Linux manual pages Section 3  

Name

getpw — reconstruct password line entry

Synopsis

#define _GNU_SOURCE              /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <pwd.h>
int getpw( uid_t uid,
  char *buf);
 

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

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

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

struct passwd {
  char * pw_name;
/* username */
  char * pw_passwd;
/* user password */
  uid_t   pw_uid;
/* user ID */
  gid_t   pw_gid;
/* group ID */
  char * pw_gecos;
/* user information */
  char * pw_dir;
/* home directory */
  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

CONFORMING TO

SVr2.

BUGS

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

SEE ALSO

endpwent(3), fgetpwent(3), getpwent(3), getpwnam(3), getpwuid(3), putpwent(3), setpwent(3), passwd(5)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 5.11 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.


  Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (davidprism.demon.co.uk)

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References consulted:
    Linux libc source code
    Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
    386BSD man pages
Modified Sat Jul 24 19:23:25 1993 by Rik Faith (faithcs.unc.edu)
Modified Mon May 27 21:37:47 1996 by Martin Schulze (joeylinux.de)