Re: tests/yesno.sh, kinds of line (matching/non-matching, selected/rejected)

[Charles Levert]

* On Monday 2005-11-14 at 17:01:10 +0000, Julian Foad wrote:
> Yes, but I have long wanted a search tool that reports the matched text 
> only. Maybe that functionality should have been put into a new program 
> instead of into Grep.

Bingo.

Its innovations (i.e., practically successful
inventions) could be back ported to grep, but
only after they have matured and stabilized,
and shown their compatibility with the vision
on which grep is based.

Also, experimentation needs and can benefit
from degrees of freedom that a stable program
cannot provide, as a development space.


> On the other hand, I have a grand vision in which 
> Grep is based on a search algorithm that doesn't know or care about lines 
> or newline characters, and all the line-based behaviour including the 
> default mode of displaying the whole line in which a match is found would 
> be implemented on top of that general algorithm.

Good idea.  Even better if it understands
structured content, like other *greps attempt
to do.

But grep is the line-based one that is part of
a whole coherent suite of Unix programs centered
around that idea.

Any vision centered around any idea is even
better if a whole coherent set of tools
is provided around it to form a complete
environment.