Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fallback on getpwuid if envar HOME is unset

From: Andreas Schwab <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 20:41:59 +0200

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> Where do shells (e.g. bash and dash) go when you say "cd" without
> parameter when $HOME is unset, for example?

$ bash -c 'unset HOME; cd'
bash: line 0: cd: HOME not set
$ dash -c 'unset HOME; cd'
[no output and cwd not changed]

POSIX says:

    If no directory operand is given and the HOME environment variable
    is empty or undefined, the default behavior is
    implementation-defined and no further steps shall be taken.

Another data point: bash falls back to getpwuid when expanding ~, dash
leaves it alone.  (POSIX makes it unspecified.)

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, [email-masked]
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