GNU bug report logs - #25513
Issue grepping lines ending with CRLF with --color=auto.

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eric Hoffman <ehoffman <at> positronaccess.com>
To: "'bug-grep <at> gnu.org'" <bug-grep <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Issue grepping lines ending with CRLF with --color=auto.
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2017 16:03:49 +0000

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

Hello!

grep is behaving differently when outputting with --color=auto when lines are ending with CRLF (like Windows text files).

The issue is that if I have a file with CRLF line terminator, for example, a file named test.txt, containing:
Line 1<CR><LF>
Line 2<CR><LF>
Line 3<CR><LF>

Or:

$od -c test.txt
0000000   L   i   n   e       1  \r  \n   L   i   n   e       2  \r  \n
0000020   L   i   n   e       3  \r  \n
0000030


Then, If I type:
$ grep --color=auto "." test.txt

That is, I tell grep to display every lines containing at least one character (that is, every lines),  I get on terminal output just 3 empty lines.  However, if I type:
$ grep "." test.txt
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3

Then I do have every lines on the output.

I tried on both SSH and direct console with same result.

On my SSH terminal, I captured output, and what I see is
<CR><LF>
<CR><LF>
<CR><LF>

Here are a few variations:
- I tried with a longer file, like 100 lines, and I do get some of the lines printed, but truncated to the terminal screen width.
- The issue here was with printing every lines, but I do get the same result as long as I match any end of lines, like grep "2.*" test.txt, or even "grep 2[[:cntrl:]]$" test.txt
- The problem is there only when

This was with grep 2.27 (also tried 2.16, which I had before upgrading to 2.27).

Regards,
Eric

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #10 received at 25513-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>
To: Eric Hoffman <ehoffman <at> positronaccess.com>
Cc: 25513-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#25513: Issue grepping lines ending with CRLF with
 --color=auto.
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2017 09:12:44 -0800

tags 25513 notabug
thanks

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 8:03 AM, Eric Hoffman
<ehoffman <at> positronaccess.com> wrote:
> grep is behaving differently when outputting with --color=auto when lines are ending with CRLF (like Windows text files).
>
> The issue is that if I have a file with CRLF line terminator, for example, a file named test.txt, containing:
> Line 1<CR><LF>
> Line 2<CR><LF>
> Line 3<CR><LF>
>
> Or:
>
> $od -c test.txt
> 0000000   L   i   n   e       1  \r  \n   L   i   n   e       2  \r  \n
> 0000020   L   i   n   e       3  \r  \n
> 0000030
>
> Then, If I type:
> $ grep --color=auto "." test.txt
...

Thank you for the report. I too see that behavior, but it is not a
problem with grep. It is due to the way carriage returns are rendered.
Here, even without --color, you can see that the three matched line
render as empty:

$ printf 'line%s\r\n' 1 2 3 | grep .



However, if you pipe that result through cat -A, you see that grep is
working as required:

$ printf 'line%s\r\n' 1 2 3 | grep .|cat -A
line1^M$
line2^M$
line3^M$

So I'm closing this bug.

Message #13 received at 25513 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eric Hoffman <ehoffman <at> positronaccess.com>
To: "'25513 <at> debbugs.gnu.org'" <25513 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: RE: bug#25513: closed (Re: bug#25513: Issue grepping lines ending
 with CRLF with --color=auto.)
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 12:29:26 +0000

That was something I suspected.  On my system, I taught it was doing the same with 'grep' alone too, but it turned out my default .bashrc setup an alias for 'bash' to ass '--color=auto'.  I do get the same issue if I type...

$ printf 'line%s\r\n' 1 2 3 | grep .

...because of the alias, buy typing...

$printf 'line%s\r\n' 1 2 3 | /bin/grep .

...does not cause issue.

Indeed, it does not cause an issue in a script, as the text is sent through the pipe without color rendering.

So, I was wondering if it was grep or not.

Regards,
Eric

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