UNIX history made easy

[Robert Myers]

In article <17085 at rpp386.cactus.org> jfh at rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>In article <Sep.30.21.29.38.1989.9534 at elbereth.rutgers.edu> bschwart at elbereth.rutgers.edu (Not a Rich Republican) writes:
>>In article <20226 at usc.edu> gazit at cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:
>>>In article <IZ9Hkde00WB58=V2pf at andrew.cmu.edu> mg32+ at andrew.cmu.edu
>>>(Michael Ginsberg) writes:
>>>
>>>>what DOES grep stand for???
>>
>>It is named after the author of the program:  Gregula Rex Pression, Ph.D.
>
>No, it is named after the names of the four authors who worked on
>the original regular expression matching code for the UNIX editor
>'ed'.
>
>Their names are Gregior, Ritchie, Ebersol, and Pike.  Micheal

NO, "grep" does not stand for the so-called author's names.  It is
a more intuitive or UNIX-ish type of abbreviation.  If you think in
terms of ed/ex/vi you can see that "grep" is actually "g/<re>/p".
The g stands for "global search", the <re> for "regular expression",
and the p for "print".  The /'s are separators, required by the
syntax.  Executing such a command in ed or at the ":" prompt
in vi (or ex) will result in the search and display (ie printing) of
any line satisfying the regular expression.  This is also the
result of using the UNIX utility "grep".

Actually, "Gregula Rex Pression, Ph.D.", in a twisted way, sums it up nicely.

Raul Rathmann
raul at sdnp1.ucsd.edu
(Using and abusing this account in lieu of R. Myers)