.\" Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
.\" May be distributed under the GNU General Public License
.\" References consulted:
.\"     Linux libc source code
.\"     Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
.\"     386BSD man pages
.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 19:20:36 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.TH GETPWNAM 3  "April 9, 1993" "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
getpwnam, getpwuid \- get password file entry
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <pwd.h>
.B #include <sys/types.h>
.sp
.BI "struct passwd *getpwnam(const char * " name );
.sp
.BI "struct passwd *getpwuid(uid_t " uid );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \fBgetpwnam()\fP function returns a pointer to a structure containing
the broken out fields of a line from \fI/etc/passwd\fP for the entry that 
matches the user name \fIname\fP.
.PP
The \fBgetpwuid()\fP function returns a pointer to a structure containing
the broken out fields of a line from \fI/etc/passwd\fP for the entry that 
matches the user uid \fIuid\fP.
.PP
The \fIpasswd\fP structure is defined in \fI<pwd.h>\fP as follows:
.sp
.RS
.nf
.ta 8n 16n 32n
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 */
};
.ta
.fi
.RE
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The \fBgetpwnam()\fP and \fBgetpwuid()\fP functions return the passwd
structure, or NULL if the matching entry is not found or an error occurs.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B ENOMEM
Insufficient memory to allocate passwd structure.
.SH FILES
.nf
/etc/passwd		password database file
.fi
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
SVID 3, POSIX, BSD 4.3
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR fgetpwent "(3), " getpwent "(3), " setpwent "(3), " endpwent (3),
.BR getpw "(3), " putpwent (3)