Programming Perl, 4th Edition

getpwnam

getpwnam NAME

This function translates a username to the corresponding /etc/passwd file entry. The return value in list context is:

#  0     1       2    3    4      5        6     7    8
($name,$passwd,$uid,$gid,$quota,$comment,$gcos,$dir,$shell) = getpwnam("daemon");

On systems that support shadow passwords, you will have to be the superuser to retrieve the actual password. Your C library should notice that you’re suitably empowered and open the /etc/shadow file (or wherever it keeps the shadow file). At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

For repeated lookups, consider caching the data in a hash using getpwent.

In scalar context, getpwnam returns only the numeric user ID. The User::pwent module supports a by-name interface to this function. See getpwnam(3) and passwd(5).