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 it
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; /* real name */
char *pw_dir; /* home directory */
char *pw_shell; /* shell program */
};
RETURN VALUE
The
getpwent()
function returns a pointer to a
passwd
structure, or NULL if
there are no more entries or an error occurs.
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.
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.
This page is part of release 3.14 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/.
