GNU bug report logs - #22838
New 'Binary file' detection considered harmful

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Message #50 received at 22838 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs <at> gmail.com>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>,
 Marcello Perathoner <marcello <at> perathoner.de>, 22838 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#22838: New 'Binary file' detection considered harmful
Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 20:24:34 -0600

Paul Eggert wrote:

> $ printf '\200\n' | LC_ALL=C grep .
> Binary file (standard input) matches
>
> This is because the C locale is pure ASCII on these platforms, i.e.,
> '\200' is not a valid character the way it is with traditional Unix.  I
> don't know why Red Hat made that change.

I also get the 'Binary file (standard input) matches' output from the 
above string on a Linux From Scratch system.  We build everything in a 
fairly generic way and did nothing special in this area.  I suspect this 
is something buried deep into glibc.

  -- Bruce

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