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(python2.1-lib.info)nis

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Interface to Sun's NIS (Yellow Pages)
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This module was written by Fred Gansevles
<Fred.Gansevles@cs.utwente.nl>.
This manual section was written by Moshe Zadka
<moshez@zadka.site.co.il>.
Interface to Sun's NIS (a.k.a. Yellow Pages) library.

The `nis' module gives a thin wrapper around the NIS library, useful
for central administration of several hosts.

Because NIS exists only on UNIX systems, this module is only available
for UNIX.

The `nis' module defines the following functions:

`match(key, mapname)'
     Return the match for KEY in map MAPNAME, or raise an error
     (`nis.error') if there is none.  Both should be strings, KEY is
     8-bit clean.  Return value is an arbitrary array of bytes (i.e.,
     may contain `NULL' and other joys).

     Note that MAPNAME is first checked if it is an alias to another
     name.

`cat(mapname)'
     Return a dictionary mapping KEY to VALUE such that `match(KEY,
     MAPNAME)==VALUE'.  Note that both keys and values of the
     dictionary are arbitrary arrays of bytes.

     Note that MAPNAME is first checked if it is an alias to another
     name.

`maps()'
     Return a list of all valid maps.

The `nis' module defines the following exception:

`error'
     An error raised when a NIS function returns an error code.