GETPWWHO

Section: C Library Functions (3)
Updated: 5/9/80
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

getpwwho - get password file entry using liberal name matching.

SYNOPSIS

#include <pwd.h>

struct passwd *getpwwho(name)
char *name;

struct passwd *getpwambig();

DESCRIPTION

Getpwwho is much like getpwnam(3), except that it is much more liberal about the names that it will match. Name may be a full login name or it may be the unique abbreviation of a persons last name, or it may be a unique abbreviation of a persons first and last name.

The subroutine getpwambig may be used to iterate through all the matches for the name given to the last call to getpwwho. If getpwwho returns -1 then name does not uniquely determine a person, a program can then print out all the names that match by repeatedly calling getpwambig until getpwambig returns 0.

FILES

/etc/passwd The password file.

EXAMPLE

getpwwho("harry bovik");
getpwwho("bovik");
getpwwho("H Bovik");
getpwwho("hb");

: All of these match the person "Harry Q. Bovik", who has "hb" as his login name.

DIAGNOSTICS

Getpwwho return 0 if the person isn't found, -1 if the name is ambiguous. In the case that the name is ambiguous a program can iterate through all the possibilities by using getpwambig.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 12:50:19 GMT, May 26, 2025