Re: grep-2.5.1a egrep/fgrep PATH problem

[Paul Eggert]

Charles Levert <address@hidden> writes:

> How about this, then?
>
> We store the grep executable as
>
>    /usr/libexec/grep/2.5.2/i686-pc-linux-gnu/grep

Yes, I thought of that solution this morning as I drove into work.
(But you were faster.  :-)

Do we really need the version number?  Why not just install it as
$(libexecdir)/grep/grep, say?

Also, we should make a hard link from $(libexecdir)/grep/grep to
$(bindir)/grep, falling back on a copy if the ln fails.  This will
avoid one level of indirection in the common case of invoking plain
grep.

> This executable would no longer support
> invocation-name dependent behavior.

Yes, that's right.

> If symlinks are supported,

Yes, we could use them in that case, but hard links would be better if
they work.  If neither work we can simply copy the file.

> Both fgrep and egrep would always be wrappers.

Yes.

I like this idea.  If there's no objection, I'll write up a patch that
does this.