LOGNAME(1P)

📦 version 2017a, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable, opensuse-leap 16.0

💖 PROLOG 💖

okay bestie, real talk before we even start: this manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. POSIX Programmer's Manual, yes, that one, the whole vibe. but here's the tea — the Linux implementation of this interface may differ, so if something looks off you gotta go consult the corresponding Linux manual page for the deets on Linux behavior. or, plot twist, the interface might just not be implemented on Linux at all. 🙈 so don't come for me if it's not there, fr.

✨ NAME ✨

logname — return the user's login name 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

logname

that's it. that's the whole synopsis. no flags, no operands, she's low maintenance. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the logname utility shall write the user's login name to standard output. and when we say "the user's login name" we mean the login name shall be the string that would be returned by the getlogin() function defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017. like, that's the source of truth, okay? ✨

and here's the important part: under the conditions where the getlogin() function would fail, the logname utility shall write a diagnostic message to standard error and exit with a non-zero exit status. so if it can't figure out who you are, it's gonna say so, loudly, and bail. no cap. 😭

💅 OPTIONS 💅

None.

(not one. zero. she simply does not take options. respect the minimalism. 👑)

🎀 OPERANDS 🎀

None.

(also zero. nothing to hand her. she just knows. ✨)

🌈 STDIN 🌈

Not used.

🍓 INPUT FILES 🍓

None.

💜 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 💜

okay so these are the environment variables that shall affect the execution of logname, bestie, take notes:

  • LANG — provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.) 🌍
  • LC_ALL — if set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables. she's the main character, she overrides everybody. 👑
  • LC_CTYPE — determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments). 🦋
  • LC_MESSAGES — determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. 💬
  • NLSPATH — determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES. 📚

🧚 ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS 🧚

Default.

⭐ STDOUT ⭐

the logname utility output shall be a single line consisting of the user's login name:

"%s\n", <login name>

one line. one name. clean, iconic, no notes. ✨

💀 STDERR 💀

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

(only for drama when something goes wrong. which, fair. 🫶)

🎀 OUTPUT FILES 🎀

None.

🌸 EXTENDED DESCRIPTION 🌸

None.

🔥 EXIT STATUS 🔥

The following exit values shall be returned:

  • 0 — Successful completion. 💖 she ate, no crumbs.
  • >0 — An error occurred. 😭 something went sideways.

🙈 CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS 🙈

Default.

The following sections are informative.

💜 APPLICATION USAGE 💜

fun fact you're gonna wanna know: the logname utility explicitly ignores the LOGNAME environment variable because environment changes could produce erroneous results. like, she's not trusting the env var, that's fake news. she goes to the source. periodt. 💅

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

None.

🧠 RATIONALE 🧠

The passwd file is not listed as required because the implementation may have other means of mapping login names. iykyk — there's more than one way to find your name, bestie. 🦋

🚀 FUTURE DIRECTIONS 🚀

None.

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

  • id, who
  • The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8, Environment Variables
  • The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, getlogin()

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one's from IEEE/The Open Group, dated 2017, and the page is LOGNAME(1P). stay iconic, go read your login name, mwah. 🎀✨🦋

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