characters with values > 255 ?

The CVS search requires PHP 4.1+ on Unices and PHP 4.2.3+ on Windows at least for UTF-8 compatibility (that's what the php docs say), but it is possible that a higher version is needed to actually use high Unicode characters with it.

I developed the search on PHP 4.3.3 on Windows, so at least that version works.

The complete error message I get is this one:

Compilation failed: characters with values > 255 are not yet supported in classes at offset 52 in /[...]/drupal/modules/search.module on line 258.

The function producing the message is preg_replace, so I guess it depends on what version of the libpcre is used.
On my localhost, where I do not get this message, I have PHP 4.3.11, using "PCRE Library Version" "4.5 01-December-2003" (quota from phpinfo()).
On a server, where I do get this message, PHP 4.3.2 using "PCRE Library Version" "3.9 02-Jan-2002", which is obviously a lot older. So I guess this is the clue here.

Note that there are the possibilities of using a version of libpcre which comes with PHP, or using a version provided by the system. The former is done on my machine, since I have libpcre 5 installed, and the latter is done on the server, where PHP has been configured with '--with-pcre-regex=/usr' and rpm reports version 3.9.

I don't know which version of PHP has what kind of version of libpcre, so I'd suggest to either recompile PHP 4.3.11 using its own libpcre, or get a recent version of libpcre, and compile PHP with that.

Also note http://www.pcre.org/pcre.txt (which linked from http://de.php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php)

Regards,
Milan

If you can't upgrade your server, you can strip out all the multi-byte characters from the search code. This patch to search.module seems to do the trick:

33c33
< define('PREG_CLASS_SEARCH_EXCLUDE', '\x{0}-\x{23}\x{25}-\x{2a}\x{2c}-\x{2f}\x{3a}\x{3b}\x{3f}\x{40}\x{5b}-\x{5d}\x{5f}\x{7b}\x{7d}\x{7f}-\x{a1}\x{ab}\x{ad}\x{b7}\x{bb}\x{bf}\x{37e}\x{387}\x{488}\x{489}\x{55a}-\x{55f}\x{589}\x{58a}\x{5be}\x{5c0}\x{5c3}\x{5f3}\x{5f4}\x{600}-\x{603}\x{60c}\x{60d}\x{61b}\x{61f}\x{66a}-\x{66d}\x{6d4}\x{6dd}\x{6de}\x{700}-\x{70d}\x{70f}\x{964}\x{965}\x{970}\x{df4}\x{e4f}\x{e5a}\x{e5b}\x{f04}-\x{f12}\x{f3a}-\x{f3d}\x{f85}\x{104a}-\x{104f}\x{10fb}\x{1361}-\x{1368}\x{166d}\x{166e}\x{1680}\x{169b}\x{169c}\x{16eb}-\x{16ed}\x{1735}\x{1736}\x{17b4}\x{17b5}\x{17d4}-\x{17d6}\x{17d8}-\x{17da}\x{1800}-\x{180a}\x{180e}\x{1944}\x{1945}\x{2000}-\x{2043}\x{2045}-\x{2051}\x{2053}\x{2054}\x{2057}\x{205f}-\x{2063}\x{206a}-\x{206f}\x{207d}\x{207e}\x{208d}\x{208e}\x{20dd}-\x{20e0}\x{20e2}-\x{20e4}\x{2329}\x{232a}\x{23b4}-\x{23b6}\x{2768}-\x{2775}\x{27e6}-\x{27eb}\x{2983}-\x{2998}\x{29d8}-\x{29db}\x{29fc}\x{29fd}\x{3000}-\x{3003}\x{3008}-\x{3011}\x{3014}-\x{301f}\x{3030}\x{303d}\x{30a0}\x{30fb}\x{d800}\x{db7f}\x{db80}\x{dbff}\x{dc00}\x{dfff}\x{e000}\x{f8ff}\x{fd3e}\x{fd3f}\x{fe30}-\x{fe52}\x{fe54}-\x{fe61}\x{fe63}\x{fe68}\x{fe6a}\x{fe6b}\x{feff}\x{ff01}-\x{ff03}\x{ff05}-\x{ff0a}\x{ff0c}-\x{ff0f}\x{ff1a}\x{ff1b}\x{ff1f}\x{ff20}\x{ff3b}-\x{ff3d}\x{ff3f}\x{ff5b}\x{ff5d}\x{ff5f}-\x{ff65}\x{fff9}-\x{fffb}\x{10100}\x{10101}\x{1039f}\x{1d173}-\x{1d17a}\x{e0001}\x{e0020}-\x{e007f}\x{f0000}\x{ffffd}\x{100000}');
---
> define('PREG_CLASS_SEARCH_EXCLUDE', '\x{0}-\x{23}\x{25}-\x{2a}\x{2c}-\x{2f}\x{3a}\x{3b}\x{3f}\x{40}\x{5b}-\x{5d}\x{5f}\x{7b}\x{7d}\x{7f}-\x{a1}\x{ab}\x{ad}\x{b7}\x{bb}\x{bf}');
38c38
< define('PREG_CLASS_NUMBERS', '\x{30}-\x{39}\x{b2}\x{b3}\x{b9}\x{bc}-\x{be}\x{660}-\x{669}\x{6f0}-\x{6f9}\x{966}-\x{96f}\x{9e6}-\x{9ef}\x{9f4}-\x{9f9}\x{a66}-\x{a6f}\x{ae6}-\x{aef}\x{b66}-\x{b6f}\x{be7}-\x{bf2}\x{c66}-\x{c6f}\x{ce6}-\x{cef}\x{d66}-\x{d6f}\x{e50}-\x{e59}\x{ed0}-\x{ed9}\x{f20}-\x{f33}\x{1040}-\x{1049}\x{1369}-\x{137c}\x{16ee}-\x{16f0}\x{17e0}-\x{17e9}\x{17f0}-\x{17f9}\x{1810}-\x{1819}\x{1946}-\x{194f}\x{2070}\x{2074}-\x{2079}\x{2080}-\x{2089}\x{2153}-\x{2183}\x{2460}-\x{249b}\x{24ea}-\x{24ff}\x{2776}-\x{2793}\x{3007}\x{3021}-\x{3029}\x{3038}-\x{303a}\x{3192}-\x{3195}\x{3220}-\x{3229}\x{3251}-\x{325f}\x{3280}-\x{3289}\x{32b1}-\x{32bf}\x{ff10}-\x{ff19}\x{10107}-\x{10133}\x{10320}-\x{10323}\x{1034a}\x{104a0}-\x{104a9}\x{1d7ce}-\x{1d7ff}');
---
> define('PREG_CLASS_NUMBERS', '\x{30}-\x{39}\x{b2}\x{b3}\x{b9}\x{bc}-\x{be}');
43c43
< define('PREG_CLASS_PUNCTUATION', '\x{21}-\x{23}\x{25}-\x{2a}\x{2c}-\x{2f}\x{3a}\x{3b}\x{3f}\x{40}\x{5b}-\x{5d}\x{5f}\x{7b}\x{7d}\x{a1}\x{ab}\x{b7}\x{bb}\x{bf}\x{37e}\x{387}\x{55a}-\x{55f}\x{589}\x{58a}\x{5be}\x{5c0}\x{5c3}\x{5f3}\x{5f4}\x{60c}\x{60d}\x{61b}\x{61f}\x{66a}-\x{66d}\x{6d4}\x{700}-\x{70d}\x{964}\x{965}\x{970}\x{df4}\x{e4f}\x{e5a}\x{e5b}\x{f04}-\x{f12}\x{f3a}-\x{f3d}\x{f85}\x{104a}-\x{104f}\x{10fb}\x{1361}-\x{1368}\x{166d}\x{166e}\x{169b}\x{169c}\x{16eb}-\x{16ed}\x{1735}\x{1736}\x{17d4}-\x{17d6}\x{17d8}-\x{17da}\x{1800}-\x{180a}\x{1944}\x{1945}\x{2010}-\x{2027}\x{2030}-\x{2043}\x{2045}-\x{2051}\x{2053}\x{2054}\x{2057}\x{207d}\x{207e}\x{208d}\x{208e}\x{2329}\x{232a}\x{23b4}-\x{23b6}\x{2768}-\x{2775}\x{27e6}-\x{27eb}\x{2983}-\x{2998}\x{29d8}-\x{29db}\x{29fc}\x{29fd}\x{3001}-\x{3003}\x{3008}-\x{3011}\x{3014}-\x{301f}\x{3030}\x{303d}\x{30a0}\x{30fb}\x{fd3e}\x{fd3f}\x{fe30}-\x{fe52}\x{fe54}-\x{fe61}\x{fe63}\x{fe68}\x{fe6a}\x{fe6b}\x{ff01}-\x{ff03}\x{ff05}-\x{ff0a}\x{ff0c}-\x{ff0f}\x{ff1a}\x{ff1b}\x{ff1f}\x{ff20}\x{ff3b}-\x{ff3d}\x{ff3f}\x{ff5b}\x{ff5d}\x{ff5f}-\x{ff65}\x{10100}\x{10101}\x{1039f}');
---
> define('PREG_CLASS_PUNCTUATION', '\x{21}-\x{23}\x{25}-\x{2a}\x{2c}-\x{2f}\x{3a}\x{3b}\x{3f}\x{40}\x{5b}-\x{5d}\x{5f}\x{7b}\x{7d}\x{a1}\x{ab}\x{b7}\x{bb}\x{bf}');

This is by no means the best solution, but it should work for sites that don't use unicode.