*BSD News Article 82828


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From: gchamber@mail.bright.net (Glenn Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things
Date: 14 Nov 1996 01:50:31 GMT
Organization: The Chambers Family
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <gchamber-1311962115400001@tole-cs-14.dial.bright.net>
References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> <E0tAts.BAr.0.queen@torfree.net>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26392 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1489 alt.folklore.computers:124559

> grep:
>         "Generic Regular Expression Printer"

Clever, but not correct.

grep is from the ed 'g' command, which had the syntax:

g/<regular expression>/<command>

where 'command' was any normal ed command, such as 'p', or 's/old/new/'.

Thus,

g/a[0-9]*/p

printed all lines containing the letter 'a' followed by zero or more digits.

If you describe this command as 'g/re/p', you'll immediately see where the
name of the program came from.

-- 
Glenn Chambers
gchamber@mail.bright.net
Toledo, OH