fish shell how do you check for root

Question

Is there a way to assert the current "user" is root (i.e. the script was run by root) using the fish shell?

I know for bash you can check the EUID

downvoters please leave comment or say where I can ask better, cheers! — rogerdpack, Commented Jan 17, 2017 at 5:57

glenn jackman · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-17 13:30:14Z

3

Can't do it with just fish. I'd write:

if test (id -u) -eq 0
    echo root
else
    echo not root
end

answered Jan 17, 2017 at 13:30

glenn jackman

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2

To expand on Glenn's answer you "can't do it with just fish" because fish tries hard not to reinvent the wheel. New builtin commands or variables are added to fish only when it is clear that doing so is better than relying on external commands. In this case the id command will report the current effective or real UID. And since such checks are rare and not performance critical there is no reason to implement it as a builtin command or variable.
– Kurtis Rader
Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 3:10

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