Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: How do I find a word?
Message-ID: <7553@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 1 May 91 17:40:12 GMT
References: <26716@adm.brl.mil> <1991May1.074339.27773@athena.mit.edu>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 10

>  With "grep", you can use the "-w" argument to tell it to look for words only.

Well, with some flavors of "grep", anyway.  I think Berkeley introduced
the "-w" flag; "-w" is shorthand for "stick a \< and a \> around the
pattern", and the BSD "grep" supports the "\<" and "\>" items as well.
 
S5's standard regular expression package doesn't support "\<" and "\>"
prior to S5R4, although we added them in SunOS 4.0; "ed", "grep", and
various other programs use them.  S5R4's standard regular expression
package does, I think, support them.