Re: parallel autotest [1/3]: Refactor testsuite driver loop.

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Eric Blake wrote on Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 09:52:11PM CEST:
> Ralf Wildenhues <Ralf.Wildenhues <at> gmx.de> writes:
> > 
> > The '*' is special and needs escaping, fixed now, and pushed.  I have no
> > idea how I could have overlooked that, but it seems that GNU and BSD sed
> > do not interpret it as special when it's the first regex token.
> 
> And that is correct, according to POSIX: 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap09.html
> 
> "The asterisk shall be special except when used: ...
> As the first character of an entire BRE (after an initial '^', if any)"

Now, I wasn't aware of *that*; thanks!

> I guess my question was more along the lines of whether /*/ and /\*/
> are universally interpreted as the same BRE like POSIX requires, or
> whether there are buggy sed out there where /*/ is treated as a syntax
> error where you HAVE to use /\*/ for portability.

I have no idea.  Tried both variations on a number of systems, they all
treat /*/ and /\*/ alike.

Cheers,
Ralf