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#! rnews 2091 bsd Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!tir.com!not-for-mail From: "Scott W. Gifford" <sgifford@tir.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Date: 16 May 1997 19:00:39 GMT Organization: The Internet Ramp Lines: 35 Message-ID: <01bc622b$b51fb0c0$f8298acd@sgifford.tir.com> References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <337A003F.6A7B@ncofsi.com> <3378D37F.462F3A47@gaijin.com> <x6iv0l7uxw.fsf@ez.bts.com> <5ldtv3$jnm@eve.speakeasy.org> <337B0F6C.4C71614A@indiana.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: sgifford.tir.com X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1160 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45070 comp.os.linux.misc:175684 comp.os.linux.x:61774 alt.os.linux:21243 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3282 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41063 gnu.misc.discuss:31322 comp.unix.solaris:106727 Sam Hostetter <shostett@indiana.edu> wrote in article <337B0F6C.4C71614A@indiana.edu>... > Brian Raiter wrote: > > > > Phil Eschallier <phil@bts.com>: > > > > > grep = Global Regular Expresion Parser > > Actually, grep stands for General Regular Expresion Parser > The story that I have heard about grep is that the name comes from a common usage of Sed...In pre-grep days, the same thing was (and still can be) accomplished with: sed -e g/regular expression/p As this usage became more common, documentation, newsgroups messages, etc. began to abbreviate "regular expression" to "re", leading to people talking about: sed -e g/re/p And that, as they say is history. I don't remember where this story came from, and there's a fair-to-middling chance it has no basis in fact, but I choose to believe it. And if you do, too, that would make grep a "Global Regular Expression Printer"... Just an interesting story, -----Scott.