Invoking shimmed command with sudo fails

[dotboris]

Steps to reproduce

You'll need a sacrificial command for this. In my case, I'm going to user ruby.

1. Define command

   alt def ruby test-sys /usr/bin/ruby

2. Make sure the shims exist

   alt shim

3. Run your command as root

   sudo ruby --version

alt will call itself in a loop complaining that it's not configured properly.

Why is this happening?

1. sudo invokes alt (through a shim)
2. It passes your user's PATH env var (including your user's shim dir $HOME/.local/alt/shims)
3. alt tries to find the system version of the command (presuming that alt is not configured for the user you're sudoing into)
4. alt finds your original user's shim dir ($HOME/.local/alt/shims/ruby) (it didn't filter it out because it thinks the shims dir is the one for the user you sudoed into ex: /root/.local/alt/shims)
5. alt invokes its own shim
6. goto 1

Deeper problem

alt can invoke itself in a loop. Seems like it's pretty bad at detecting when it's calling itself.