Hello Tobias,
Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote:
Thank you for maintaining this package!
You are welcome! :-)
I.e. passing '-L' also 'flips' the return value.
Thank you for reporting this. It looks like a recent, backwards-incompatible
change in GNU grep.
Both GNU grep 2.5 (2001) and 3.1 (2017) state that:
"Normally the exit status is 0 if a line is selected, 1 if no lines were
selected, and 2 if an error occurred."
But then, GNU grep 3.4 states[1]:
"Normally the exit status is 0 if a line is selected, 1 if no lines were
selected, and 2 if an error occurred. However, if the -L or
--files-without-match is used, the exit status is 0 if a file is listed, 1
if no files were listed, and 2 if an error occurred."
[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/html_node/Exit-Status.html
I can't find '-L's effect on exit status (if any) explicitly documented
anywhere, so I don't know who's correct.
Option '-L' is not in POSIX grep, but POSIX states that[2]:
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 One or more lines were selected.
1 No lines were selected.
>1 An error occurred.
[2] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/grep.html
Therefore the following change[3] in GNU grep 3.2 is not POSIX compliant:
"The --files-without-match (-L) option now causes grep to succeed when a
file is listed, instead of when a line is selected. This resembles what
git-grep does."
[3] http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grep.git/tree/NEWS#n62
The only "fix" I can think just now is to stop testing the exit status of
grep when '-L' is specified. :-(
Best regards,
Antonio.
