From: Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:41:59 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fallback on getpwuid if envar HOME is unset
Message-ID: <m2harwccjs.fsf@igel.home>
In-Reply-To: <7vzk5ocdg7.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> 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, schwab@linux-m68k.org
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