Re: problem using call-process with grep

[David Kastrup]

"Drew Adams" <address@hidden> writes:

>     >     When I run grep 'epsilon\($\)' foo
>     >     from the shell, it finds a match. What does your grep do?
>     >
>     > I said:
>     >
>     >   And if I run grep from the Cygwin command line (with either
>     >   parenthetical regexp - single or double backslashes), it
>     >   works OK. I only have the problem when I use `call-process'.
>     >
>     > By command line, I meant shell (bash from Cygwin). (I showed
>     > the regexp with double-quotes, but single-quotes work too.)
>     >
>     > Summary: grep works with that regexp when run from the shell
>     > or when using the Emacs `grep' command. The only problem is
>     > with `call-process'.
>
>     The quotes are not part of the regex, and are only necessary
>     when running the command via a shell (`M-x grep' uses
>     start-process-shell-command).
>
>     The correct way to use call-process would be:
>
>     (call-process "grep" nil BUFFER nil "epsilon\\($\\)" "foo")
>
> Uh, isn't that what I wrote(?):
>
>  (call-process "grep" nil
>                (generate-new-buffer "Result")
>                nil "epsilon\\($\\)" "foo")
>
> This does *not* work for me. That's the point - that is the code I started
> with. It works if I change \\($\\) to $ (but that's not what I need in the
> general case).
>
> (And yes, I realize that the quotes are not part of the regexp. By "I showed
> the regexp with double-quotes" I meant that I showed it enclosed in
> double-quotes.)

I guess you want to call some echo-like program compiled in the same
way as your "grep" to see what actually is happening here.  Probably
some part of Cygwin's Unix emulation layer is trying variable
substitution or replacing backward with forward slashes or adding
quotes or something like that.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum