[Bug 1535458] Re: [15.10 REGRESSION] Randomly wrongly detects files as binary

[sudodus]

No I still have problems with a file with Swedish characters. In a live
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS I installed grep version 2.25-1~16.04.1, but it did not
help, as you can see from the following dialogue in a terminal window.

ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ apt-cache policy grep
grep:
  Installerad: 2.25-1~16.04.1
  Kandidat:    2.25-1~16.04.1
  Versionstabell:
 *** 2.25-1~16.04.1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.24-1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ grep ning seen-binary-by-grep.txt 
Binary file seen-binary-by-grep.txt matches
ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ grep -a ning seen-binary-by-grep.txt 
vMgs		ingen l�sning - the Swedish character o-umlaut
osmak		ingen l�sning
smak		lösningen - the solution
ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ tail -n1 seen-binary-by-grep.txt |grep ning
smak		lösningen - the solution
ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ tail -n2 seen-binary-by-grep.txt |grep ning
Binary file (standard input) matches
ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ tail -n2 seen-binary-by-grep.txt |grep -a ning
osmak		ingen l�sning
smak		lösningen - the solution
ubuntu at ubuntu:~$ 

-o-

This works with older versions of grub, so I would call it a regression.

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Title:
  [15.10 REGRESSION] Randomly wrongly detects files as binary

Status in grep package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in grep package in Debian:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  I have a folder with a bunch of subfolder and several hundred or
  thousands files, most of them PHP files (obviously text).

  I often use grep recursively, like this:
    $ grep -R somepattern *

  Since the upgrade from 15.04 to 15.10, it often happens that a lot of text files are wrongly treated as binary. That means that, when a match is found, instead of getting the normal output which would show the file name and the matching line (with the matching substring highlighted), I get the bogus message:
    binary file whatever.php matches

  Just to be clear: in one invocation of grep -R, I get mixed output
  with a lot of matches shown in the expected way and quit e a few
  matches shown in the wrong way, even though ALL matching files are
  text files.

  
  This worked as expected before the upgrade from 15.04 and 15.10.

  
  This is a HUGE issue that makes it impossible to do everyday developing work.

  
  Until you fix it, please f***ing roll back grep to the previous version, because this sh** is unusable.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
  Package: grep 2.21-2
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-23.28-generic 4.2.6
  Uname: Linux 4.2.0-23-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
  ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu5
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Mon Jan 18 22:43:51 2016
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-11 (829 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
  SourcePackage: grep
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to wily on 2016-01-18 (0 days ago)

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