PCRE is a library that is used by the optional "rules" feature for the command line version of cppcheck. It is readily available on Linux and Mac OS X, but must be obtained separately for Windows. Build instructions ------------------ Windows ------- Visual Studio To build PCRE, download the source code from www.pcre.org and CMake (https://cmake.org/download/). We assume you use Visual Studio 2015 - otherwise adapt the commands for your version. VS Solution file cmake . -G "Visual Studio 14 2015" Open PCRE.sln with VS IDE or via cmd: call "%VS140COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86 MSBuild PCRE.sln /target:Build /property:Configuration="Release" For 64-bit target: cmake . -G "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" or using NMake call "%VS140COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86 cmake . -G "NMake Makefiles" nmake or using MSYS cmake . -G "MSYS Makefiles" make Linux ----- The normal Makefile should work. Install PCRE on Ubuntu might be needed: sudo apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dev Mac OSX ------- Install PCRE: homebre brew install pcre or macport sudo port install pcre Ensure /path/to/pcre.h is in CXXFLAGS, e.g: for homebrew export CXXFLAGS=${CXXFLAGS}:/usr/local/include or macport export CXXFLAGS=${CXXFLAGS}:/opt/local/include Or for MSVC copy pcre.lib and pcre.h in /externals directory.