Re: BUG #8139: initdb: Misleading error message when current user not in /etc/passwd - Mailing list pgsql-bugs

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> Updated patch attached, with centralized checking for errno and more
> consistent behavior for username lookups.

This bit is not good:

+     errno = 0;    /* clear errno before call */
+     pw = getpwuid(geteuid());
+     if (!pw)
+     {
+         *errstr = psprintf(_("effective user id %d lookup failure: %s"),
+                 (int) geteuid(), errno ? strerror(errno) :
+                 _("user does not exist"));

The second call of geteuid() could clobber errno before strerror can see it.
You should compute geteuid() just once and keep it in a variable.

Also, I don't think that error message meets our style guidelines.
Maybe "failed to look up user id %d: ..." ?

            regards, tom lane