[PATCH 1/2] ident: stop assuming that `gw_gecos` is writable

From: Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 27, 2025, 15:44 UTC
Message-ID: <045c11dc1d51690eed4dc07da26dcace612f786c.1740671049.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <pull.1867.git.1740671049.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>

In 590e081dea7c (ident: add NO_GECOS_IN_PWENT for systems without pw_gecos in struct passwd, 2011-05-19), code was introduced to iterate over the `gw_gecos` field; The loop variable is of type `char *`, which assumes that `gw_gecos` is writable.

However, it is not necessarily writable (and it is a bad idea to have it writable in the first place), so let's switch the loop variable type to `const char *`.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
---
 ident.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/ident.c b/ident.c
index caf41fb2a98..967895d8850 100644
--- a/ident.c
+++ b/ident.c
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ static struct passwd *xgetpwuid_self(int *is_bogus)
 
 static void copy_gecos(const struct passwd *w, struct strbuf *name)
 {
-	char *src;
+	const char *src;
 
 	/* Traditionally GECOS field had office phone numbers etc, separated
 	 * with commas.  Also & stands for capitalized form of the login name.

-- 
gitgitgadget