[bug #24290] option to output all lines

[Max Waterman]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?24290>

                 Summary: option to output all lines
                 Project: grep
            Submitted by: davidmaxwaterman
            Submitted on: Thu 18 Sep 2008 07:12:51 AM GMT
                Category: None
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

Hi,

Grep has nice options to match regular expressions/patterns and highlight
them so that the user can easily see them.

I find a need to have grep output all lines, and just hightlight the matches
as they go by. This is as oppose to it only outputting lines that contain a
match.

This might seem counter intuitive, but I don't think grep by definition is
for filtering lines; instead, it is for finding patterns in files/streams. So,
simply highlighting the matches is a valid thing for grep to do.

Note that grep already has options to output lines containing matches and
lines not containing matches, and even an option to output lines surrounding a
line containing a match. That latter one can be used as a workaround, if a
large enough number is given for --context.

Please consider adding such an option.




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