Re: grep -r problem

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 10:56:09 -0600
> From: address@hidden (Bob Proulx)
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > Russ Koyle writes:
> > >  grep -l -r void *.c
> > > grep: *.c: No such file or directory
> > 
> > That's because you misunderstand the meaning of -r.  It does _not_
> > search *.c files in all subdirectories; instead, it recursively
> > searches in all subdirectories whose names match *.c.
> 
> Yes.  But I think your explaination has a dangling modifier which
> makes it ambigous still.

It was ambigous on purpose: I wanted to encourage the OP to re-read
the docs.  Now you have ruined my carefully crafted plan ;-)

> The shell expands *.c before the command ever sees it.  Use 'echo' to
> look at what is getting executed.  In the case that there is no match
> then the literal * will get passed through.

You are assuming too much here, IMHO.  First, you assume that we are
dealing with a Unix shell.  While the OP did say it's on HP/UX, he
might well be running Grep on Windows tomorrow, where stock shells
don't expand wildcards (instead, the startup code of Grep does that).

And second, where *.c doesn't match anything, some Unix shells will
say "No match" and refuse to invoke Grep at all (apparently, the shell
used by the OP is not of this variety).