Users of --ask (or the shorthand) will likely include that option when calling emerge as non-root as well. Emerge might just as well replace it with --pretend for actions which require root access, giving those users the more expected output for e.g. -av, -auN or -af. Current behaviour of bailing out is less useful. Patch below does this. I am not at all fluent in python so I'm not sure if code is correct in the big picture, but you get the idea. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: --- emerge.orig 2007-01-22 18:46:37.000000000 +0100 +++ emerge 2007-01-22 18:55:38.000000000 +0100 @@ -3962,8 +3962,13 @@ if "--fetchonly" not in myopts and \ "--fetch-all-uri" not in myopts and \ myaction not in ("metadata", "regen"): - print "emerge: root access required." - sys.exit(1) + if "--ask" in myopts: + print "emerge: root access required. Falling back to --pretend." + myopts.remove("--ask") + myopts.append("--pretend") + else: + print "emerge: root access required." + sys.exit(1) else: print "emerge: root access required." sys.exit(1)
2.1.2 already has this feature.
