Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: sed bug?
Message-ID: <3911@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 16 Aug 90 19:41:54 GMT
References: <24172@adm.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 16

>Bug?

Or misfeature, although some scripts in S5 (among others, "lint", I
think) depend on that behavior.  As I remember, the behavior exhibited
by S5 was also exhibited in UNIX/32V (or, at least, the part of the code
that differs was basically the same as in S5), while in V7 it worked the
BSD way. 

I think the 32V code was older (yes, 32V was allegedly a V7 port to the
VAX, but they may have started with something older than V7), so it
*seems* the change from the 32V/S5 behavior to the V7/BSD behavior might
have been intended as a bug fix or improvement.  I think the S5 "lint"s
dependency on the 32V/S5 behavior can be fixed; I think there are cases
where dependency on the V7/BSD behavior cannot.

POSIX 1003.2 may specify that this has to be done the V7/BSD way.