Comment # 1 on bug 1029190 from Andreas Stieger

For reference, from http://www.pcre.org/readme.txt

> In the 8-bit library, the default maximum compiled pattern size is around
> 64K bytes. You can increase this by adding --with-link-size=3 to the
> "configure" command. PCRE2 then uses three bytes instead of two for offsets
> to different parts of the compiled pattern. In the 16-bit library,
> --with-link-size=3 is the same as --with-link-size=4, which (in both
> libraries) uses four-byte offsets. Increasing the internal link size reduces
> performance in the 8-bit and 16-bit libraries. In the 32-bit library, the
> link size setting is ignored, as 4-byte offsets are always used.

So it is a performance trade-off.

Which application needs patterns in excess of 64k please?
What prevents you from linking against the 32 bit library in the first place?