Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!van-bc!jtc
From: jtc@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (J.T. Conklin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Fgrep need not be slow (was Re: Fast file scan)
Message-ID: <2440@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 8 Oct 90 00:41:23 GMT
References: <143198@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1990Oct2.041451.3929@blilly.UUCP> <3790@awdprime.UUCP>
Organization: UniFax Communications Inc., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 25

In article <3790@awdprime.UUCP> tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain) writes:
>Fgrep means Fixed, egrep means Exponential (like in Exponentially faster)!
>If you care one tiny bit about the speed you'll only use fgrep when you
>have to.  Now can we stop discussing the fastest way to use fgrep?
>
>This lesson is a review for those that didn't believe it the first time.

As has been mentioned before, it depends on your implementation: not
all fgreps are slow.

I compared the speeds of GNU fgrep, GNU egrep, SCO XENIX fgrep, and SCO
XENIX egrep by searching for the word "dictionary" in a file containing
fourty-two copies of /usr/dict/words.

Execution speeds were as follows:
	GNU fgrep	10s
	GNU egrep	11s
	SCO egrep	16s
	SCO fgrep	59s

    --jtc

-- 
J.T. Conklin	UniFax Communications Inc.
		...!{uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!jtc, jtc@wimsey.bc.ca