grep replacement

Tai Jin jin at hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Wed Jun 1 08:44:18 AEST 1988


In article <1039 at ima.ISC.COM> trb at ima.UUCP (Andrew Tannenbaum) writes:
>I have always wanted to be able to tell grep to NOT print the file
>names on a multi-file grep.  Let's say I want a phone number script -
>usually a simple grep - but if I want to store the numbers in multiple
>files (e.g. mine and my departments), then the output contains
>unsightly filenames.  This has always struck me as opposite to the UNIX
>philosophy of having a filter provide output that is useful as data.

Actually, I think the Unix philosophy is to have simple filters and use
pipes to construct more complex filters.  Unfortunately, you can't do
everything with pipes.

>I would like the option to go to the next file after first match
>(regardless of which other options are present).  Also, I would like to
>print a region other than line on a match.  It would be nice to delimit
>the patterns using regexps, as "-n,+n" and "?^$?,/^$/" (among others)
>would be useful.

I also would like a context grep that greps for records with arbitrary
delimiters.  I started working on this, but I've had no time to finish it.

...tai



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