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

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Oct 28 08:40, gs-cygwin.com@gluelogic.com wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 12:49:37AM -0600, 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:
> 
> Planning for the future, could the grep package provide egrep and fgrep
> in /etc/alternatives?  Then a new (optional) package, say "grepfe" could
> provide /etc/alternative shell scripts (or binaries) which called
> grep -F and grep -E.

That would be a feasible workaround.


Corinna