Re: [PATCH] grep: add --max-count command line option

[Paul Eggert]

On 5/15/22 22:57, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> It indeed is curious why GNU grep chose to immediately exit with 1
> when "-m 0" was given,

As I vaguely recall, if "-m 1" stops before "-m 2" does, then the idea 
was that it's reasonable for "-m 0" to stop before "-m 1" does, and the 
logical place to stop is right at the start, before any matches are 
found (i.e., exit with status 1).

What would be more useful for 'grep -m 0' to do? (Sorry, I came into 
this conversation just now.) Perhaps GNU 'grep -m 0' should change, if 
there's something better for it to do.


> What "git grep -m -1" should do?  IIRC, OPT_INTEGER is for signed
> integer but the new .max_count member, as well as the existing
> "count" that is compared with it, are of "unsigned" type.  Either
> erroring out or treating it as unlimited is probably fine, but
> whatever we do, we should document and have a test for it.

'grep -m -1' treats the count as being unlimited, but this isn't 
documented and (from the code) appears to be accidental. It'd make sense 
for it to be documented.