Subject: re: CVS commit: src
To: Simon Burge <simonb@netbsd.org>
From: matthew green <mrg@eterna.com.au>
List: source-changes
Date: 02/10/1999 00:51:00
* 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>.
well, for many cases, i *expect* a binary to change depending on
it's called named, eg, grep. if i renamed it egrep, i'd expect
it to work as egrep. but now that is broken.
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.
these options (or others like them) have been around for a long time.
you'd think that they'd at least install 2 shell scripts that did the
right thing... mmm, GNU...