On 13Nov07:1701+0000, Ted MacNEIL wrote: > >grep stands for General Regular Expression > > I had always thought it was: > Get Regular Expression and Print
No, it means global, the ed command followed by a regular expression and a command to perform upon the set of lines matched by said regex; e.g., g/^$/d will delete all null lines in the file. After a while the Fathers wearied of firing up ed when all they wanted to do was extract a subset of a text file. In case it is not obvious, the verb was coined before the executable was envisioned. -- <not cent from sell> May the LORD God bless you exceedingly abundantly! Dave_Craig______________________________________________ "So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe." __--from_Nightfall_by_Asimov/Silverberg_________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
