grep replacement

[Guy Harris]

> grep -l is a tool which is supposed to tell me whether one or more files
> contain a string.

No, it isn't.  "grep -l" is a tool that is supposed to tell you whether one or
more *text* files contain a string; if your file doesn't happen to contain
newlines at least every N characters or so, too bad.  If you want to improve
this situation by writing a "grep" that doesn't have this restriction, feel
free.

> The fact that it refuses to do so for a class of magic files is a
> gratuitous violation of the unix paradigm.

"ed is a tool that is supposed to let me modify files.  The fact that it
refuses to do so for a class of magic files is a gratuitous violation of the
unix paradigm."  Sorry, but the fact that you can't normally use "ed" to patch
binaries doesn't bother me one bit.