Possible bug with egrep and -o option

[Joseph Hesse]

Hi,

 

Please try:

 

$ echo 'xaax' | egrep -o 'a*'

 

In the above example, with the -o option, egrep gives no output.  This seems
like a bug to me.  If you omit the -o option egrep correctly reports a
match.

 

If you try:

 

$ echo 'xaax' | egrep -o 'a{2}'

 

then the -o option gives the correct part of the matching line.

 

The version of egrep that I am using is 2.5.1.

 

I apologize in advance if I am mistaken.  Thank you,

 

Joe Hesse