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As I was learning (teaching myself) to use grep, I ran into a problem, some examples I was testing didn't work as I expected. I decided to try to figure out the problem on my own. First I would check that I was using the most up to date version of grep available. I searched for hours to no avail. I saw grep 2.5 & 3.0 referenced a few times and I have 2.25. So, my simple question at this point is;

Is grep 2.25 the most recent version available for ubuntu 16.04?

ajlz71
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    Do apt policy grep and see if you have the latest candidate installed. – Jos Jul 19 '18 at 13:43
  • I do. I think that answers my question. – ajlz71 Jul 19 '18 at 13:49
  • Unless "candidate" is specific to me and not to Ubuntu 16.04. In that case it would raise another question. Your further input would be appreciated. Thank you. – ajlz71 Jul 19 '18 at 13:54
  • By "me" I mean my configuration. – ajlz71 Jul 19 '18 at 13:56
  • I don't think that "unexpected" behavior of grep is related to its version. I think the problem is with your expectations. I suggest asking a more specific question about your real problem. – Pilot6 Jul 19 '18 at 13:58
  • No, it is not specific to your configuration. Here is a list of versions for 16.04 "Xenial": https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/xenial/+source/grep which shows that the latest for that distribution was 2.25.1-16.04.1. – Jos Jul 19 '18 at 13:59
  • Please add your examples to the question to be more specific. – N0rbert Jul 19 '18 at 14:06
  • I think your right, about the" "unexpected" behavior of grep" . Thanks for all your help, you answered my question, follow up question and provided a useful tool (apt policy) all in comments. I'll research grep usage a little more and post a different question if necessary. Thank You. – ajlz71 Jul 19 '18 at 14:07
  • This is not a duplicate question;Why don't the Ubuntu repositories have the latest versions of software? – ajlz71 Jul 19 '18 at 22:39
  • This is not a duplicate question." Why don't the Ubuntu repositories have the latest versions of software?" is very different than the question I asked. I don't want to know why Ubuntu doesn't have the latest versions, I'll just enjoy assuming there's a very good reason for it. I would however like to know if grep 2.25 is the recommended version. Thank you Jos for "apt policy" and other comment this will be useful now and in the future. Thank you Pilot6 for confirming my thoughts. Thank you NObert, for your answer, interest, and willingness to help, with the real problem . I'm out of space. – ajlz71 Jul 19 '18 at 22:55

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You can visit packages.ubuntu.com and determine version numbers (2.25 on xenial, 3.1 on bionic).

You can always install 18.04 LTS on VM and test grep here.

Also you can compare man 1 grep-pages on xenial and on bionic to determine the differences.

N0rbert
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