LICENSEWARE
Contribute
Publisher · Open source

PCRE

PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions) is a C library for regular-expression matching with Perl 5 syntax, maintained as PCRE2. It is distributed under the BSD licence with an exemption for binary library-like packages, and is free to use in proprietary software.

Licensing at a Glance

  • Open source

  1. The PCRE library is free, even for building proprietary software.[1]

  2. The current version is PCRE2 (released 2015); the older PCRE library (8.45) is end of life and no longer actively maintained, and new projects should use PCRE2.[2]

  3. PCRE2 10.00 and later are distributed under the BSD licence (SPDX: BSD-3-Clause WITH PCRE2-exception); the optional just-in-time compiler is separately licensed under the 2-clause BSD licence.[3]

  4. The binary-redistribution exemption means that if package A includes PCRE2 it must meet the BSD binary condition, but software B that includes package A does not inherit that condition unless it uses PCRE2 independently.[4]

  5. PCRE2 has never required a Contributor Licensing Agreement; contributors retain their copyright.[5]

Products

References

  1. PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions · pcre.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  2. PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions · pcre.org · retrieved 2026-09-27
  3. PCRE2 Licence · raw.githubusercontent.com · retrieved 2026-09-27
  4. PCRE2 Licence · raw.githubusercontent.com · retrieved 2026-09-27
  5. PCRE2 Licence · raw.githubusercontent.com · retrieved 2026-09-27
Esc