[ANNOUNCEMENT] Test: grep 3.8 - promotion to current stable

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Oct 28 10:13, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Oct 28 00:49, Brian Inglis wrote:
> > On Thu, 27 Oct 2022 18:25:45 +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote
> > > On Sep 29 12:55, Brian Inglis wrote:
> > > > > 	/usr/share/doc/grep/ChangeLog
> > > > > 	https://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=grep.git;a=log;h=refs/tags/v3.8
> > > > > > The change note below states that egrep and fgrep are deprecated
> > > > > obsolescent commands, will be dropped in future, and from this release
> > > > > until then, every use will show a stderr warning message, reminding you
> > > > > how to change your commands and scripts:
> > > > > > 	$ egrep ...
> > > > > 	egrep: warning: egrep is obsolescent; using grep -E
> > > > > 	...
> > > > > 	$ fgrep ...
> > > > > 	fgrep: warning: fgrep is obsolescent; using grep -F
> > > > > 	...
> > 
> > > Please do everyone a favor and remove those warnings.  egrep and fgrep
> > > are used abundantly in existing scripts and the user often has no choice
> > > or no knowledge how to fix this.  If this is an upstream change, it's a
> > > bad one, breaking backward compatibility.  Please fix this at least for
> > > our distro.
> > 
> > This was released as test at the start of September, reiterated at the end
> > of September on this list, then promoted to current stable and announced
> > early October:
> > 
> > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2022-09/msg00001.html
> 
> I was AFK from mid-September until mid-October, so I only niticed this
> on my return.
> 
> > I received no feedback to these notices on the announce, cygwin and apps
> > lists from users, maintainers, or developers.
> > 
> > This release is in Fedora Rawhide unpatched and targeted for Fedora 38.
> > 
> > Please note that these warnings are giving notice that egrep and fgrep have
> > been deprecated as obsolescent for 15 years and will be dropped as commands
> > as they have never been in POSIX, GREP_COLOR is obsolescent and treated like
> > GREP_COLORS, unspecified or invalid regular expression warning diagnostics
> > are now being issued on stderr as they will be treated as errors in future
> > releases, "binary file matches" messages on stderr may no longer be
> > suppressed, and invalid bracket expressions are now being treated as errors,
> > with appropriate diagnostics and exit codes.
> 
> I'm aware of that, but upstream is obviously missing the fact that
> egrep and fgrep have been part of the history for so long that they
> are part of the UNIX gene pool.  As I said there are scripts out
> there using egrep and fgrep.  I, for one, can easily tweak the
> scripts, but not every user will be able to do so, missing the
> knowledge or admin privileges.
> 
> There are also the old (and I mean old) users out there who have an
> ingrained habit to use egrep and fgrep since it was *always* part
> of UNIX.  The warnings are really just a PITA.

Oh, and the BSDs will very certainly keep egrep and fgrep forever,
without the dreaded warnings...

I don't even understand why they are so "bad" that they have to be
removed.  What a weird idea.


Corinna