Re: git grep argument parser bug

From: Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 5, 2016, 00:22 UTC
Message-ID: <CACsJy8DCn9z2hbodqFw7bL=JDwV8LfFiv52Bk__UO5y8nfcm-A@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CANzEV58SgS6P_qBequGSfA0vFy9s0-KM3xOFaU2DDz_S3OyN3g@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 5:02 AM, Dylan Grafmyre <dylang@conversica.com> wrote:

> In both ubuntu versions of git 1.9.1 and 2.7.0
>
>     git grep '-test'
>     git grep '--help'

(Un)Quoting is done by shell and stripped out before "git" is executed. We just don't see them.

Show 11 quoted lines

> Or any other expressions literal leading with a single dash or double
> dash get interpreted as argument flags and not as search expressions.
>
> What I expect is grep results for the literal strings "-test" and "--help"
> What i get is git help output informing of wrong argument usage, or
> accidentally turning on flags I didn't expect.
>
> Work around; for afflicted users terminating argument parsing with `
> -- ` works as it should.
>
>     git grep -- '-test'

Or you can do "git grep -e --test". UNIX grep faces the same problem, and also has -e to deal with it.

> Confirmed on two Ubuntu [based] systems, Ubuntu Server 14.03 and
> LinuxMint 17.3 [Cinnamon]

-- 
Duy