bug#63819: Gnu `grep '.*'` does not match an empty string.

[Bob Vincent Il (US)]

I discovered only today that the following commands all behave identically:

  *   grep -q '.*'
  *   grep -q '.\+'
  *   grep -q .
  *   grep -qE '.*'
  *   grep -qE '.+'
  *   grep -qE .

Gnu grep documentation says:

The period ‘.’ matches any single character. It is unspecified whether ‘.’ 
matches an encoding error.
and
‘*’

The preceding item is matched zero or more times.

I would think that an empty string matches "zero or more of any single 
character".

Can anyone point out where the documentation says otherwise?



Bob Vincent (US)<mailto:robert.a.vincent.ii@pwc.com>

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