Re: bsearch utility

[Paul Eggert]

James Youngman <address@hidden> writes:

> If there is a consensus to add this, I'd have a preference for a usage
> pattern which is consistent with look(1).

I like the idea of implementing "look" in coreutils, and doing it
"right".  "look" was in Unix Version 7, and it is a handy utility.

The flags for look(1) (as specified on
<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi>) are subtly different from those
of "sort".  One other problem worth noting: my Debian GNU/Linux 3.1
r0a look(1) has a flag "-b" whose meaning is not clear to me (and it's
not in FreeBSD).

I'd prefer that coreutils "look" have long options that are consistent
with "sort", even if its short options are different for historical
reasons.

Jim Meyering of course has the final say on this, whenever he chimes in.