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From: molenda@s1.msi.umn.edu (Jason Molenda)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: getting elm to actually use $HOME
Summary: includes patch
Message-ID: <1991May28.170430.1953@s1.msi.umn.edu>
Date: 28 May 91 17:04:30 GMT
Organization: The Very Large Group of People Who Wish to Have More Money
Lines: 44

The documentation for elm seems to indicate that elm will use the environment
variable $HOME when determining where to find the .elm directory (it says
"$HOME/.elm/elmrc" if memory serves me correctly).  Unfortunately, it 
actually gets the home directory from the password file.  This is a problem
if you're trying to have multiple .elm directories under one account
(ie when sharing an account with someone).  I've modified init.c so that
it will first look for the environment variable $HOME to determine the
home directory.  Failing that, it will look to the password file.

Is there some reason why it was not done this way?  Is it a possible
security risk or somesuch thing?  Will it fail miserably under certain
cases which I'm not thinking of?  I honestly don't know.  I know it works
the way I expect it to and I'm happy, so I'll be using the patch.  If
anyone else uses it, it's at your own risk.

This patch is for elm 2.3 patchlevel 11.  Be in the 'src' subdirectory
when patching.

*** init.c.orig	Tue May 28 11:17:53 1991
--- init.c	Tue May 28 11:20:19 1991
***************
*** 139,145 ****
  	  exit(1);
  	}
  	strcpy(username, pass->pw_name);
! 	strcpy(home, pass->pw_dir);
  
  	if((cp = get_full_name(username)) != NULL)
  	  strcpy(full_username, cp);
--- 139,149 ----
  	  exit(1);
  	}
  	strcpy(username, pass->pw_name);
! 
!         if ( (cp = getenv("HOME")) == NULL)
! 	   strcpy(home, pass->pw_dir);
!         else
!            strcpy(home, cp);
  
  	if((cp = get_full_name(username)) != NULL)
  	  strcpy(full_username, cp);
-- 
Jason Molenda, Tech Support, Iris & News Admin, Minnesota Supercomputer Inst
molenda@msi.umn.edu || "You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish."