NAME¶

SYNOPSIS¶

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

struct passwd *getpwnam(const char *name);

struct passwd *getpwuid(uid_t uid);

int getpwnam_r(const char *name, struct passwd *pwd,
               char *buf, size_t buflen, struct passwd **result);

int getpwuid_r(uid_t uid, struct passwd *pwd,
               char *buf, size_t buflen, struct passwd **result);

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

getpwnam_r(), getpwuid_r():

DESCRIPTION¶

The getpwuid() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken-out fields of the record in the password database that matches the user ID uid.

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 */
};

See passwd(5) for more information about these fields.

The getpwnam_r() and getpwuid_r() functions obtain the same information as getpwnam() and getpwuid(), but store the retrieved passwd structure in the space pointed to by pwd. The string fields pointed to by the members of the passwd structure are stored in the buffer buf of size buflen. A pointer to the result (in case of success) or NULL (in case no entry was found or an error occurred) is stored in *result.

The call

sysconf(_SC_GETPW_R_SIZE_MAX)

returns either -1, without changing errno, or an initial suggested size for buf. (If this size is too small, the call fails with ERANGE, in which case the caller can retry with a larger buffer.)

RETURN VALUE¶

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

On success, getpwnam_r() and getpwuid_r() return zero, and set *result to pwd. If no matching password record was found, these functions return 0 and store NULL in *result. In case of error, an error number is returned, and NULL is stored in *result.

ERRORS¶

0 or ENOENT or ESRCH or EBADF or EPERM or ...

The given name or uid was not found.

EINTR

A signal was caught; see signal(7).

EIO

I/O error.

EMFILE

The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has been reached.

ENFILE

The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been reached.

ENOMEM

Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.

ERANGE

Insufficient buffer space supplied.

NOTE¶

FILES¶

/etc/passwd

local password database file

/etc/nsswitch.conf

System Databases and Name Service Switch configuration file

ATTRIBUTES¶

CONFORMING TO¶

NOTES¶

The pw_dir field contains the name of the initial working directory of the user. Login programs use the value of this field to initialize the HOME environment variable for the login shell. An application that wants to determine its user's home directory should inspect the value of HOME (rather than the value getpwuid(getuid())->pw_dir) since this allows the user to modify their notion of "the home directory" during a login session. To determine the (initial) home directory of another user, it is necessary to use getpwnam("username")->pw_dir or similar.

EXAMPLE¶

#include <pwd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    struct passwd pwd;
    struct passwd *result;
    char *buf;
    size_t bufsize;
    int s;
    if (argc != 2) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s username\n", argv[0]);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    bufsize = sysconf(_SC_GETPW_R_SIZE_MAX);
    if (bufsize == -1)          /* Value was indeterminate */
        bufsize = 16384;        /* Should be more than enough */
    buf = malloc(bufsize);
    if (buf == NULL) {
        perror("malloc");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    s = getpwnam_r(argv[1], &pwd, buf, bufsize, &result);
    if (result == NULL) {
        if (s == 0)
            printf("Not found\n");
        else {
            errno = s;
            perror("getpwnam_r");
        }
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    printf("Name: %s; UID: %ld\n", pwd.pw_gecos, (long) pwd.pw_uid);
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

SEE ALSO¶

COLOPHON¶