MySQL Bugs: #51553: document that ~/.my.cnf means $HOME/.my.cnf

Bug #51553	document that ~/.my.cnf means $HOME/.my.cnf
Submitted:	26 Feb 2010 13:59	Modified:	26 Feb 2010 18:59
Reporter:	Axel Schwenke	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Documentation	Severity:	S4 (Feature request)
Version:	any	OS:	Any
Assigned to:	Paul DuBois	CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
The online manual in http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/option-files.html mentions that the user option file is ~/.my.cnf. It does not say how the home directory of the user is determined. It seems that the $HOME environment variable is used for that, so the file is looked for as $HOME/.my.cnf.

How to repeat:
set some client option in ~/.my.cnf, then run a command line tool like so:

env -i mysql
env -u HOME mysql

and see how it not finds ~/.my.cnf

Suggested fix:
Either add some words that the $HOME environment variable is used or simpy replace "~/.my.cnf" with "$HOME/.my.cnf". This would mix nicely with $MYSQL_HOME/my.cnf that is also used there.

The value of $HOME is used for performing tilde expansion. No $HOME, no tilde expansion either.

At least for bash.

Davi,

I agree that in most cases $HOME is used to find the homedir. But there are also getpw(3), getpwnam(3), getpwuid(3) for the same purpose. Our tools evaluate only $HOME and nothing else. This should be documented.

And just for the records; "man bash" says:

Tilde Expansion
... the tilde is replaced with the value of the shell parameter HOME. If HOME is unset, the home directory of the user executing the shell is substituted instead.

"Our tools evaluate only $HOME and nothing else."

mysys/default.c:init_default_directories():

#if !defined(__WIN__) && !defined(__NETWARE__)
  errors += add_directory(alloc, "~/", dirs);
#endif

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant products.

Added:

~ represents the current user's home directory (the value of $HOME).