DESCRIPTION
The getpwnam() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken out fields of a line from /etc/passwd for the entry that matches the user name name. The getpwuid() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken out fields of a line from /etc/passwd for the entry that matches the user uid uid.
The passwd structure is defined in <pwd.h> as follows:
struct passwd {
char *pw_name; /* user name */
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 getpwnam() and getpwuid() functions return a pointer to the passwd structure, or NULL if the matching entry is not found or an error occurs. If an error occurs, errno is set appropriately. The return value may point to static area, and may be overwritten by subsequent calls.
ERRORS
