Re: Debian patches

[Jim Meyering]

Reuben Thomas wrote:
> I attach a patch for grep.1 and grep.texi which improves the discussion of 
> PCRE.

Thanks.  Applied, as below.
In the future, please include full git format-patch output,
or send with git send-email, including a
ChangeLog-style-with-discussion-when-appropriate commit log.

> I notice that grep.texi now uses year ranges in its copyright notice.
> I am confused, because I thought this was discouraged. Has thinking
> changed on this?

I've always seen obvious value in using ranges, and decreased value
in writing them out.  Arguments to the contrary?  I could try claiming
amnesia or even Alzheimer's ;-)


>From 9ecf17742ffe69de7ed8e96bbf3ecabccef12c75 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Reuben Thomas <address@hidden>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 23:47:43 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] doc: improve the discussion of PCRE

* doc/grep.1: Add a sentence about Perl regular expressions,
and point to pcresyntax(3) and pcrepattern(3).
* doc/grep.texi: Likewise.
---
 doc/grep.1    |   12 ++++++++----
 doc/grep.texi |   10 +++++++---
 2 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/grep.1 b/doc/grep.1
index c0ea754..e990272 100644
--- a/doc/grep.1
+++ b/doc/grep.1
@@ -595,13 +595,17 @@ Regular expressions are constructed analogously to 
arithmetic
 expressions, by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
 .PP
 .B grep
-understands two different versions of regular expression syntax:
-\*(lqbasic\*(rq and \*(lqextended.\*(rq  In
+understands three different versions of regular expression syntax:
+\*(lqbasic,\*(rq \*(lqextended\*(rq and \*(lqperl.\*(rq In
 .RB "\s-1GNU\s0\ " grep ,
-there is no difference in available functionality using either syntax.
+there is no difference in available functionality between basic and
+extended syntaxes.
 In other implementations, basic regular expressions are less powerful.
 The following description applies to extended regular expressions;
 differences for basic regular expressions are summarized afterwards.
+Perl regular expressions give additional functionality, and are
+documented in pcresyntax(3) and pcrepattern(3), but may not be
+available on every system.
 .PP
 The fundamental building blocks are the regular expressions
 that match a single character.
@@ -1210,7 +1214,7 @@ Back-references are very slow, and may require 
exponential time.
 awk(1), cmp(1), diff(1), find(1), gzip(1),
 perl(1), sed(1), sort(1), xargs(1), zgrep(1),
 mmap(2), read(2),
-pcre(3), pcrepattern(3),
+pcre(3), pcresyntax(3), pcrepattern(3),
 terminfo(5),
 glob(7), regex(7).
 .SS "\s-1POSIX\s0 Programmer's Manual Page"
diff --git a/doc/grep.texi b/doc/grep.texi
index 6a238be..c2a494d 100644
--- a/doc/grep.texi
+++ b/doc/grep.texi
@@ -1045,13 +1045,17 @@ A @dfn{regular expression} is a pattern that describes 
a set of strings.
 Regular expressions are constructed analogously to arithmetic expressions,
 by using various operators to combine smaller expressions.
 @command{grep} understands
-two different versions of regular expression syntax:
-``basic''(BRE) and ``extended''(ERE).
+three different versions of regular expression syntax:
+``basic,'' (BRE) ``extended'' (ERE) and ``perl''.
 In @sc{gnu} @command{grep},
-there is no difference in available functionality using either syntax.
+there is no difference in available functionality between basic and
+extended syntaxes.
 In other implementations, basic regular expressions are less powerful.
 The following description applies to extended regular expressions;
 differences for basic regular expressions are summarized afterwards.
+Perl regular expressions give additional functionality, and are
+documented in pcresyntax(3) and pcrepattern(3), but may not be
+available on every system.

 @menu
 * Fundamental Structure::
--
1.7.0.1.300.gd855a