libc/tre-regex/regex.3

.\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994 Henry Spencer.
.\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" Henry Spencer.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\"	@(#)regex.3	8.4 (Berkeley) 3/20/94
.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/regex/regex.3,v 1.21 2007/01/09 00:28:04 imp Exp $
.\"
.Dd August 20, 2015
.Dt REGEX 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm regcomp ,
.Nm regcomp_l ,
.Nm regerror ,
.Nm regexec ,
.Nm regfree ,
.Nm regncomp ,
.Nm regncomp_l ,
.Nm regnexec ,
.Nm regwcomp ,
.Nm regwcomp_l ,
.Nm regwexec ,
.Nm regwncomp ,
.Nm regwncomp_l ,
.Nm regwnexec
.Nd regular-expression library
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Sy (Standards-compliant APIs)
.Pp
.In regex.h
.Ft int
.Fo regcomp
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const char *restrict pattern"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fc
.Ft size_t
.Fo regerror
.Fa "int errcode"
.Fa "const regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "char *restrict errbuf"
.Fa "size_t errbuf_size"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regexec
.Fa "const regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const char *restrict string"
.Fa "size_t nmatch"
.Fa "regmatch_t pmatch[restrict]"
.Fa "int eflags"
.Fc
.Ft void
.Fo regfree
.Fa "regex_t *preg"
.Fc
.Pp
.Sy (Non-portable extensions)
.Ft int
.Fo regncomp
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const char *restrict pattern"
.Fa "size_t len"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regnexec
.Fa "const regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const char *restrict string"
.Fa "size_t len"
.Fa "size_t nmatch"
.Fa "regmatch_t pmatch[restrict]"
.Fa "int eflags"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regwcomp
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const wchar_t *restrict widepat"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regwexec
.Fa "const regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const wchar_t *restrict widestr"
.Fa "size_t nmatch"
.Fa "regmatch_t pmatch[restrict]"
.Fa "int eflags"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regwncomp
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const wchar_t *restrict widepat"
.Fa "size_t len"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regwnexec
.Fa "const regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const wchar_t *restrict widestr"
.Fa "size_t len"
.Fa "size_t nmatch"
.Fa "regmatch_t pmatch[restrict]"
.Fa "int eflags"
.Fc
.In regex.h
.In xlocale.h
.Ft int
.Fo regcomp_l
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const char *restrict pattern"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fa "locale_t restrict"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regncomp_l
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const char *restrict pattern"
.Fa "size_t len"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fa "locale_t restrict"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regwcomp_l
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const wchar_t *restrict widepat"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fa "locale_t restrict"
.Fc
.Ft int
.Fo regwncomp_l
.Fa "regex_t *restrict preg"
.Fa "const wchar_t *restrict widepat"
.Fa "size_t len"
.Fa "int cflags"
.Fa "locale_t restrict"
.Fc
.Sh DESCRIPTION
These routines implement
.St -p1003.2
regular expressions
.Pq Do RE Dc Ns s ;
see
.Xr re_format 7 .
The
.Fn regcomp
function
compiles an RE, written as a string, into an internal form.
.Fn regexec
matches that internal form against a string and reports results.
.Fn regerror
transforms error codes from either into human-readable messages.
.Fn regfree
frees any dynamically-allocated storage used by the internal form
of an RE.
.Pp
The header
.In regex.h
declares two structure types,
.Ft regex_t
and
.Ft regmatch_t ,
the former for compiled internal forms and the latter for match reporting.
It also declares the four functions,
a type
.Ft regoff_t ,
and a number of constants with names starting with
.Dq Dv REG_ .
.Pp
The
.Fn regcomp
function
compiles the regular expression contained in the
.Fa pattern
string,
subject to the flags in
.Fa cflags ,
and places the results in the
.Ft regex_t
structure pointed to by
.Fa preg .
The
.Fa cflags
argument
is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following flags:
.Bl -tag -width REG_EXTENDED
.It Dv REG_EXTENDED
Compile modern
.Pq Dq extended
REs,
rather than the obsolete
.Pq Dq basic
REs that
are the default.
.It Dv REG_BASIC
This is a synonym for 0,
provided as a counterpart to
.Dv REG_EXTENDED
to improve readability.
.It Dv REG_NOSPEC
Compile with recognition of all special characters turned off.
All characters are thus considered ordinary,
so the
.Dq RE
is a literal string.
This is an extension,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.Dv REG_EXTENDED
and
.Dv REG_NOSPEC
may not be used
in the same call to
.Fn regcomp .
.It Dv REG_LITERAL
An alias of
.Dv REG_NOSPEC .
.It Dv REG_ICASE
Compile for matching that ignores upper/lower case distinctions.
See
.Xr re_format 7 .
.It Dv REG_NOSUB
Compile for matching that need only report success or failure,
not what was matched.
.It Dv REG_NEWLINE
Compile for newline-sensitive matching.
By default, newline is a completely ordinary character with no special
meaning in either REs or strings.
With this flag,
.Ql [^
bracket expressions and
.Ql .\&
never match newline,
a
.Ql ^\&
anchor matches the null string after any newline in the string
in addition to its normal function,
and the
.Ql $\&
anchor matches the null string before any newline in the
string in addition to its normal function.
.It Dv REG_PEND
(Note that
.Dv REG_PEND
is not recognized by any of the wide character or
.Dq Nm n
variants.
Besides, the
.Dq Nm n
variants can be used instead of
.Dv REG_PEND ;
see EXTENDED APIS below.)
The regular expression ends,
not at the first NUL,
but just before the character pointed to by the
.Va re_endp
member of the structure pointed to by
.Fa preg .
The
.Va re_endp
member is of type
.Ft "const char *" .
This flag permits inclusion of NULs in the RE;
they are considered ordinary characters.
This is an extension,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.It Dv REG_ENHANCED
Recognized enhanced regular expression features; see
.Xr re_format 7
for details.
This is an extension not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.It Dv REG_MINIMAL
Use minimal (non-greedy) repetitions instead of the normal greedy ones; see
.Xr re_format 7
for details.
(This only applies when both
.Dv REG_ENHANCED
and
.Dv REG_EXTENDED
are also set.)
This is an extension not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
.It Dv REG_UNGREEDY
Alias of
.Dv REG_MINIMAL .
.El
.Pp
When successful,
.Fn regcomp
returns 0 and fills in the structure pointed to by
.Fa preg .
One member of that structure
(other than
.Va re_endp )
is publicized:
.Va re_nsub ,
of type
.Ft size_t ,
contains the number of parenthesized subexpressions within the RE
(except that the value of this member is undefined if the
.Dv REG_NOSUB
flag was used).
If
.Fn regcomp
fails, it returns a non-zero error code;
see
.Sx DIAGNOSTICS .
.Pp
The
.Fn regexec
function
matches the compiled RE pointed to by
.Fa preg
against the
.Fa string ,
subject to the flags in
.Fa eflags ,
and reports results using
.Fa nmatch ,
.Fa pmatch ,
and the returned value.
The RE must have been compiled by a previous invocation of
.Fn regcomp .
The compiled form is not altered during execution of
.Fn regexec ,
so a single compiled RE can be used simultaneously by multiple threads.
.Pp
By default,
the NUL-terminated string pointed to by
.Fa string
is considered to be the text of an entire line, minus any terminating
newline.
The
.Fa eflags
argument is the bitwise OR of zero or more of the following flags:
.Bl -tag -width REG_STARTEND
.It Dv REG_NOTBOL
The first character of
the string
is not the beginning of a line, so the
.Ql ^\&
anchor should not match before it.
This does not affect the behavior of newlines under
.Dv REG_NEWLINE .
.It Dv REG_NOTEOL
The NUL terminating
the string
does not end a line, so the
.Ql $\&
anchor should not match before it.
This does not affect the behavior of newlines under
.Dv REG_NEWLINE .
.It Dv REG_STARTEND
The string is considered to start at
.Fa string
+
.Fa pmatch Ns [0]. Ns Va rm_so
and to have a terminating NUL located at
.Fa string
+
.Fa pmatch Ns [0]. Ns Va rm_eo
(there need not actually be a NUL at that location),
regardless of the value of
.Fa nmatch .
See below for the definition of
.Fa pmatch
and
.Fa nmatch .
This is an extension,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
Note that a non-zero
.Va rm_so
does not imply
.Dv REG_NOTBOL ;
.Dv REG_STARTEND
affects only the location of the string,
not how it is matched.
.El
.Pp
See
.Xr re_format 7
for a discussion of what is matched in situations where an RE or a
portion thereof could match any of several substrings of
.Fa string .
.Pp
Normally,
.Fn regexec
returns 0 for success and the non-zero code
.Dv REG_NOMATCH
for failure.
Other non-zero error codes may be returned in exceptional situations;
see
.Sx DIAGNOSTICS .
.Pp
If
.Dv REG_NOSUB
was specified in the compilation of the RE,
or if
.Fa nmatch
is 0,
.Fn regexec
ignores the
.Fa pmatch
argument (but see below for the case where
.Dv REG_STARTEND
is specified).
Otherwise,
.Fa pmatch
points to an array of
.Fa nmatch
structures of type
.Ft regmatch_t .
Such a structure has at least the members
.Va rm_so
and
.Va rm_eo ,
both of type
.Ft regoff_t
(a signed arithmetic type at least as large as an
.Ft off_t
and a
.Ft ssize_t ) ,
containing respectively the offset of the first character of a substring
and the offset of the first character after the end of the substring.
Offsets are measured from the beginning of the
.Fa string
argument given to
.Fn regexec .
An empty substring is denoted by equal offsets,
both indicating the character following the empty substring.
.Pp
The 0th member of the
.Fa pmatch
array is filled in to indicate what substring of
.Fa string
was matched by the entire RE.
Remaining members report what substring was matched by parenthesized
subexpressions within the RE;
member
.Va i
reports subexpression
.Va i ,
with subexpressions counted (starting at 1) by the order of their opening
parentheses in the RE, left to right.
Unused entries in the array (corresponding either to subexpressions that
did not participate in the match at all, or to subexpressions that do not
exist in the RE (that is,
.Va i
>
.Fa preg Ns -> Ns Va re_nsub ) )
have both
.Va rm_so
and
.Va rm_eo
set to -1.
If a subexpression participated in the match several times,
the reported substring is the last one it matched.
(Note, as an example in particular, that when the RE
.Ql "(b*)+"
matches
.Ql bbb ,
the parenthesized subexpression matches each of the three
.So Li b Sc Ns s
and then
an infinite number of empty strings following the last
.Ql b ,
so the reported substring is one of the empties.)
.Pp
If
.Dv REG_STARTEND
is specified,
.Fa pmatch
must point to at least one
.Ft regmatch_t
(even if
.Fa nmatch
is 0 or
.Dv REG_NOSUB
was specified),
to hold the input offsets for
.Dv REG_STARTEND .
Use for output is still entirely controlled by
.Fa nmatch ;
if
.Fa nmatch
is 0 or
.Dv REG_NOSUB
was specified,
the value of
.Fa pmatch Ns [0]
will not be changed by a successful
.Fn regexec .
.Pp
The
.Fn regerror
function
maps a non-zero
.Fa errcode
from either
.Fn regcomp
or
.Fn regexec
to a human-readable, printable message.
If
.Fa preg
is
.No non\- Ns Dv NULL ,
the error code should have arisen from use of
the
.Ft regex_t
pointed to by
.Fa preg ,
and if the error code came from
.Fn regcomp ,
it should have been the result from the most recent
.Fn regcomp
using that
.Ft regex_t .
The
.Fn ( regerror
may be able to supply a more detailed message using information
from the
.Ft regex_t . )
The
.Fn regerror
function
places the NUL-terminated message into the buffer pointed to by
.Fa errbuf ,
limiting the length (including the NUL) to at most
.Fa errbuf_size
bytes.
If the whole message will not fit,
as much of it as will fit before the terminating NUL is supplied.
In any case,
the returned value is the size of buffer needed to hold the whole
message (including terminating NUL).
If
.Fa errbuf_size
is 0,
.Fa errbuf
is ignored but the return value is still correct.
.Pp
If the
.Fa errcode
given to
.Fn regerror
is first ORed with
.Dv REG_ITOA ,
the
.Dq message
that results is the printable name of the error code,
e.g.\&
.Dq Dv REG_NOMATCH ,
rather than an explanation thereof.
If
.Fa errcode
is
.Dv REG_ATOI ,
then
.Fa preg
shall be
.No non\- Ns Dv NULL
and the
.Va re_endp
member of the structure it points to
must point to the printable name of an error code;
in this case, the result in
.Fa errbuf
is the decimal digits of
the numeric value of the error code
(0 if the name is not recognized).
.Dv REG_ITOA
and
.Dv REG_ATOI
are intended primarily as debugging facilities;
they are extensions,
compatible with but not specified by
.St -p1003.2 ,
and should be used with
caution in software intended to be portable to other systems.
Be warned also that they are considered experimental and changes are possible.
.Pp
The
.Fn regfree
function
frees any dynamically-allocated storage associated with the compiled RE
pointed to by
.Fa preg .
The remaining
.Ft regex_t
is no longer a valid compiled RE
and the effect of supplying it to
.Fn regexec
or
.Fn regerror
is undefined.
.Pp
None of these functions references global variables except for tables
of constants;
all are safe for use from multiple threads if the arguments are safe.
.Sh EXTENDED APIS
These extended APIs are available in Mac OS X 10.8 and beyond, when the
deployment target is 10.8 or later.
It should also be noted that any of the
.Fn regcomp
variants may be used to initialize a
.Ft regex_t
structure, that can then be passed to any of the
.Fn regexec
variants.
So it is quite legal to compile a wide character RE and use it to match a
multibyte character string, or vice versa.
.Pp
The
.Fn regncomp
routine compiles regular expressions like
.Fn regcomp ,
but the length of the regular expression string is specified, allowing a string
that is not NUL terminated and/or contains NUL characters.
This is a modern replacement for using
.Fn regcomp
with the
.Dv REG_PEND
option.
.Pp
Similarly, the
.Fn regnexec
routine is like
.Fn regexec ,
but the length of the string to match is specified, allowing a string
that is not NUL terminated and/or contains NUL characters.
.Pp
The
.Fn regwcomp
and
.Fn regwexec
variants take a wide-character
.Vt ( wchar_t )
string for the regular expression and string to match.
And
.Fn regwncomp
and
.Fn regwnexec
are variants that allow specifying the wide character string length, and
so allows wide character strings that are not NUL terminated and/or
contains NUL characters.
.Sh INTERACTION WITH THE LOCALE
When
.Fn regcomp
or one of its variants is run, the regular expression is compiled into an
internal form, which may include specific information about the locale currently
in effect, such as equivalence classes or multi-character collation symbols.
So a reference to the current locale is also stored with the internal form,
so that when
.Fn regexec
is run, it can use the same locale (even if the locale is changed in-between
the calls to
.Fn regcomp
and
.Fn regexec ) .
.Pp
To provide more direct control over which locale is used,
routines with
.Dq Nm _l
appended to their names are provided that work just like the variants
without the
.Dq Nm _l ,
except that a locale (via a
.Vt locale_t
variable type) is specified directly.
Note that only variants of
.Fn regcomp
have
.Dq Nm _l
variants, since the
.Fn regexec
variants just use the reference to the locale stored in the internal form.
.Sh IMPLEMENTATION CHOICES
The
.Nm regex
implementation in Mac OS X 10.8 and later is based on a heavily modified subset
of TRE (http://laurikari.net/tre/).
This provides improved performance, better conformance and additional features.
However, both API and binary compatibility have been maintained with previous
releases, so binaries
built on previous releases should work on 10.8 and later, and binaries built on
10.8 and later should be able to run on previous releases (as long as none of
the new variants or new features are used.
.Pp
There are a number of decisions that
.St -p1003.2
leaves up to the implementor,
either by explicitly saying
.Dq undefined
or by virtue of them being
forbidden by the RE grammar.
This implementation treats them as follows.
.Pp
See
.Xr re_format 7
for a discussion of the definition of case-independent matching.
.Pp
There is no particular limit on the length of REs,
except insofar as memory is limited.
Memory usage is approximately linear in RE size, and largely insensitive
to RE complexity, except for bounded repetitions.
See
.Sx BUGS
for one short RE using them
that will run almost any system out of memory.
.Pp
A backslashed character other than one specifically given a magic meaning
by
.St -p1003.2
(such magic meanings occur only in obsolete
.Bq Dq basic
REs)
is taken as an ordinary character.
.Pp
Any unmatched
.Ql [\&
is a
.Dv REG_EBRACK
error.
.Pp
Equivalence classes cannot begin or end bracket-expression ranges.
The endpoint of one range cannot begin another.
.Pp
.Dv RE_DUP_MAX ,
the limit on repetition counts in bounded repetitions, is 255.
.Pp
A repetition operator
.Ql ( ?\& ,
.Ql *\& ,
.Ql +\& ,
or bounds)
cannot follow another
repetition operator, except for the use of
.Ql ?\&
for minimal repetition (for enhanced extended REs; see
.Xr re_format 7
for details).
A repetition operator cannot begin an expression or subexpression
or follow
.Ql ^\&
or
.Ql |\& .
.Pp
.Ql |\&
cannot appear first or last in a (sub)expression or after another
.Ql |\& ,
i.e., an operand of
.Ql |\&
cannot be an empty subexpression.
An empty parenthesized subexpression,
.Ql "()" ,
is legal and matches an
empty (sub)string.
An empty string is not a legal RE.
.Pp
A
.Ql {\&
followed by a digit is considered the beginning of bounds for a
bounded repetition, which must then follow the syntax for bounds.
A
.Ql {\&
.Em not
followed by a digit is considered an ordinary character.
.Pp
.Ql ^\&
and
.Ql $\&
beginning and ending subexpressions in obsolete
.Pq Dq basic
REs are anchors, not ordinary characters.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
Non-zero error codes from
.Fn regcomp
and
.Fn regexec
include the following:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width REG_ECOLLATE -compact
.It Dv REG_NOMATCH
The
.Fn regexec
function
failed to match
.It Dv REG_BADPAT
invalid regular expression
.It Dv REG_ECOLLATE
invalid collating element
.It Dv REG_ECTYPE
invalid character class
.It Dv REG_EESCAPE
.Ql \e
applied to unescapable character
.It Dv REG_ESUBREG
invalid backreference number
.It Dv REG_EBRACK
brackets
.Ql "[ ]"
not balanced
.It Dv REG_EPAREN
parentheses
.Ql "( )"
not balanced
.It Dv REG_EBRACE
braces
.Ql "{ }"
not balanced
.It Dv REG_BADBR
invalid repetition count(s) in
.Ql "{ }"
.It Dv REG_ERANGE
invalid character range in
.Ql "[ ]"
.It Dv REG_ESPACE
ran out of memory
.It Dv REG_BADRPT
.Ql ?\& ,
.Ql *\& ,
or
.Ql +\&
operand invalid
.It Dv REG_EMPTY
empty (sub)expression
.It Dv REG_ASSERT
cannot happen - you found a bug
.It Dv REG_INVARG
invalid argument, e.g.\& negative-length string
.It Dv REG_ILLSEQ
illegal byte sequence (bad multibyte character)
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr grep 1 ,
.Xr re_format 7
.Pp
.St -p1003.2 ,
sections 2.8 (Regular Expression Notation)
and
B.5 (C Binding for Regular Expression Matching).
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm regex
implementation is based on a heavily modified subset of TRE
(http://laurikari.net/tre/), originally written by Ville Laurikari.
Previous releases used an implementation originally written by
.An Henry Spencer ,
and altered for inclusion in the
.Bx 4.4
distribution.
.Sh BUGS
The beginning-of-line and end-of-line anchors (
.Dq ^\&
and
.Dq $\& )
are currently implemented so that repetitions can not be applied to them.
The standards are unclear about whether this is legal, but other
.Nm regex
packages do support this case.
It is best to avoid this non-portable (and not really very useful) case.
.Pp
The back-reference code is subtle and doubts linger about its correctness
in complex cases.
.Pp
The
.Fn regexec
variants use one of two internal matching engines.
The normal one is linear worst-case time in the length of the text being
searched, and quadratic worst-case time in the length of the used regular
expression.
When back-references are used, a slower, backtracking engine is used.
While all backtracking matching engines suffer from extreme slowness for certain
pathological cases, the normal engines doesn't suffer from these cases.
It is advised to avoid back-references whenever possible.
.Pp
The
.Fn regcomp
variants
implements bounded repetitions by macro expansion,
which is costly in time and space if counts are large
or bounded repetitions are nested.
An RE like, say,
.Ql "((((a{1,100}){1,100}){1,100}){1,100}){1,100}"
will (eventually) run almost any existing machine out of swap space.
.Pp
Due to a mistake in
.St -p1003.2 ,
things like
.Ql "a)b"
are legal REs because
.Ql )\&
is
a special character only in the presence of a previous unmatched
.Ql (\& .
This cannot be fixed until the spec is fixed.
.Pp
The standard's definition of back references is vague.
For example, does
.Ql "a\e(\e(b\e)*\e2\e)*d"
match
.Ql "abbbd" ?
Until the standard is clarified,
behavior in such cases should not be relied on.