RE: username should be lower-case for $USER

["phil long" <tinstaafl at juno dot com>]

On 10-jan-2007 Dave Korn wrote: 

>On 09 January 2007 22:15, David Smiley wrote:
>
>> I forgot to add, I log into a windows domain and so I can't set the
case.
>> Perhaps this issue only relates to windows domain logins.  Maybe they 
>> are case insensitive because when I log into the domain, I ALWAYS 
>> specify it in lower case.  I don't think I've ever seen it presented 
>> to me (in Windows) as upper case.  Yet in CYGWIN, $USER=DSMILEY.  If 
>> domain logins are case *in*sensitive (appears likely), then it would 
>> seem to me that it should be normalized to lower-case for use in CYGWIN.
>
>  That's a non-sequitur.  It should not be /normalised/; it should be
*canonicalised*.  And the canonical definition is whatever your domain
server reports to cygwin that your user name is.  Case-preserving but
case-insensitive, remember?
>
>  Since it's insensitive, just hand-edit your /etc/passwd to look the
way you like and you're done.
>
>  BTW, I log-on to a domain, and my $USER name has always been lower-case.
>It's just the way your admin has created your account.

I also log into a domain, and my username there is 'LongPhil'.  I have
gone through several computers while at this job, and have transferred
stuff from one machine to the next each time.  Our MIS department
allowed _me_ to log in when setting up initially most times, after
which they took over and did their thing (although it's almost all
automated now; we're at the cutting edge of the late 1980s).  Sometimes
I logged in as 'LongPhil', and sometimes as 'longphil'; depending on
how _I_ logged in, the local profile was created with _that_ _name_
_and_ _case_.  Forever afterwards, most, if not all, references to my
account made by the system used the same case that I used.

If your MIS guys don't allow U to log in to a new machine the first
time, maybe they're using all uppercase characters when they log in
using your account.  The profile would then be 'DSMILEY', not 'dsmiley'.



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