[squid-users] Usage of --enable-gnuregex on FreeBSD?

[Olivier W]

Hello,

I use Squid on FreeBSD.
In the past, with Squid 3.5.x and FreeBSD 11.x, I was able to use PCRE
regexp without any problems.

Now, on FreeBSD 13.0 and Squid 4.14, PCRE regexp don't work out of the
box: I have to compile Squid with the option "--enable-gnuregex" to
make it work.
I found this problem when I migrated from FreeBSD 11.x and Squid 3.5.x
to FreeBSD 12.1 and Squid 4.9 but I don't know exactly when it
appeared.

In Squid's configure.ac, it says I shouldn't have to use
"--enable-gnuregex", or only for some specific cases:
https://github.com/squid-cache/squid/blob/master/configure.ac#L3525

Without PCRE regexp, I can't use rules like:
acl example url_regex -i ^http:\/\/www\.example\.com\/.*?\.js
the problem is the lazy quantifier.

Any idea why it is happening?
Is there something which could have changed on Squid or FreeBSD which
could have created this problem?
Should I ask the FreeBSD port maintainer of Squid to compile with this option?

FYI: last year I already opened an issue regarding this on FreeBSD's
bugtracker: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=243291

Best Regards,
Olivier