Why fgrep?

[James A. Woods]

> too bad gre is not PD I believe...
> 
yes, at&t has a problem not only when others beat them to the punch in
implementing fast algorithms ("old" fast [ef]?grep, GNU e?grep, GNU diff,
fastfind, compress ...), but give them away to the world to boot.

most people will find the free gnu e?grep quite serviceable (the 10x speedup
particularly pleases the cray community), especially with the handy
context option, much more valuable than other flags.
it's been an "anonymous ftp" item on prep.ai.mit.edu for some time.

i write as someone who admires hume's work, but recognizes the world
doesn't have to wait for any decent code which might crop up in sys5r4.
btw, 'gre' is a horrible name; for something that's plug compatible,
educating purist oldtimers to change now will be difficult (though
many folks currently alias fast grep to 'g', anyhow).

ames!jaw