bug#20638: BUG: standard & extended RE's don't find NUL's :-(

[Linda Walsh]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> Linda Walsh wrote:
>
> > Perhaps you want to tell me where the documentation on the
> > standard and/or extended RE's is that you use?
>
> We're talking about grep, so the relevant documentation is the grep 
> manual, not the awk manual or other random stuff you might find on the 
> Internet.  Type 'info grep'.  Or if you're in Emacs, type 'C-h i m 
> grep RET'.
----
From the coreutils-5.97 info page:
Backslash escapes
    A backslash followed by a character not listed below causes an
    error message.
   `\a'
         Control-G.
   `\b'
         Control-H.
   `\f'
         Control-L.
   `\n'
         Control-J.
   `\r'
         Control-M.
   `\t'
         Control-I.
   `\v'
         Control-K.
   `\OOO'
         The character with the value given by OOO, which is 1 to 3
         octal digits,
   `\\'
         A backslash.
----
It didn't have 'hex' back then.  But you've broken backward compatibility.
That would normally be a regression.  You like to think that I wear a 
tinfoil hat -- but I just have a good memory for how grep used to operate.

Maybe you should do some memory strengthening exercises (though I admit my
memory isn't what it always was, it was in this case).


Should I file this as a 2nd bug, that grep broke backward compat?

It *used* to be compatible with 'awk's regex, which is why it is the
first entry in the "See also".


> Whether you do or not, they're irrelevant to this discussion and to be 
> honest that tinfoil-hat stuff isn't helping your case.
----
no tinfoil hat -- just a good memory, something you might find useful to
work on!  ;-)

-linda