Re: problem with egrep and fgrep

[Bob Proulx]

Eric Backus wrote:
> Frankly, I'd like to see this done with links, in spite of the coding 
> standards.  Grep, like "ls", is a historical special case which is more 
> simply handled with links than with various shell-script
> workarounds.

The problem is how do you handle renames with a prefix or suffix?
Let's say you configure --prefix="gnu" so the final binary ends up
being called 'gnuegrep'.  Will it still recognize that this implies
the -E option?

Another case is someone who compiles GNU grep and creates 'egrep'.
Then they run into a system where they cannot adjust PATH.  So on that
system they copy 'egrep' and call it 'gnuegrep'.  Now on that system
will this 'gnuegrep' recognize that this implies the -E option?

> If not links, then we should just go to completely separate copies.

That would be my choice too, but preferably only on non-GNU systems
where GNU software has been installed as an add-on.  On a native GNU
system these are not problems and there is no need to work around
them.

Bob