Yhn CultureTelevision first seen 3 d ago, last 1 h ago, peak #6

A tilde in your PATH may not expand to your HOME

Original: The tilde in your PATH may not be your HOME

A security researcher has published a write-up warning that putting a literal tilde (~) in the PATH environment variable does not reliably expand to a user's home directory. Depending on the shell, program or context used, the tilde may be passed through literally or resolved elsewhere, which can cause commands to run from unexpected directories. The article walks through the cases where expansion happens and where it silently fails, and argues developers should use absolute paths instead.

Why now: It reveals a counterintuitive Unix shell behaviour that many developers rely on without realizing it can break or be abused.

disconnect3dPATHUnix shellHOME environment variable

Open on hn →

Rank over time, top of the chart is #1. 17 snapshots from 22 h ago to 1 h ago.

Evidence

• The tilde in your PATH may not be your HOME · arusekk · 252

API: https://socialmediatrends-api.osmike.com/v1/trends/1869465