getpw(3) - BetterMan

—

Options · 4

0 or ENOENT	No user corresponding to uid.
EINVAL	buf is NULL.
ENOMEM	Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.
/etc/passwd	password database file

NAME

getpw - reconstruct password line entry

LIBRARY

Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

bash

#define _GNU_SOURCE\n             /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
\n#include <sys/types.h>\n
\n#include <pwd.h>

bash

[[deprecated]] int getpw(uid_t \nuid\n, char *\nbuf\n);

DESCRIPTION

The getpw() function reconstructs the password line entry for the given user ID uid in the buffer buf. The returned buffer contains a line of format

bash

name:passwd:uid:gid:gecos:dir:shell\n

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

bash

struct passwd {
\n
    char   *pw_name;       /* username */
\n
    char   *pw_passwd;     /* user password */
\n
    uid_t   pw_uid;        /* user ID */
\n
    gid_t   pw_gid;        /* group ID */
\n
    char   *pw_gecos;      /* user information */
\n
    char   *pw_dir;        /* home directory */
\n
    char   *pw_shell;      /* shell program */
};

For more information about the fields of this structure, see passwd(5).

RETURN VALUE

The getpw() function returns 0 on success; on error, it returns -1, and errno is set to indicate the error.

If uid is not found in the password database, getpw() returns -1, sets errno to 0, and leaves buf unchanged.

ERRORS

0 or ENOENT: No user corresponding to uid.
EINVAL: buf is NULL.
ENOMEM: Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.

FILES

/etc/passwd: password database file

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface	Attribute	Value
getpw ()	Thread safety	MT-Safe locale

STANDARDS

None.

HISTORY

SVr2.

BUGS

The getpw() function is dangerous as it may overflow the provided buffer buf. It is obsoleted by getpwuid(3).