Hello, Paul,
this is correct, it is mentioned in grep --help. However, I always expect the man pages to be more exhaustive. But here, it only says
grep searches the named input FILEs for lines containing a match to the given PATTERN. If no files are specified, or if the file “-” is given, grep searches standard input. By
default, grep prints the matching lines.
Well, of course, in the description of --recursive, it is mentioned:
-r, --recursive
Read all files under each directory, recursively, following symbolic links only if
they are on the command line. Note that if no file operand is given, grep searches
the working directory. This is equivalent to the -d recurse option.
This could be made a bit more consistent.
grep searches the named input FILEs for lines containing a match to the given PATTERN. If no files are specified, or if the file “-” is given, grep searches standard input or, by using the --recursive switch, the current directory. By default, grep prints the matching lines.
If I am the first in the world to fall for this, then please consider this discussion as useless. This bug report is closed, anyway.
Kind regards,
rexkogitans
Am Mittwoch, den 08.02.2017, 15:35 -0800 schrieb Paul Eggert:
On 02/08/2017 01:12 PM, rexkogitans@gmx.at wrote:
Maybe this could be added in the man page.
It is already mentioned there, no? 'grep --help' says "With no FILE,
read . if a command-line -r is given, - otherwise." Perhaps the wording
could be improved; if so, specific wording suggestions would help.