BurntSushi/rebar

pcre2posix.h missing from vendored copy of pcre2

Open

#33 opened on Jun 3, 2026

View on GitHub
 (1 comment) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Python (302 stars) (29 forks)github user discovery
help wantedquestion

Description

It seems like pcre2posix.h plays double duty as both a source file within the pcre2 project and also as an interface header included in system header distributions of pcre2. It looks like the vendored copy of pcre2 is missing this file, which causes it to fail to compile on systems where the compiler doesn't have a system-installed copy of pcre2 and its api headers.

When I ran the build on my system, pcre2posix.c failed to find pcre2posix.h, because the build runs through msvc because I'm on windows, and I only have pcre2 installed as a system-accessible library inside of msys2.

Copy pasting pcre2posix.h from the msys2 distributions of pcre2 into the vendored copy of pcre2 seemed to fix it and let it build, but this is a hack and probably wrong because it'll go out of sync eventually as pcre2 changes.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
pythonc
Domain
backendtooling
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
GitC build system basics
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70
Research direction
Investigate how to properly update the vendored pcre2 copy to include the missing pcre2posix.h, either by extracting it from an official pcre2 release or by configuring the build to generate it. Ensure the header is placed in the correct location and is kept in sync with the vendored pcre2 version.