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The name "grep" is unrelated to GNU. According to The Jargon File, the etymology is: from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p, where re stands for a regular express
by jwilk 9y ago
The name "grep" is unrelated to GNU. According to The Jargon File, the etymology is:
from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p, where re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it
In fact, grep predates the GNU project by almost a decade.
Also, it's the first time I hear about "GNU" regexps.
- sglane 9y agoThanks, just learned something new. grep predates GNU by about a decade it seems.
- Hello71 9y agoa more accurate term would be "BRE with GNU extensions", e.g. \(\)