Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven!uvaarpa!mmdf
From: marc@mit.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: pwd in perl
Message-ID: <1990Aug10.205437.21409@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 10 Aug 90 20:54:37 GMT
Sender: mmdf@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU (Uvaarpa Mail System)
Reply-To: marc@mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 20

|> Another thing that I don't think has been mentioned, is that you might
|> be in a directory whose parent directory you have no access to.  In
|> this case reading ..'s files until you find . will not work.  This is
|> why pwd must be setuid root, so that it can do the appropriate checks.

If you have no access to the parent, how did you get to where you are
now?  I think it's a safe assumption that you can read all the
directories up to the root.  My system makes this assumption; /bin/pwd
is not setuid root.  I think a lot of programs probably depend on
getwd() working.  Here, if getwd ()doesn't work, the shell won't even
do the right thing.

I agree that perl should have a portable getwd() function.  I think
it's clear that there is no straightforward way to do what needs to be
done portably, so each port must figure out what is right.  The case
of the PC was brought up, and the same issue applies to the Amiga, and
any other non-unix box perl is ported to.  IMHO, this is a useful
enough feature that it should be a builtin.  My $0.02.

		Marc