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On my Ubuntu laptop, egrep is just a script that calls grep with -E. Did egrep absorb grep? Is the old grep still commonly installed with any distributions? ED

On my Ubuntu laptop, egrep is just a script that calls grep with -E. Did egrep absorb grep? Is the old grep still commonly installed with any distributions? EDIT: and fgrep also is a script that calls grep, with the F argument.

tyingq 6y ago
I think it's common on several distributions for egrep, fgrep, zgrep, etc to all link to (or have small shell wrappers for) grep, which is gnu grep. I would guess the various BSD distros have traditional separate greps.
- fanf2 6y ago
  No, for a long time the BSDs usually used GNU grep, though there is a newer BSD grep for those who are more concerned about the GPL than performance FreeBSD bsdgrep https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/grep https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/grep (see the makefile for build options, and note that it does egrep and fgrep too) FreeBSD GNU grep https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/gnu/usr.bin/grep/ https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/gnu/usr.bin/grep/ NetBSD has bsdgrep only http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/usr.bin/grep/ http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/usr.bin/grep/ (observe nothing but the Attic in src/gnu/usr.bin/grep) OpenBSD too http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/grep/ http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/grep/ 4.3BSD-Reno and 4.4BSD are complicated - looks like the Bell Labs separate greps have been moved aside in favour of a replacement unified grep by James Woods (not GNU grep) -https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Reno/src/usr.bin/grep https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Reno/sr... - https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.4BSD/usr/src/usr.bin/grep https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.4BSD/usr/src... There is no grep in 4.3BSD-Net/2 which was the first mostly complete unencumbered BSD release and the original basis of the open source BSDs - https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=Net2/usr/src/usr.bin https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=Net2/usr/src/u... - so they adopted GNU grep to fill the gap as you can see in the FreeBSD-2.0 source https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/release/2.0/gnu/usr.bin/ https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/release/2.0/gnu/usr.bin/
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pwg 6y ago
The GNU tool-set merged all three into grep, and kept the fgrep and egrep names for backwards compatibility. This is described in the man page in this manner: > In addition, two variant programs egrep and fgrep are available. egrep is the same as grep -E. fgrep is the same as grep -F. Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated, but is provided to allow historical applications that rely on them to run unmodified.
- dfalzone 6y ago
  That sure sounds like GNU. Instead of building tiny tools that each do one things, just make one big tool that can do a bunch of things depending on which of a hundred flags you use. Not to shit on GNU; I use GNU/Linux on all my own computers. But I notice that a lot of GNU software suffers from severe feature creep.

tyingq 6y ago

I think it's common on several distributions for egrep, fgrep, zgrep, etc to all link to (or have small shell wrappers for) grep, which is gnu grep. I would guess the various BSD distros have traditional separate greps.

fanf2 6y ago
No, for a long time the BSDs usually used GNU grep, though there is a newer BSD grep for those who are more concerned about the GPL than performance FreeBSD bsdgrep https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/grep https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/usr.bin/grep (see the makefile for build options, and note that it does egrep and fgrep too) FreeBSD GNU grep https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/gnu/usr.bin/grep/ https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/gnu/usr.bin/grep/ NetBSD has bsdgrep only http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/usr.bin/grep/ http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/usr.bin/grep/ (observe nothing but the Attic in src/gnu/usr.bin/grep) OpenBSD too http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/grep/ http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/usr.bin/grep/ 4.3BSD-Reno and 4.4BSD are complicated - looks like the Bell Labs separate greps have been moved aside in favour of a replacement unified grep by James Woods (not GNU grep) -https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Reno/src/usr.bin/grep https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Reno/sr... - https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.4BSD/usr/src/usr.bin/grep https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.4BSD/usr/src... There is no grep in 4.3BSD-Net/2 which was the first mostly complete unencumbered BSD release and the original basis of the open source BSDs - https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=Net2/usr/src/usr.bin https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=Net2/usr/src/u... - so they adopted GNU grep to fill the gap as you can see in the FreeBSD-2.0 source https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/release/2.0/gnu/usr.bin/ https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/release/2.0/gnu/usr.bin/

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pwg 6y ago

The GNU tool-set merged all three into grep, and kept the fgrep and egrep names for backwards compatibility. This is described in the man page in this manner: > In addition, two variant programs egrep and fgrep are available. egrep is the same as grep -E. fgrep is the same as grep -F. Direct invocation as either egrep or fgrep is deprecated, but is provided to allow historical applications that rely on them to run unmodified.

dfalzone 6y ago
That sure sounds like GNU. Instead of building tiny tools that each do one things, just make one big tool that can do a bunch of things depending on which of a hundred flags you use. Not to shit on GNU; I use GNU/Linux on all my own computers. But I notice that a lot of GNU software suffers from severe feature creep.