SF Markus Elfring wrote:
Which test result do you get for the command example “printf -- '\t\tif\n'|grep -E '^\s+[^i]'”?
I get a line like this: if and this is the correct answer.
* Does the tool “grep” output any extra colour information also for matched tab characters?
Not with that test case, no. There is no color information at all. grep's --color option was not used.
A similar clarification attempt resulted in a bit of better understanding for the software situation. https://github.com/beyondgrep/ack2/issues/661
That's a long page, which I don't have the patience to read to the end. As near as I can make out, the basic problem is that you didn't understand how grep is supposed to work, and reported its behavior as a bug. However, as far as I can see from the above example, grep is working as specified.