Fgrep need not be slow (was Re: Fast file scan)

[J.T. Conklin]

In article <3790 at awdprime.UUCP> tif at doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain) writes:
>Fgrep means Fixed, egrep means Exponential (like in Exponentially faster)!
>If you care one tiny bit about the speed you'll only use fgrep when you
>have to.  Now can we stop discussing the fastest way to use fgrep?
>
>This lesson is a review for those that didn't believe it the first time.

As has been mentioned before, it depends on your implementation: not
all fgreps are slow.

I compared the speeds of GNU fgrep, GNU egrep, SCO XENIX fgrep, and SCO
XENIX egrep by searching for the word "dictionary" in a file containing
fourty-two copies of /usr/dict/words.

Execution speeds were as follows:
	GNU fgrep	10s
	GNU egrep	11s
	SCO egrep	16s
	SCO fgrep	59s

    --jtc

-- 
J.T. Conklin	UniFax Communications Inc.
		...!{uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!jtc, jtc at wimsey.bc.ca