How to Use Regular Expressions to Parse eBPF SEC Sections in C Code

const secRegex = /SEC\s*\(\s*[“‘]([^”’]+)[“‘]\s*\)/g; might look a bit confusing if you’re not used to regular expressions, like me :-)

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Imagine you have a vast book, and you want to find every time someone writes a secret code like “SEC(‘xdp’)” or “SEC(‘tracepoint’)” in it.
Instead of reading the whole book line by line, you can use a “pattern detector” called a regular expression (or “regex” for short).
A regex is like a super-smart search tool that can find words, numbers, or even special codes, no matter how they’re written (with spaces, quotes, etc.).

const secRegex = /SEC\s*\(\s*["']([^"']+)["']\s*\)/g;

This line creates a regular expression that matches special eBPF code sections in C programs.
eBPF programs use things like SEC("xdp") or SEC('tracepoint') to tell the computer where the code should run.

An eBPF SEC (short for “section”) is a special label in eBPF C code that tells the kernel where your program should be attached or what kind of eBPF program it is.

In eBPF C code, the SEC() macro is the standard way to specify the section for your program or…