You can search the system user database for information about a
specific user using getpwuid
or getpwnam
. These
functions are declared in `pwd.h'.
getpwuid
.
A null pointer value indicates there is no user in the data base with user ID uid.
getpwuid
in that it returns
information about the user whose user ID is uid. However, it
fills the user supplied structure pointed to by result_buf with
the information instead of using a static buffer. The first
buflen bytes of the additional buffer pointed to by buffer
are used to contain additional information, normally strings which are
pointed to by the elements of the result structure.
If a user with ID uid is found, the pointer returned in
result points to the record which contains the wanted data (i.e.,
result contains the value result_buf). If no user is found
or if an error occurred, the pointer returned in result is a null
pointer. The function returns zero or an error code. If the buffer
buffer is too small to contain all the needed information, the
error code ERANGE
is returned and errno is set to
ERANGE
.
getpwnam
.
A null pointer return indicates there is no user named name.
getpwnam
in that is returns
information about the user whose user name is name. However, like
getpwuid_r
, it fills the user supplied buffers in
result_buf and buffer with the information instead of using
a static buffer.
The return values are the same as for getpwuid_r
.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.