Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Expansion of the acronym "grep"
Message-ID: <10383@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 8 Jun 89 20:42:01 GMT
References: <25249@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <219@mipos3.intel.com>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 8

In article <219@mipos3.intel.com> pete@escher.intel.com (Peter Johnson ~) writes:
>"fgrep" gets its name from "fast grep", and it only supports searching
>for strings (so the re in its name is a misnomer.)

(So is the "fast".)

There are numerous implementations of various flavors of the "grep" tool.
Some people have even merged all the variants into a single tool.