Proper use cases for Android UserManager.isUserAGoat()?

From their source, the method used to return false until it was changed in API 21.

/**
 * Used to determine whether the user making this call is subject to
 * teleportations.
 * @return whether the user making this call is a goat 
 */
public boolean isUserAGoat() {
    return false;
}

It looks like the method has no real use for us as developers. Someone has previously stated that it might be an Easter egg.

Edit:

In API 21 the implementation was changed to check if there is an installed app with the package com.coffeestainstudios.goatsimulator

/**
 * Used to determine whether the user making this call is subject to
 * teleportations.
 *
 * <p>As of {@link android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES#LOLLIPOP}, this method can
 * now automatically identify goats using advanced goat recognition technology.</p>
 *
 * @return Returns true if the user making this call is a goat.
 */
public boolean isUserAGoat() {
    return mContext.getPackageManager()
            .isPackageAvailable("com.coffeestainstudios.goatsimulator");
}

Here is the updated source link

• answered 8 years ago
• Gul Hafiz

I don't know if this was "the" official use case but the following produces a warning in Java (that can further produce compile errors if mixed with return statements, leading to unreachable code):

if(1 == 2) {
    System.out.println("Unreachable code");
}

However this is legal:

if(isUserAGoat()) {
    System.out.println("Unreachable but determined at runtime, not at compile time");
}

So I often find myself writing a silly utility method for the quickest way to dummy out a code block, then in completing debugging find all calls to it, so provided the implementation doesn't change this can be used for that.

• answered 8 years ago
• Sunny Solu