Re: grep -R vs. symlinks to directories

[Paul Eggert]

Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:

> I really like grep's -R (--recursive) option and use it a lot.
> However, I'm regularly annoyed to see that it makes grep follow symlinks
> to directories.  In my case, that behavior has always been undesirable, so
> I've simply turned it off in my copy.  This should probably be controlled
> by an option.  It's a shame that the -P, -H, and -L options (typically
> used to control how recursion works wrt symlinks) are already taken.
> Maybe --dereference={always,never,command-line}?

I second this.  Also, the default should be --dereference=command-line.
I can compose a patch if you like.