grep is always recursive

[Hal Burgiss]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 11:15:00PM -0400, Derek Broughton wrote:
> 
> It's hardly fair to blame "Gnu" (or Linux, or *nix systems in
> general).  It's possible to use practically anything for a file
> name.  otoh, it is not _practical_ to use anything possible for a
> filename.   Linux does a better job than some other OS's at handling
> non-alphas in filenames, but it still isn't smart to use them as the
> leading character.

I understand that. I never would intentionally name a file like that.
I have 12,800 files in ~, I never (or rarely) look at file listings
visually. I use things like find and grep. This one was surely the
result of some long forgotten command run amuck. It has been a thorn
in my side for months. Had I known about it, it would not have been
there for long. 
 
> >       grep [OPTIONS] PATTERN [FILE...]
> >       grep [OPTIONS] [-e PATTERN | -f FILE] [FILE...]
> > 
> > says anything other than OPTIONS come before PATTERN and FILEs come
> > after. There clearly are ways to impart variable syntax.
> 
> Except that conventionally man pages do _exactly_ that - and yet
> options are not (normally) restricted to being before non-option
> arguments.  So your suggestion does not remove the problem.  You
> could use a BNF representation, but at the cost of making it
> significantly harder  to understand for most of the people who need
> the man page.

a) I think overwhelmingly most people would look at that syntax and
say OPTIONS comes before files. Without having to consult aging Unix
masters for the finer points in implied man page synopsis
interpretation. At some level, documentation should be clear, not
implied or deduced. A personal opinion, of course.

b) I have read man man, and man grep and have not seen a hint that
this syntax should be interpreted in any way other than how it
logically reads (ie how I read it :). Possibly, the explanation is
there explicitly, hinted at, or ambiguously stated, but if so, I
missed it. If not, it would not take much just say in the description
"put options anywhere you feel like on the command line" or whatever.
One sentence wouldn't muddy the works. 

I am not complaining at all against GNU. I am long time fan. I love
those guys. Life would be dull without man pages. Its just a thing. 

-- 
Hal