Re: bug with grep 3.0.2 in cygwin 3.0.7

[Duncan Roe <duncan_roe at optusnet dot com dot au>]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 09:42:46PM -0400, Eliot Moss wrote:
> On 8/29/2019 3:08 PM, Andrey Repin wrote:
> > Greetings, akiki@free.fr!
> >
> > > Hi,
> > > I encounter some problem with grep option -E on cygwin 3.0.7
> >
> >
> > > echo "a^b" | grep "a^b" #answer a^b ie it's OK
> > > but
> > > echo "a^b" | grep -E "a^b" #answer nothing " for me it's KO
> >
> > That's an expected result of an impossible constraint.
> >
> > > I have to backslash ^ to be OK like : grep -E 'a\^b'
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > > Is-it a bug ?
> >
> > No.
> >
> > > I don't know if all versions of cygwin and grep are concerned.
> >
> > RTFM, this is regexp basics.
>
> There was a really great answer to this earlier.  I tried an
> answer, but was wrong.  One has to read the "fine print" really
> carefully.  At first I thought it was a bug, at least in the
> documentation, but the meaning of a^b, when ^ is the metacharacter,
> is kind of subtle (IMO at least).  It's easy to miss that
> subtlety and think that if ^ is not at the beginning of an
> expression it will be treated as an ordinary character ...
>
> But my main point is that RTM would be enough; RTFM seemed
> to me perhaps a little more rude than necessary.
>
> Regards - EM
>
I don't see anything to object to in "Read The Fine Manual" ;)

Cheers ... Duncan.

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