Re: Bug#435411: grep: Option -e cannot be combined with other options

[Tony Abou-Assaleh]

According the man page, -e expects a pattern following it as an argument
to the option. Therefore, -eF is incorrect as it doesn't follow the syntax
specification. And there is no easy way to make sense out of a syntax that
would allow -eF, since multiple -e options are allowed.

Cheers,

TAA

-----------------------------------------------------
Tony Abou-Assaleh
Email:    address@hidden
Web site: http://tony.abou-assaleh.net
----------------------[THE END]----------------------

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Jari Aalto wrote:

> Package: grep
> Version: 2.5.1.ds2-6
> Severity: normal
>
>
> Consider this:
>
>     $ gzip -dc edb_1.21-13.diff.gz | grep -eF '--- '
>     grep: unrecognized option `--- '
>     Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
>     Try `grep --help' for more information.
>
>     $ gzip -dc edb_1.21-13.diff.gz | grep -F -e '--- '
>     --- edb-1.21.orig/debian/dirs
>     --- edb-1.21.orig/debian/docs
>     ...
>
> PROBLEM
>
> It should be possible to combine short options together, including -e.
> The effect of "e" could be postponed until the current option "goup".
> An example:
>
>       -eF
>
> That should be equal to
>
>        -Fe
>
> Likewise with any number of other options "grouped", like:
>
>       -iFe
>       -eFi
>       ...
>
> I understand that the -e is a modifier, like -F is a modifier for the
> next argument that follows.
>
> -- System Information:
> Debian Release: lenny/sid
>   APT prefers testing
>   APT policy: (990, 'testing')
> Architecture: i386 (i686)
>
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.21-2-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
> Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)
> Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
>
> Versions of packages grep depends on:
> ii  libc6                         2.6-2      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
>
> grep recommends no packages.
>
> -- no debconf information
>
>
>