Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!hplabsz!jin
From: jin@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Tai Jin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: grep replacement
Message-ID: <2018@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 31 May 88 22:44:18 GMT
References: <7882@alice.UUCP> <2450011@hpsal2.HP.COM> <54818@sun.uucp> <1039@ima.ISC.COM>
Reply-To: jin@hplabsz.UUCP (Tai Jin)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 21

In article <1039@ima.ISC.COM> trb@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