redhat man page for getpwnam

GETPWNAM(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual						       GETPWNAM(3)

NAME
       getpwnam, getpwuid - get password file entry

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

       struct passwd *getpwnam(const char *name);

       struct passwd *getpwuid(uid_t uid);

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.

ERRORS
       ENOMEM Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.

FILES
       /etc/passwd
	      password database file

CONFORMING TO
       SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3

SEE ALSO
       fgetpwent(3), getgrnam(3), getpwent(3), setpwent(3), endpwent(3), getpw(3), putpwent(3), passwd(5)

GNU
								    1996-05-27							       GETPWNAM(3)