Re: grep: Misleading Description of '-s' Option in Man Page

[Paul Eggert]

MARSHALL Keith <address@hidden> writes:

> In UNIX System V Release 3, which has a traditional implementation
> of grep,

By "traditional" the grep documentation means _really_ traditional,
i.e., 7th-edition Unix "grep".  USG arbitrarily changed the meaning of
-s, which is what started all this mess.  Here's a proposed patch to
help clear up this confusion.

This patch is against <http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/grep/>, though
I note those files haven't been updated for a while -- has grep
development moved elsewhere?

2004-06-25  Paul Eggert  <address@hidden>

        * doc/grep.texi, doc/grep.1: Document USG grep -s too.
        Suggested by Keith Marshall.

Index: doc/grep.texi
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/grep/grep/doc/grep.texi,v
retrieving revision 1.46
diff -p -u -r1.46 grep.texi
--- doc/grep.texi       16 Jun 2003 08:34:16 -0000      1.46
+++ doc/grep.texi       25 Jun 2004 21:11:35 -0000
@@ -209,13 +209,14 @@ see the @samp{-s} or @samp{--no-messages
 @opindex --no-messages
 @cindex suppress error messages
 Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files.
-Portability note: unlike @sc{gnu} @command{grep}, traditional
address@hidden did not conform to @sc{posix.2}, because traditional
address@hidden lacked a @samp{-q} option and its @samp{-s} option behaved
-like @sc{gnu} @command{grep}'s @samp{-q} option.  Shell scripts intended
-to be portable to traditional @command{grep} should avoid both
+Portability note: unlike @acronym{GNU} @command{grep}, 7th Edition
+Unix @command{grep} did not conform to @acronym{POSIX}, because it
+lacked @samp{-q} and its @samp{-s} option behaved like @sc{gnu}
address@hidden's @samp{-q} option.  @acronym{USG}-style @command{grep}
+also lacked @samp{-q} but its @samp{-s} option behaved like
address@hidden @command{grep}.  Portable shell scripts should avoid both
 @samp{-q} and @samp{-s} and should redirect
-output to @file{/dev/null} instead.
+standard and error output to @file{/dev/null} instead.
 
 @item -v
 @itemx --invert-match
Index: doc/grep.1
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/grep/grep/doc/grep.1,v
retrieving revision 1.24
diff -p -u -r1.24 grep.1
--- doc/grep.1  16 Jun 2003 08:34:16 -0000      1.24
+++ doc/grep.1  25 Jun 2004 21:11:35 -0000
@@ -333,25 +333,32 @@ Recurse in directories skip file matchin
 Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files.
 Portability note: unlike \s-1GNU\s0
 .BR grep ,
-traditional
+7th Edition Unix
 .B grep
-did not conform to \s-1POSIX.2\s0, because traditional
-.B grep
-lacked a
+did not conform to \s-1POSIX\s0, because it lacked
 .B \-q
-option and its
+and its
 .B \-s
 option behaved like \s-1GNU\s0
 .BR grep 's
 .B \-q
 option.
-Shell scripts intended to be portable to traditional
+\s-1USG\s0-style
 .B grep
+also lacked
+.B \-q
+but its
+.B \-s
+option behaved like \s-1GNU\s0
+.BR grep .
+Portable shell scripts
 should avoid both
 .B \-q
 and
 .B \-s
-and should redirect output to /dev/null instead.
+and should redirect standard and error output to
+.B /dev/null
+instead.
 .TP
 .BR \-U ", " \-\^\-binary
 Treat the file(s) as binary.  By default, under MS-DOS and MS-Windows,