GETPWNAM

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3 )
Updated: 1996-05-27
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NAME

getpwnam, getpwuid - get password file entry

SYNOPSIS

#include <pwd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

struct passwd *getpwnam(const char * name);

struct passwd *getpwuid(uid_t uid);

DESCRIPTION

The getpwnam() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken out fields of a line from /etc/passwd for the entry that matches the user name name.

The getpwuid() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken out fields of a line from /etc/passwd for the entry that matches the user uid uid.

The passwd structure is defined in <pwd.h> as follows:


struct passwd {
        char    *pw_name;       /* user name */
        char    *pw_passwd;     /* user password */
        uid_t   pw_uid;         /* user id */
        gid_t   pw_gid;         /* group id */
        char    *pw_gecos;      /* real name */
        char    *pw_dir;        /* home directory */
        char    *pw_shell;      /* shell program */
};

RETURN VALUE

The getpwnam() and getpwuid() functions return a pointer to the passwd structure, or NULL if the matching entry is not found or an error occurs.

ERRORS

ENOMEM: Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.

FILES

/etc/passwd: password database file

CONFORMING TO

SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3

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