Re: nmh 1.8RC2, xlbiff, and $HOME

[Stephen Gildea]

Ken Hornstein <kenh@pobox.com> wrote:

>   >$ printf 'Path: /tmp\n' > /tmp/mh-profile-minimal
>   >$ HOME= MH=/tmp/mh-profile-minimal /usr/bin/mh/mhparam path
>   
>   Thank you for the analysis.  I am wondering, though ... WHY does xlbiff
>   set HOME to '' for this test?

To be clear, it is not xlbiff itself that does this, only an automated
unit test.  The test setup sets HOME to create a hermetic testing
environment; the result of the test should not depend on the user
running the test.  My current test sets HOME to an empty string.

The test could just as effectively set HOME to an non-existent directory.
I know of other test suites that use this approach.  This would still
give me a hermetic, repeatable test, while leaving nmh more freedom to
make, test, and enforce decisions about what values of HOME are allowed.

 < Stephen