NEWS revision 56915
154359SrobertoVersion 2.4.1 254359Sroberto 354359Sroberto - If the final byte of an input file is not a newline, grep now silently 454359Sroberto supplies one. 554359Sroberto 654359Sroberto - The new option --binary-files=TYPE makes grep assume that a binary input 754359Sroberto file is of type TYPE. 854359Sroberto --binary-files='binary' (the default) outputs a 1-line summary of matches. 954359Sroberto --binary-files='without-match' assumes binary files do not match. 1082498Sroberto --binary-files='text' treats binary files as text 1182498Sroberto (equivalent to the -a or --text option). 1282498Sroberto 1382498Sroberto - New option -I; equivalent to --binary-files='without-match'. 1482498Sroberto 1582498SrobertoVersion 2.4: 1654359Sroberto 1754359Sroberto - egrep is now equivalent to `grep -E' as required by POSIX, 1854359Sroberto removing a longstanding source of confusion and incompatibility. 1954359Sroberto `grep' is now more forgiving about stray `{'s, for backward 2054359Sroberto compatibility with traditional egrep. 2154359Sroberto 2254359Sroberto - The lower bound of an interval is not optional. 2356746Sroberto You must use an explicit zero, e.g. `x{0,10}' instead of `x{,10}'. 2454359Sroberto (The old documentation incorrectly claimed that it was optional.) 2554359Sroberto 2654359Sroberto - The --revert-match option has been renamed to --invert-match. 2754359Sroberto 28285612Sdelphij - The --fixed-regexp option has been renamed to --fixed-string. 29285612Sdelphij 30285612Sdelphij - New option -H or --with-filename. 31285612Sdelphij 32285612Sdelphij - New option --mmap. By default, GNU grep now uses read instead of mmap. 33285612Sdelphij This is faster on some hosts, and is safer on all. 34285612Sdelphij 3554359Sroberto - The new option -z or --null-data causes `grep' to treat a zero byte 36285612Sdelphij (the ASCII NUL character) as a line terminator in input data, and 37285612Sdelphij to treat newlines as ordinary data. 38285612Sdelphij 39285612Sdelphij - The new option -Z or --null causes `grep' to output a zero byte 40285612Sdelphij instead of the normal separator after a file name. 41285612Sdelphij 42285612Sdelphij - These two options can be used with commands like `find -print0', 4354359Sroberto `perl -0', `sort -z', and `xargs -0' to process arbitrary file names, 4454359Sroberto even those that contain newlines. 4554359Sroberto 4654359Sroberto - The environment variable GREP_OPTIONS specifies default options; 47285612Sdelphij e.g. GREP_OPTIONS='--directories=skip' reestablishes grep 2.1's 4854359Sroberto behavior of silently skipping directories. 49285612Sdelphij 50285612Sdelphij - You can specify a matcher multiple times without error, e.g. 51285612Sdelphij `grep -E -E' or `fgrep -F'. It is still an error to specify 52285612Sdelphij conflicting matchers. 53285612Sdelphij 54285612Sdelphij - -u and -U are now allowed on non-DOS hosts, and have no effect. 55285612Sdelphij 56285612Sdelphij - Modifications of the tests scripts to go around the "Broken Pipe" 57285612Sdelphij errors from bash. See Bash FAQ. 58285612Sdelphij 5954359Sroberto - New option -r or --recursive or --directories=recurse. 6054359Sroberto (This option was also in grep 2.3, but wasn't announced here.) 6154359Sroberto 6254359Sroberto - --without-included-regex disable, was causing bogus reports .i.e 6354359Sroberto doing more harm then good. 6454359Sroberto 6554359SrobertoVersion 2.3: 6654359Sroberto 6754359Sroberto - When searching a binary file FOO, grep now just reports 6854359Sroberto `Binary file FOO matches' instead of outputting binary data. 6954359Sroberto This is typically more useful than the old behavior, 7054359Sroberto and it is also more consistent with other utilities like `diff'. 7154359Sroberto A file is considered to be binary if it contains a NUL (i.e. zero) byte. 72285612Sdelphij 7354359Sroberto The new -a or --text option causes `grep' to assume that all 74285612Sdelphij input is text. (This option has the same meaning as with `diff'.) 75285612Sdelphij Use it if you want binary data in your output. 76285612Sdelphij 77285612Sdelphij - `grep' now searches directories just like ordinary files; it no longer 7854359Sroberto silently skips directories. This is the traditional behavior of 79285612Sdelphij Unix text utilities (in particular, of traditional `grep'). 8054359Sroberto Hence `grep PATTERN DIRECTORY' should report 81285612Sdelphij `grep: DIRECTORY: Is a directory' on hosts where the operating system 82285612Sdelphij does not permit programs to read directories directly, and 83285612Sdelphij `grep: DIRECTORY: Binary file matches' (or nothing) otherwise. 8454359Sroberto 85285612Sdelphij The new -d ACTION or --directories=ACTION option affects directory handling. 86285612Sdelphij `-d skip' causes `grep' to silently skip directories, as in grep 2.1; 87285612Sdelphij `-d read' (the default) causes `grep' to read directories if possible, 88285612Sdelphij as in earlier versions of grep. 89285612Sdelphij 90285612Sdelphij - The MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows ports now behave identically to the 91285612Sdelphij GNU and Unix ports with respect to binary files and directories. 92285612Sdelphij 93285612SdelphijVersion 2.2: 9454359Sroberto 95285612SdelphijBug fix release. 9654359Sroberto 97285612Sdelphij - Status error number fix. 98285612Sdelphij - Skipping directories removed. 99285612Sdelphij - Many typos fix. 100285612Sdelphij - -f /dev/null fix(not to consider as an empty pattern). 101285612Sdelphij - Checks for wctype/wchar. 102285612Sdelphij - -E was using the wrong matcher fix. 103285612Sdelphij - bug in regex char class fix 104285612Sdelphij - Fixes for DJGPP 105285612Sdelphij 106285612SdelphijVersion 2.1: 107285612Sdelphij 108285612SdelphijThis is a bug fix release(see Changelog) i.e. no new features. 109285612Sdelphij 110285612Sdelphij - More compliance to GNU standard. 111285612Sdelphij - Long options. 112285612Sdelphij - Internationalisation. 113285612Sdelphij - Use automake/autoconf. 114285612Sdelphij - Directory hierarchy change. 115285612Sdelphij - Sigvec with -e on Linux corrected. 116285612Sdelphij - Sigvec with -f on Linux corrected. 117285612Sdelphij - Sigvec with the mmap() corrected. 118285612Sdelphij - Bug in kwset corrected. 11954359Sroberto - -q, -L and -l stop on first match. 12054359Sroberto - New and improve regex.[ch] from Ulrich Drepper. 121285612Sdelphij - New and improve dfa.[ch] from Arnold Robbins. 122285612Sdelphij - Prototypes for over zealous C compiler. 123285612Sdelphij - Not scanning a file, if it's a directory 124285612Sdelphij (cause problems on Sun). 125285612Sdelphij - Ported to MS-DOS/MS-Windows with DJGPP tools. 12654359Sroberto 12754359SrobertoSee Changelog for the full story and proper credits. 12854359Sroberto 12954359SrobertoVersion 2.0: 13054359Sroberto 13154359SrobertoThe most important user visible change is that egrep and fgrep have 13254359Srobertodisappeared as separate programs into the single grep program mandated 13354359Srobertoby POSIX 1003.2. New options -G, -E, and -F have been added, 134132451Srobertoselecting grep, egrep, and fgrep behavior respectively. For 135182007Srobertocompatibility with historical practice, hard links named egrep and 136182007Srobertofgrep are also provided. See the manual page for details. 137182007Sroberto 138182007SrobertoIn addition, the regular expression facilities described in Posix 139285612Sdelphijdraft 11.2 are now supported, except for internationalization features 140182007Srobertorelated to locale-dependent collating sequence information. 141285612Sdelphij 142285612SdelphijThere is a new option, -L, which is like -l except it lists 143285612Sdelphijfiles which don't contain matches. The reason this option was 144285612Sdelphijadded is because '-l -v' doesn't do what you expect. 145285612Sdelphij 14654359SrobertoPerformance has been improved; the amount of improvement is platform 14754359Srobertodependent, but (for example) grep 2.0 typically runs at least 30% faster 14854359Srobertothan grep 1.6 on a DECstation using the MIPS compiler. Where possible, 14954359Srobertogrep now uses mmap() for file input; on a Sun 4 running SunOS 4.1 this 15082498Srobertomay cut system time by as much as half, for a total reduction in running 15154359Srobertotime by nearly 50%. On machines that don't use mmap(), the buffering 15254359Srobertocode has been rewritten to choose more favorable alignments and buffer 15354359Srobertosizes for read(). 154132451Sroberto 15556746SrobertoPortability has been substantially cleaned up, and an automatic 15654359Srobertoconfigure script is now provided. 15754359Sroberto 15854359SrobertoThe internals have changed in ways too numerous to mention. 159285612SdelphijPeople brave enough to reuse the DFA matcher in other programs 160285612Sdelphijwill now have their bravery amply "rewarded", for the interface 161285612Sdelphijto that file has been completely changed. Some changes were 16254359Srobertonecessary to track the evolution of the regex package, and since 163285612SdelphijI was changing it anyway I decided to do a general cleanup. 164285612Sdelphij