Bug 1011663

Description of problem:

grep -r is behaving differently between distros. Not sure if a broken behavior has been fixed or bug introduced.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
grep-2.14-5.fc20.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Execute the following from /tmp (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

1. grep -roe '^nfs.*--server' /root/anaconda-ks.cfg | grep -roe ^nfs

where anaconda-ks.cfg contains something like:

nfs --server=nfs-01.eng.brq.redhat.com --dir=/pub/fedora/linux/development-snapshot-20130924/20/x86_64/os/ --opts="nolock"

Actual results:
On RHEL 6 with grep-2.6.3-4.el6.x86_64 this yields just "nfs", while on Fedora 20 it yields empty string.

Expected results:
Same result in both versions.

Additional info:

Reading the man page I see -r is for recursion which is not needed in this case. Indeed removing -r from the command sequence gives correct results.


If you execute from /root on Fedora 20:
# grep -roe '^nfs.*--server' /root/anaconda-ks.cfg | grep -roe ^nfs
anaconda-ks.cfg:nfs
anaconda-ks.cfg:nfs

while on RHEL 6 from /root:
# grep -roe '^nfs.*--server' /root/anaconda-ks.cfg | grep -roe ^nfs
nfs


I think in the Fedora 20 version -r implies to recursively scan all files in the local directory regardless of input on stdout while in RHEL6 -r doesn't have an effect if a file/stdout is specified. Not sure which version is at fault.