Re: How to match regex in bash? (any character)

[Peng Yu]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:
> On 9/29/11 9:48 AM, Peng Yu wrote:
>
>> Therefore, either bash manpage should specify clearly which regex
>> manpage it should be in each system (which a bad choice, because there
>> can be a large number of systems), or the bash manpage should omit all
>> the non consistent reference and say something like "see more details
>> in info" or something else that is platform independent. Referring to
>> regex(3) without any quantification is not a very good choice .
>
> Why, exactly?  regex(3) is the one thing that's portable across systems,
> it happens to describe the interfaces bash uses, and it contains the
> appropriate system-specific references.  `info' is considerably less
> portable and widespread than `man', so a man page reference is the best
> choice.

We all have discovered that regex(3) is not consistent across all the
platform. Why you say it is portable?

As I mentioned previously, the best is to add a few examples in man
bash. Based on the assumption that you don't want to add an example in
man bash, then the next choice to add a reference to info, even though
it may not always be available in all the system (but as least it
should be downloadable from bash gnu website).

-- 
Regards,
Peng