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So the "show me matching lines" functionality, which ed users made massive use of, could be summed up as "globally search for the regular expression and print i

by ktf 14y ago

So the "show me matching lines" functionality, which ed users made massive use of, could be summed up as "globally search for the regular expression and print it" - or, in ed format, g/regular expression/p. Or, to shorten it a bit more, g/re/p Thanks, I've always wondered where "grep" came from! (But somehow have never gained the momentum necessary to look it up...)

Dirlewanger 14y ago
Hahaha, same. This article was full of answers for me regarding Unix stuff that I use everyday and was only half-curious of their origins but never cared enough to look up. Articles like these are the best.