June 2002
Beginner
759 pages
80h 42m
English
getpwent
getpwent
Retrieves the next line from the /etc/passwd file (or its equivalent coming from another server). Returns null at the end of the file. The return value in list context is:
($name,$passwd,$uid,$gid,$quota,$comment,$gcos,$dir,$shell)
Some machines may use the quota and comment fields for other purposes, but the remaining fields will always be the same. To set up a hash for translating login names to uids, do this:
while (($name, $passwd, $uid) = getpwent) {
$uid{$name} = $uid;
}In scalar context, getpwent returns only the
username.