Re: HOME variable not set when using -l option

[Chet Ramey]

On 1/13/14 10:25 AM, Audrius Butkevicius wrote:

> Bash Version: 4.2
> Patch Level: 45
> Release Status: release
> 
> Description:
> 
>         Login shell not setting HOME variable when using -l option,
>         but is set when using - as argument zero. This is not
>         differentiated in the documentation,
> 
>         "A login shell is one whose first character of argument zero
>         is a -, or one started with the --login option."
> 
>         therefore I assume it is a bug.

It's not; this is the way bash has behaved for a very long time (at least
twenty years).  A related question is whether bash should be setting HOME
at all; this is something that should be handled by the invoking process.

Chet

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/