🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991May23.164059.8461@m.cs.uiuc.edu> joshi@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Anil Joshi) writes:

>   1. Why are there so many different reg.exp. suntaxes floating around?
>      Can't the people of UNIX come to some kind of agreement on this
>      issue?
 
Some utilities like vi(1) added the \< and \> expressions. Most
vendors haven't added this to sed, grep, etc. (SunOS has).

The problem is the use of (, ) and |
in sed, ed, grep, vi, etc.
	(, ), | - plain characters
	\( and \) mark groups


in awk, and egrep

	(, ) and | - special meanings
	\(, \), and \| - plain characters

therefore - ( and \( have opposite meanings in grep vs. egrep.

if egrep and awk were changed to use \(,  \)  and \| as special
meanings while (, ), and | were plain characters, then

	a. All the old code would break
	b. Everything would be compatable.
--
Bruce G. Barnett	barnett@crdgw1.ge.com	uunet!crdgw1!barnett