mac-os-x call-processappears to execute as UID 0, breaks exec-path-from-shell-initialize

Question

My emacs and shell:

.rc/zshell [master●] » emacs --version                      ▸▸▸▸▸▹▹▹▹▹ 22:17:29
GNU Emacs 26.3
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GNU Emacs comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You may redistribute copies of GNU Emacs
under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file named COPYING.
.rc/zshell [master●] » $SHELL --version                     ▸▸▸▸▸▹▹▹▹▹ 22:18:26
zsh 5.7.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin18.2.0)

I am using exec-path-from-shell v20191229.112 from MELPA, installed via the Emacs package manager.

I invoke (exec-path-from-shell-initialize) in my .emacs file, but it always appears to effectively initialize to "sh -c 'printf $PATH'". After looking over the code, it looks like exec-path-from-shell-printf() invokes:

(call-process "/usr/local/bin/zsh" nil t nil "-i" "-l" "-c" "/usr/bin/printf '__RESULT\\000%s\\000%s\\000__RESULT' \"${PATH-32a4a9eb7fbd9349eb5afaaa063927ce}\" \"${MANPATH-32a4a9eb7fbd9349eb5afaaa063927ce}\"")
__RESULT�/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_14:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec-x86_64-10_14�/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/Library/TeX/Distributions/.DefaultTeX/Contents/Man�__RESULT0

If my actual scripts were invoked, I expect more output and tracing from my zsh init scripts, and a much larger PATH. A small snippet to illustrate below:

% /usr/local/bin/zsh -i -l -c '/usr/bin/printf "PATH %s\n" "$PATH"'
:         _zshenv_00_timing 0.004531 -- 0.010184    0.005653
:           _zshenv_05_init 0.010355 -- 0.016539    0.006184
...
:       _zshrc_85_utilities 0.427664 -- 0.430055    0.002391
:         _zshrc_90_nethack 0.430167 -- 0.432548    0.002381
:       _zshrc_99_ckupdates 0.432658 -- 0.448017    0.015359
PATH /Users/kvaradhan/bin:/usr/local/bin:/Users/kvaradhan/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/usr/local/Users/kvaradhan/Sync/src/go-libs/bin:/usr/local/Users/kvaradhan/Sync/src/go-libs/sbin:/usr/local/fungible/bin:/usr/local/fungible/sbin:./bin:./sbin:../bin:../sbin

I am puzzled. This:

(call-process "/usr/local/bin/zsh" nil t nil "-i" "-l" "-c" "/bin/ps -fx $$")
  UID   PID  PPID   C STIME   TTY           TIME CMD
    0 71582 47588   0 11:35PM ??         0:00.01 /bin/ps -fx 71582
0

is the final bit that leaves me flumoxxed. How and why is the UID 0 for calls invoked by call-process? Is that even expected?

Kannan

---

With questions from @lawlist, removed the .emacs file, so only stock emacs:

(call-process "/bin/sh" nil t nil "-i" "-l" "-c" "/usr/bin/printf '__RESULT\\00\
0%s\\000%s\\000__RESULT' \"${PATH-32a4a9eb7fbd9349eb5afaaa063927ce}\" \"${MANPA\
TH-32a4a9eb7fbd9349eb5afaaa063927ce}\"")
__RESULT/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_14:/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec-x86_64-10_1432a4a9eb7fbd9349eb5afaaa063927ce__RESULT0


(call-process "/usr/local/bin/zsh" nil t nil "-i" "-l" "-c" "/bin/ps -fx $$")
  UID   PID  PPID   C STIME   TTY           TIME CMD
    0 72953 72799   0 11:40PM ??

Answer 1

Dumbest possible mistake ever...

I had the following line at the top of each of my shell init files:

test -t 0 || return

This line was to avoid spurious output when running from subshells/remote in strange context. (yeah, I know emacs exchange, but bear with me for a sec... a "!Gfmt" in a vi context would scrogg the file in various ways)

Removing that line fixes emacs, now I have to figure out how to be silent when in a non-terminal context. That issue still remains.