GETPW(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.

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).

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 3.44 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/.