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Name

getpwent, setpwent, endpwent - get password file entry

Synopsis


#include <sys/types.h>#include <pwd.h>
struct passwd *getpwent(void);
void setpwent(void);
void endpwent(void);

Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7) ):

getpwent(), setpwent(), endpwent():

_BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED

Description

The getpwent() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken-out fields of a record from the password database (e.g., the local password file /etc/passwd, NIS, and LDAP). The first time getpwent() is called, it returns the first entry; thereafter, it returns successive entries.

The setpwent() function rewinds to the beginning of the password database.

The endpwent() function is used to close the password database after all processing has been performed.

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 getpwent() function returns a pointer to a passwd structure, or NULL if there are no more entries or an error occurred. If an error occurs, errno is set appropriately. If one wants to check errno after the call, it should be set to zero before the call.

The return value may point to a static area, and may be overwritten by subsequent calls to getpwent(), getpwnam(3) , or getpwuid(3) . (Do not pass the returned pointer to free(3) .)

Errors

EINTR
A signal was caught.
EIO
I/O error.
EMFILE
The maximum number (OPEN_MAX) of files was open already in the calling process.
ENFILE
The maximum number of files was open already in the system.
ENOMEM
Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.
ERANGE
Insufficient buffer space supplied.

Files

/etc/passwd
local password database file

Attributes

Multithreading (see pthreads(7) )

The getpwent() function is not thread-safe.

The setpwent() and endpwent() functions are thread-safe.

Conforming to

SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. The pw_gecos field is not specified in POSIX, but is present on most implementations.

See Also

fgetpwent(3) , getpw(3) , getpwent_r(3) , getpwnam(3) , getpwuid(3) , putpwent(3) , passwd(5)

Colophon

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