GETPW

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2007-12-12
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NAME

getpw - Re-construct password line entry

SYNOPSIS

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

int getpw(uid_t uid, char *buf);

DESCRIPTION

The getpw() function re-constructs 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;      /* real name */
    char   *pw_dir;        /* home directory */
    char   *pw_shell;      /* shell program */
};

RETURN VALUE

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

ERRORS

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

FILES

/etc/passwd: password database file

CONFORMING TO

SVr2.

BUGS

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

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.