Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!oddjob!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!randy
From: randy@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Randy Orrison)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: grep replacement
Message-ID: <5826@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 88 04:18:07 GMT
References: <7962@alice.UUCP>
Reply-To: randy@umn-cs.UUCP (Randy Orrison)
Organization: Control Data, Arden Hills, Minnesota
Lines: 24
Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:9258 comp.unix.questions:7533

In article <7962@alice.UUCP> andrew@alice.UUCP writes:
|3) print lines with context.
|	the second most requested feature but i'm not doing it. this is
|	just the job for sed. to be consistent, we just took the context
							^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|	crap out of diff too. this is actually reasonable; showing context
	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|	is the job for a separate tool (pipeline difficulties apart).


What?!?!?   Ok, i would like context in grep, but i'll live without it.
Context diffs, however are a different matter.  There isn't an easy way
to generate them with diff/context (the first character of every line is
produced as part of the diff).  Context diffs are useful for patches, and
having a tool to generate them is necessary.  They're a logical improvement
to diff that is more than just context around the changes.

If you're fixing grep fine, but don't break diff while you're at it.

	-randy
-- 
Randy Orrison, Control Data, Arden Hills, MN		randy@ux.acss.umn.edu
8-(OSF/Mumblix: Just say NO!)-8	    {ihnp4, seismo!rutgers, sun}!umn-cs!randy
	"I consulted all the sages I could find in Yellow Pages,
	but there aren't many of them."			-APP