[HEADSUP] Impending gnugrep/libgnuregex removal

Kyle Evans kevans at freebsd.org
Wed Dec 23 02:57:27 UTC 2020


Hello!

Just an FYI- in r368439 (2020/12/08) we switched to bsdgrep as
/usr/bin/grep, and we stopped building and installing /usr/bin/gnugrep
entirely in r368548 (2020/12/11). I've now posted
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D27732 to remove gnugrep and libgnuregex
with the intention of committing it within a week or so.

As of right now:
- bsdgrep is generally a drop-in replacement for gnugrep (performance
not quite there, I have some WIP towards this)
- base gnugrep has a plethora of known bugs (see the list attached to
r368439[0])
- I've received no substantial complaints

Therefore, I do not see any value in keeping gnugrep/libgnuregex in
base any further. An actually functional version of it is available in
ports as textproc/gnugrep, and those seeking improved performance
should consider textproc/ripgrep or textproc/the_silver_searcher.

Thanks,

Kyle Evans

[0] https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/?view=revision&revision=r368439


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