Subject: Re: Recursive grep (where is limfree defined?)
To: Jeff Thieleke <thieleke@icaen.uiowa.edu>
From: None <Chris_G_Demetriou@NIAGARA.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU>
List: current-users
Date: 01/23/1996 01:07:36
> > >Where is limfree defined?
> > 
> > find /usr/src/sys -name '*.c' -exec grep '^limfree' '{}' /dev/null \;
> 
> 
> I found this patch today on the FreeBSD hackers mailing list.  It patches
> the grep source to allow recursive searches.  Compared to the find method
> shown above, it is about 3-4x faster.

how does it compare to:
	find /usr/src/sys -name "*.c" | xargs grep '^limfree' /dev/null
?

i think i'd best describe a patch that does that as ...
architecturally challenged, and not just a bit against the spirit of
what grep is 'supposed' to do.

the find ... | xargs ... is:
	(1) probably not that much more inefficient,
	(2) is portable to any POSIX system,
	(3) is more flexible (both because of find's flexibility, and
	    because you can do a lot with a pipeline).

why build unnecessary (and, in my opinion, dumb) functionality into
grep?


chris