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Re: "which" command does not expand "~" in path


On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Sven Köhler wrote:

> > > But is there any command that give's me the home for a given username?
> >
> > bash -c "echo ~username"
>
> Oh well, beside bash (and any other big programm called shell)
>
> > Or you could write one using the getpwnam() call (better yet, the
> > reentrant versions, getpwnam_r()), and submit it to, say, cygutils (since
> > sh-utils is no longer being actively developed).
>
> I just wondered how to write a "correct" shell-script that runs with /bin/sh,
> and it seems there is no way "shell-script"-way to figure out a  user's
> homedir.

You could try

awk -F: "/^username:/"'{print $6}' < /etc/passwd

(the pattern is in double quotes so that variable substitution can occur,
e.g., you could change "username" to "$1" in a shell script).
	Igor
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