> > If Paul said it's
> > ok to assume `+' is not a meta-character in `grep', I believe it.
>
> You shouldn't believe it. The answer is Plan 9.
>
> OK, but Plan 9 grep is not the same as traditional grep at all. It
> uses a syntax that is almost an extension of POSIX egrep (i.e. it uses
> EREs, not BREs). Unfortunately it's not a pure extension: the bracket
> expression syntax is incompatible.
>
> If you want autoconf to work with Plan 9, you'll probably have more
> work to do. For example, Plan 9 does not have "egrep", so you'll have
> to remove all uses of egrep (despite what the GNU coding standards
> say). And there are undoubtedly other problems as well.
I'm affraid that this subtle problem starts getting more attention that is
deserves.
My arguments (if neighter of them is convincing, let's forget this issue
and switch to something more interesting):
1) The lack of egrep is easier to detect than this quirk in grep.
2) It is Ok to ask for additional programs, but it's better to avoid
replacing the programs the system ships with.
3) There is an open PR/138 in the autoconf bug database. Somebody must
have encountered this already.
4) Somebody has already been confused by an unquoted plus while having
problems with ncurses headers.
Regards,
Pavel Roskin
