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From: jsloan@wright.EDU (John Sloan)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: grep 'RE botch' error
Message-ID: <164@wright.EDU>
Date: Fri, 22-Aug-86 15:20:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: wright.164
Posted: Fri Aug 22 15:20:30 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Aug-86 10:24:30 EDT
References: <1080@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Organization: Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
Lines: 20

> >	grep '[' file
> >
> >	gives a 'RE botch' error on our VAX-750 running 4.2BSD.
> >Narendra Mehta, 
> That's not a bug, '[' is special to grep, try '\[' to escape it.
> 	-Barry Shein, Boston University

There is still a bug though: while [ is a special pattern operator to grep,
a single [ as in the example causes my 4.2BSD grep to go into a loop issuing
the "RE botch" error over and over. So while the error message is legitimate,
the ungraceful nonrecovery is not.
-- 
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