From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:39:20 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add two grep config options Message-ID: <7vy63zxf6v.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20110328172122.GA20817@sigill.intra.peff.net> Jeff King writes: > I dunno. I generally prefer to use extended regexps when I can, but I > don't remember ever having been annoyed that they are not the default > with git grep. Perhaps because 99% of my greps are for literal symbol > names (whereas in my editor, I am often doing substitutions, and I am > continually annoyed at having to use backslash to make my parentheses > magical). I do not think I've ever been annoyed that "GNU grep" needs -E to enable extended regexps, either. As much as I hate GREP_OPTIONS and GREP_COLORS environment variables that force us to write a "sane_grep" wrapper to run "grep" while disabling these, I have to admit that the approach to use these environment variables is far easier to disable than having a set of configuration variables that cover many commands we have, which is harder to disable selectively. Having discussed all this, with an addition of --[no-]line-number synonym to the existing -n option, I don't think this particular incompatibility is a huge issue. At the worst, we might want to wait until a version bump like 1.8.0, but I personally think a prominent notice in the release notes in 1.7.5 would be sufficient.