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

Previous Next

Full log

Message #64 received at 22838-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Marcello Perathoner <marcello <at> perathoner.de>,
 Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>, 22838-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Hans Pelleboer <hanspelleboer <at> online.nl>,
 Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs <at> gmail.com>, Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>
Subject: Re: bug#22838: New 'Binary file' detection considered harmful
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 18:43:43 -0700

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 03/01/2016 02:05 AM, Marcello Perathoner wrote:
>> 2) If you just output
>>
>>    binary line 42 in file x matches
>>
>> and continue regular output after the next newline, the breakage would be much
>> more confined.
>
> This sounds like a good suggestion.  That is, grep could keep going if its only
> problem is an attempt to output encoding errors (as opposed to reading null
> bytes, which are a more-reliable indication of binary data).  It would probably
> be better to output just one "Binary file matches" line per file, at the end of
> the other matches, so that it's more likely to be noticed.

I finally got around to implementing this, which turned out to be considerably 
easier than I thought it would be. I installed the attached patch into the grep 
Savannah master. I am boldly closing this old bug report; we can always start a 
new report if further problems turn up.

[0001-grep-encoding-errors-suppress-just-their-line.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.