Solaris Compile configure: error: no acceptable grep could be found in

When compiling programs in Solaris you may find you recieve the following error (or something along the same lines) complaining about grep.

checking for grep that handles long lines and -e… ./configure: line 3859: 13085 Killed
“$ac_path_GREP” -e ‘GREP$’ -e ‘-(cannot match)-‘ <“conftest.nl” >”conftest.out” 2>/dev/null
./configure: line 3859: 13092 Killed                  “$ac_path_GREP” -e ‘GREP$’ -e ‘-(cannot match)-‘ <“conftest.nl” >”conftest.out” 2>/dev/null
configure: error: no acceptable grep could be found in /usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/xpg4/bin

The easiest way I found to get around this issue is to link grep to egrep. You can do think by using the following commands :

find / -name grep -exec rm {} \;
for i in `find / -name egrep` ; do echo ln -s $i `echo $i | sed ‘s/egrep/grep/g’` ; done

These commands will create a soft link (grep) to your egrep binary.

Rick Donato
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