATMATCH 3 "12. Nov 2000" "J\*org Schilling" "Schily\'s LIBRARY FUNCTIONS"
.SH NAME
patmatch() \- checks string for matches
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B
char *patmatch(pattern, aux, string, soff, slen, alt, state)
.B	char *pattern;
.B	int *aux;
.B	char *string;
.B	int soff;
.B	int slen;
.B	int alt;
.B	int state[];
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B patmatch()
uses the pattern matching information
.IR pattern
and in addition
.IR aux " and " alt
(previously set up by a call to
.BR patcompile (3))
to check string for a match. The length of the string is
.I slen
and the starting index used for matching is
.IR soff .
The string can also be terminated by a null byte.
.PP
The
.I state
array is set up and used internally by
.B patmatch
and should have at least
.BI "strlen(" pattern ") + 1"
elements.
.SH RETURNS
Returns a NULL pointer if the
.I string
starting at the specified offset did not match the
.IR pattern .
.PP
Any non-NULL return is a pointer to the first character of
.I string
after the part that matches.
.SH "SEE ALSO
.BR patcompile (3)
for information on
.I aux
and
.IR alt .
.PP
And
.BR match (1)
for a description ot the regular expressions.
.SH NOTES
The pattern matching functions are based on ones presented by
Martin Richards in "A Compact Function for Regular Expression
Pattern Matching", Software-Practice and Experience vol 9,
527-534 (1979).