Reference: getpwent
Author: Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour & Nathan Patwardhan
Date: 1999-07-02T01:35:53Z

#

| Chapter 5 Function Reference |

## getpwent

    getpwent

Retrieves the next line from the /etc/passwd file (or its equivalent coming from some server somewhere). 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.

Reference: getprotoent |  | Reference: getpwnam