Get users home directory when they run a script as root

Question

I have a sh script that needs to be run as root, however it is run by the end user using sudo. How can I get the users home directory when ~/ points to /root when running with sudo?

Answer 1

Try to avoid eval. Especially with root perms.

You can do:

USER_HOME=$(getent passwd $SUDO_USER | cut -d: -f6) 

Update:

here is why to avoid eval.

Answer 2

The user's home directory would be ~$SUDO_USER. You can use eval as follows:

USER_HOME=$(eval echo ~${SUDO_USER})
echo ${USER_HOME}