Re: git grep argument parser bug

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 4, 2016, 22:18 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqzivgf7c6.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CANzEV58SgS6P_qBequGSfA0vFy9s0-KM3xOFaU2DDz_S3OyN3g@mail.gmail.com>

Dylan Grafmyre <dylang@conversica.com> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

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

I think you'd need to adjust your expectations, then ;-).

This is how "grep" (not "git grep") works, and you use "-e", i.e.

	grep -e "-anything that begins with a dash" FILES...

to disambiguate. If you are scripting, if you do not know what you have in a variable, and if you are looking for the value in that variable, you would always do

	grep -e "$variable" FILES...

not

        grep "$variable" FILES...

I think all of the above is pretty much the standard practice and "git grep" merely follows suit, i.e.

	git grep -e "-help"

is designed to work that way to match users' expectations.