On Wed, 10 Feb 1999 00:31:27 +1100  matthew green wrote:

> 
>    Module Name:	src
>    Committed By:	simonb
>    Date:		Tue Feb  9 13:19:19 UTC 1999
>    
>    [ ... ]
>    Update to grep 2.2f, with sources now in src/gnu/dist/grep.
>    
> 
> this is great.
> 
> 
> but do we want to follow the GNU people in installing 3 binaries,
> each identical except for the `default_matcher' char[] being either
> "grep", "egrep" or "fgrep", or just do argv0 passing like we have
> for ever?  isn't this a waste of space?

I really don't have an opinion either way on this, and I'll be happy
to change it "back to how it was" if that's what the populous wants.
Here's the ChangeLog entry describing why the change was made:

  * egrep, fgrep were links This is in violation of GNU standards:
    "Please don't make the behavior of a utility depend on the name used
    to invoke it.  It is useful sometimes to make a link to a utility with
    a different name, and that should not change what it does."
    For now egrep and fgrep will be copies of grep. A better scheme
    should be found later.
    After discussion with Tom Tromey <tromey@cygnus.com>.

There's even the command-line arguments -E -F and -G to override this,
so you can link to funnygrep and call "funnygrep -E" to get an egrep.

Do any other standards have anything to say about this?  Klaus?

Simon.