GNU bug report logs - #60257
please fix warnings from egrep and fgrep

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Message #8 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-grep <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#60257: please fix warnings from egrep and fgrep
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2022 13:35:19 -0600

On 12/22/22 09:16, Thomas Wolff wrote:
> These tools spill out warnings that are irritating almost everyone, moreover, they 
> are threatening to be removed.
> There was some discussion about this earlier this year, but with no consolidated 
> outcome, so I'd like to raise the issue again.
> Some weird and wrong arguments were presented; first, many GNU tools do have POSIX 
> extensions, including grep.
> Second and particularly:
>> egrep and fgrep were not entirely portable even before POSIX deprecated them in 2001
> grep -E and grep -F were not portable either! There are legacy systems which had 
> egrep and fgrep but did not have grep options -E and -F.
> So all this achieves is really to annoy thousands of people and to waste time of 
> hundreds of package maintainers.
> Please have mercy with the community. Give us the comfort of not being bothered when 
> using egrep and fgrep in the future, and if it is as a Christmas present.
> Thanks
> Thomas

If building from source, workaround with:

  sed -i "s/echo/#echo/" src/egrep.sh

before configure.

If not use:
  sed -i "s/echo/#echo/" /usr/bin/[ef]grep

  -- Bruce Dubbs
     linuxfromscratch.org

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