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Date:      Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:52:59 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Sean Farley <sean-freebsd@farley.org>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Replacing GNU grep revisited
Message-ID:  <20030625132648.J72955@thor.farley.org>
In-Reply-To: <20030625000344.A54424@smtp.k12us.com>
References:  <20030621103502.K18572@thor.farley.org> <20030625000344.A54424@smtp.k12us.com>

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On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Christopher Weimann wrote:

> There is at least one aspect of freegrep that doesn't even come
> close to GNU grep, fgrep.

I just added fgrep handling.  It better be slower. :)  At least it will
now try a faster method on the patterns before hitting the regex
library.  It is still slow.

> I ran both of these more than once so it is not a fluke.  After
> looking at it further it seems that freegrep does not use the
> Aho-Corasick algorithim for fgrep but just uses brute force.

Yes, it uses brute force.  I am considering either Aho-Corasick,
Commentz-Walter (used in GNU fgrep) or the Boyer-Moore variation used in
Glimpse and an older agrep.  The last algorithm is supposedly the
fastest, but I do not know if these algorithms are patent-free or not.

> I wonder how many of the other old utils outrun our modern ones.
> I guess it must be all those gotos. :)

Better than a lot of gosubs.  :)

Sean
-----------------------
sean-freebsd@farley.org



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