what should egrep '|root' print? (syntax/semantics)

[Obnoxious Math Grad Student]

In article <1988Sep20.043728.20198 at utzoo.uucp>, henry at utzoo (Henry Spencer) writes:
>					   Alas, I am also sympathetic
>to the argument that (1) it would be an unfortunate inconsistency, and
>(2) programs that generate regexps might have to go out of their way to
>avoid generating these magic sequences.  Argh.  Any thoughts?

>From a theoretician's point of view, these are the only arguments.

I ran into null regexps in Gnews, when I generalized from KILLing based on
newsgroup names to KILLing based on newsgroup regexps.  I was so pleased
when I realized that the null regexp would match all newsgroup names, and
thus provide for global KILLs.  It never occurred to me that there might
be regexp handlers that would not take this: it's plain unnatural.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720