Subject: Re: bug#15483: POSIXLY_CORRECT documentation vis a vis some simple EREs

From: Glenn Golden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 09:01:27 -0600

--
Paul Eggert <[email-masked]> [2013-09-29 16:53:21 -0700]:
> Glenn Golden wrote:
> > Per the final sentence of 9.5.3, "conforming applications cannot use
> > 	[constructs like '*xyz']"
> 
> This is making the incorrect assumption that 'grep' internally must be
> implemented as a strictly conforming POSIX application.
>

Disagree strongly that any such assumption is being made. The reasoning 
step that you excerpt from above is strictly deductive; no assumptions of
any kind are present.

>
> POSIX does not require that,
>

Agree.

>
> and the rest of your conclusions therefore do not follow.
>

Permit me to disagree and to substantiate that disagreement in detail, but at
a later time.  I will not be able to respond further for a few days.

> 
> Eric explained the intent of POSIXLY_CORRECT pretty well.  Occasionally
> people ask for a different feature, where a GNU application diagnoses the
> use of any extension to POSIX.  The need for such a feature is less, though,
> and the hassle is greater, and so it's typically not worth the aggravation.
> 

I completely understand, and am sympathetic with the need to realistically
assess cost/benefit on any code change.  It's always easy for users to suggest
something that sounds "so simple", but can wind up as a great deal of work
to implement behind the scenes, open unintended cans of worms, etc.  Been
there, done that many times, and I fully sympathize.

Let me add tangentially that I think you guys (and all the gnu maintainers)
do a superb job and I respect your time and effort.  I realize I'm being a
bit of a gadfly on this particular issue, but as I said, I think something
constructive can come from exploring it carefully in a bit of detail.

I would hope when the discussion ends you will be able to say, "boy, that
guy was a verbose pain in the ass but he was being civil and raised some good
points that were beneficial to have in the ML." Actually I hope for more,
that some clarifying language changes can wind up being made in the
POSIXLY_CORRECT description, but let's save specifics on that for later in
the discussion.

>
> As this does not seem to be a bug in grep I'm going to take the liberty
> of marking it 'done'.
>

OK.  Do you object to continuing the discussion on the thread, even though
the ticket is closed? Or is there a more appropriate venue?