GNU bug report logs - #48894
ambiguous descriptions of logname and whoami

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.net>

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2021 01:50:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Done: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #10 received at 48894-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.net>,
 48894-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#48894: ambiguous descriptions of logname and whoami
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 15:28:38 +0100
On 07/06/2021 02:49, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
> Hey.
> 
> Man page of logname say:
> "Print the name of the current user."
> 
> IMO that's ambiguous as it's probably ought to be the name returned by
> getlogin().
> 
> So when I login as normal user, and "su -" to root, logname won't print
> "root" but the normal user.
> However, what most people will understand under the "the current user"
> would be root, in that case.
> 
> 
> 
> Man AND info pages of whoami say:
> "print effective userid"
> 
> However, it's the user name, that is printed, not the userid (which
> most people will understand as the numerical UID).

Fixed with: https://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=coreutils.git;a=commitdiff;h=f76a56831

thanks!
Pádraig




This bug report was last modified 3 years and 332 days ago.

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