.\" Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (david@prism.demon.co.uk)
.\"
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.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
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.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
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.\" References consulted:
.\"     Linux libc source code
.\"     Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
.\"     386BSD man pages
.\" Modified Sat Jul 24 19:23:25 1993 by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
.\" Modified Mon May 27 21:37:47 1996 by Martin Schulze (joey@linux.de)
.\"
.TH GETPW 3 2007-12-12 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
getpw \- Re-construct password line entry
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #define _GNU_SOURCE
.B #include <sys/types.h>
.B #include <pwd.h>
.sp
.BI "int getpw(uid_t " uid ", char *" buf );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR getpw ()
function re-constructs the password line entry for
the given user ID \fIuid\fP in the buffer \fIbuf\fP.
The returned buffer contains a line of format
.sp
.RS
.B name:passwd:uid:gid:gecos:dir:shell
.RE
.PP
The \fIpasswd\fP structure is defined in \fI<pwd.h>\fP as follows:
.sp
.in +4n
.nf
struct passwd {
    char   *pw_name;       /* username */
    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 */
};
.fi
.in
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
The
.BR getpw ()
function returns 0 on success; on error, it returns \-1, and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I buf
is NULL.
.TP
.B ENOENT
No user corresponding to
.IR uid .
.TP
.B ENOMEM
Insufficient memory to allocate
.I passwd
structure.
.SH FILES
.TP
.I /etc/passwd
password database file
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
SVr2.
.SH BUGS
The
.BR getpw ()
function is dangerous as it may overflow the provided buffer
.IR buf .
It is obsoleted by
.BR getpwuid (3).
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR endpwent (3),
.BR fgetpwent (3),
.BR getpwent (3),
.BR getpwnam (3),
.BR getpwuid (3),
.BR putpwent (3),
.BR setpwent (3),
.BR passwd (5)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
