[ruby-core:40929] [ruby-trunk - Feature #5610] Allow strings as input for Process.uid=

Issue #5610 has been updated by Eric Hodel.

Tracker changed from Bug to Feature
Category set to core
Priority changed from Low to Normal
Target version set to 2.0.0


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Feature #5610: Allow strings as input for Process.uid=
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/5610

Author: markus heiler
Status: Open
Priority: Normal
Assignee: 
Category: core
Target version: 2.0.0
ruby -v: latest 1.8.7 but perhaps also 1.9.x


On my unix system I often have a "debug" user account, belonging to the "debug" group.

With:

  Process.euid

You can find out the effective uid and you can change it via =.
  
  Process.euid = 522

That works. Today I tried to do this though:

  Process.euid = "debug"

It does not work because .euid= wants a string.

Would it not be better to be more flexible than that? Internally it
could be converted into a number anyway as /etc/passwd can be 
read. And if it can not be converted, an exception could be raised.

At least for me that would be quite convenient, no idea if this has
merit for others, but then again it is just a proposal. :)

Thank you for reading.


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