bug with grep 3.0.2 in cygwin 3.0.7

[Chris Wagner]

On 2019-08-28 3:16 am, akiki@free.fr wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
> I have to backslash ^ to be OK like : grep -E 'a\^b'
> 
> 
> Is-it a bug ?
> I don't know if all versions of cygwin and grep are concerned.

Hi Akiki.  As others mentioned, it has to do with how regular 
expressions operate.  However the best solution for you in this 
situation is to not use regular expressions.  To search for fixed 
strings, use fgrep or grep -F.  That avoids all issues with meta 
characters and covers the vast majority of cases when we use grep 
anyway.

To use full power regular expressions read perlre and use grep -P.


Thanks.

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