s, the limitations of the original API were making development
increasingly difficult. The new API is more extensible, and it was simplified
by abolishing the separate "study" optimizing function; in PCRE2, patterns are
automatically optimized where possible. Since forking from PCRE1, the code has
been extensively refactored and new features introduced. The old library is now
obsolete and is no longer maintained.
</P>
<P>
As well as Perl-style regular expression patterns, some features that appeared
in Pyth