URL:
<http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=16635>
Summary: synopsis on man page shows pattern as optional
Project: grep
Submitted by: bens
Submitted on: Saturday 05/20/2006 at 16:55
Category: None
Severity: 3 - Normal
Item Group: None
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Open/Closed: Open
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Details:
The synopsis of grep on its man page says:
grep [OPTIONS] PATTERN [FILE...]
grep [OPTIONS] [-e PATTERN | -f FILE] [FILE...]
The second line gives the impression that a pattern and pattern file are
optional, which is mistaken. How to express this correctly in a single line,
I dont't know. The synopsis on
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/grep.html takes three
lines to show that either a pattern or a pattern file should be given.
Maybe this is an alternative:
grep [OPTIONS] [-e] PATTERN [FILE...]
grep [OPTIONS] -f FILE [FILE...]
But in fact GNU grep allows -e and -f together, and even mutiple -e's and
-f's, so a fully descriptive synopsis would be:
grep [OPTIONS] [-e] PATRN [-e PATRN]... [-f FILE]... FILE...]
grep [OPTIONS] [-e PATRN]... -f FILE [-f FILE]... [FILE...]
But this is... ugly.
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