grep 2.5 infinite loop bug

[Padraig Brady]

First point is that grep-2.5/README says:
"Send bug reports to address@hidden  Be sure to
include the word "grep" in your Subject: header field."

but ftp://alpha.gnu.org/pub/gnu/grep/README says:
"Report bugs/feedback/suggestions to <address@hidden>."

Anyway...

Just to confirm that this bug has been reported before
by Micheal Sharpe (address@hidden). He said
the following "kills his machine":

grep --color "" /etc/passwd

I reproduced the problem with:

echo "1 one" | ./grep -E "[0-9]*" -o

and this:

echo "1 one" | ./grep -E "[0-9]*" --color

but when + was used in the regexp instead of *,
it didn't cause a problem.

Also Juergen Heinzl (address@hidden) said:
"Same here, yet it being bedtime for me - in grep.c [586]
match_size, match_offset and beg never change and the while()
loop never finishes, gobbling up all CPU cycles it can get."

cheers,
Padraig.