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From: tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: grep replacement
Message-ID: <7207@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 88 01:18:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: watdrago.7207
References: <7882@alice.UUCP> <5630@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <6866@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <2978@ihlpe.ATT.COM> <1463@laidbak.UUCP> <4524@vdsvax.stei
5 Jun 88 01:18:28 GMT
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Organization: New OED Project, U. of Waterloo, Ontario
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Summary: grep -l should always work

Grep should, where reasonable, not be bound by the notion of a 'line'.
As a concrete expression of this, the useful grep -l (prints the names of
the files that contain the string) should work on any kind of file.  More
than one existing 'grep -l' will fail, for example, to tell you which of a 
bunch of .o files contain a given string.  Scenario - you're trying to
link 55 .o's together to build a program you don't know that well.  You're
on berklix.  ld sez: "undefined: _memcpy".  You say: "who's doing that?".
The source is scattered inconveniently.  The obvious thing to do is: 
grep -l _memcpy *.o
That this often will not work is irritating.
Tim Bray, New Oxford English Dictionary Project, U of Waterloo