Re: problem with egrep and fgrep

[Bob Proulx]

Stepan Kasal wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> > It would seem that in your case it would be best to install the gnu
> > tools with a prefix so that they are distinguished from the native
> > system binaries.  Some people use 'g' at the front and some put a
> > 'gnu' in front as in gnugrep.  Perhaps using the configure prefix
> > option would work well for you?
> 
> unfortunately, curent GNU grep doesn't put the prefix to the fgrep
> and egrep scripts.  So it doesn't work out-out-of-the-box, sorry.
> 
> I'll fix it.

Not having used the prefix with regards to these scripts I had not
noticed.  Thank you for working to improve that!  However this would
be easy for the person installing this and knowing about that issue to
make this modification by hand at install time.  Not a showstopper.
But very nice to have fixed for the future.

Regardless of that minor issue I still believe that if one needs the
GNU behavior but can't change PATH that changing the name of the
program so that it ensures getting the GNU one is simplest.  I install
the GNU software on systems such as HP-UX and can almost always set
PATH to find the GNU versions of programs first so I rarely need to
use the prefix option.  But some of my coworkers like the prefix for
some specific things like GNU make.  If 'gnumake' fails because it is
not found then they know the problem without any confusion.  But if
'make' behaves differently because GNU make is not installed and it
fell through PATH to the native SysV make then it takes them a while
to figure it out.

Bob