Re: bin/38108: single regexp implementation for NetBSD base system

["Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc." <woods%planix.ca@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR bin/38108; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc." <woods%planix.ca@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/38108: single regexp implementation for NetBSD base system
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:55:57 -0500

 On 26-Feb-08, at 3:30 PM, cheusov%tut.by@localhost wrote:
 
 > It whould be nice to AWK/SED and GREP using the same regexp engine
 > from NetBSD libc. Or at least AWK able to be built with external
 > regexp engine that supports UTF-8. The same for usr.bin/grep and sed.
 
 Ideally I'd like to be able to replace lib/libc/regex with Henry  
 Spencer's latest regex implementation as it is found, for example, in  
 the TCL sources; and then of course have this new implementation be  
 used universally in all the common RE-capable tools on the system.
 
 > SUN did this for their AWK years ago, see wip/heirloom-awk.
 
 NetBSD uses the one true version of AWK from its author and current  
 maintainer.  See the doc/3RDPARTY entry for "nawk".
 
 Beware though that AWK as a language definition includes much, if not  
 all, of the RE syntax and semantics too and so arbitrarily switching  
 to a different RE implementation in the AWK interpreter is not  
 necessarily a good thing.  It would, for example, lead to the  
 possibility of many common portable scripts, including those used on  
 NetBSD through pkgsrc, to fail in strange and mysterious ways.   
 Sometimes it really is good to have a given tool provide its own  
 standardized version of a feature.
 
 -- 
                                        Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc.
                                        <woods%planix.ca@localhost>