GNU bug report logs - #57613
grep man page tries to rewrite POSIX history

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

From: Geoff Clare <gwc <at> opengroup.org>
To: bug-grep <at> gnu.org
Subject: grep man page tries to rewrite POSIX history
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2022 13:28:37 +0100

The grep 3.8 man page at https://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/grep.html says, under "What happened to egrep and fgrep?":

egrep and fgrep were not standardized by POSIX

This is factually incorrect. They were included in POSIX.2-1992 but marked as obsolescent. When POSIX.2-1992 and POSIX.1-1996 were merged (along with the Single UNIX Specification) to form POSIX.1-2001, the obsolescent features from POSIX.2-1992 were removed.

Suggested fix - change:

egrep and fgrep were not standardized by POSIX and are no longer needed

to:

egrep and fgrep were marked obsolescent when they were standardized by POSIX in 1992 and were removed in the 2001 revision; they have long been deprecated by GNU.

(I have it second hand that the GNU deprecation occurred in 2007; you could give that date instead of saying "long" if you can confirm it.)

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