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<H1><A NAME="SECTION0010200000000000000000">
8.2 <tt class="module">pwd</tt> --
The password database</A>
</H1>
<P>
<p class="availability">Availability: <span
class="platform">Unix</span>.</p>
<P>
This module provides access to the Unix user account and password
database. It is available on all Unix versions.
<P>
Password database entries are reported as 7-tuples containing the
following items from the password database (see <code><pwd.h></code>), in order:
<P>
<table border align="center" style="border-collapse: collapse">
<thead>
<tr class="tableheader">
<th align="right"><b>Index</b> </th>
<th align="left"><b>Field</b> </th>
<th align="left"><b>Meaning</b> </th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody valign="baseline">
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">0 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_name</code></td>
<td align="left">Login name</td>
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">1 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_passwd</code></td>
<td align="left">Optional encrypted password</td>
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">2 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_uid</code></td>
<td align="left">Numerical user ID</td>
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">3 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_gid</code></td>
<td align="left">Numerical group ID</td>
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">4 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_gecos</code></td>
<td align="left">User name or comment field</td>
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">5 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_dir</code></td>
<td align="left">User home directory</td>
<tr><td align="right" valign="baseline">6 </td>
<td align="left"><code>pw_shell</code></td>
<td align="left">User command interpreter</td></tbody>
</table>
<P>
The uid and gid items are integers, all others are strings.
<tt class="exception">KeyError</tt> is raised if the entry asked for cannot be found.
<P>
<span class="note"><b class="label">Note:</b>
In traditional Unix the field <code>pw_passwd</code> usually
contains a password encrypted with a DES derived algorithm (see module
<tt class="module"><a href="module-crypt.html">crypt</a></tt><a name="l2h-2126"> </a>). However most modern unices
use a so-called <i>shadow password</i> system. On those unices the
field <code>pw_passwd</code> only contains a asterisk (<code>'*'</code>) or the
letter "<tt class="character">x</tt>" where the encrypted password is stored in a file
<span class="file">/etc/shadow</span> which is not world readable.</span>
<P>
It defines the following items:
<P>
<dl><dt><b><a name="l2h-2127"><tt class="function">getpwuid</tt></a></b>(<var>uid</var>)
<dd>
Return the password database entry for the given numeric user ID.
</dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><b><a name="l2h-2128"><tt class="function">getpwnam</tt></a></b>(<var>name</var>)
<dd>
Return the password database entry for the given user name.
</dl>
<P>
<dl><dt><b><a name="l2h-2129"><tt class="function">getpwall</tt></a></b>()
<dd>
Return a list of all available password database entries, in arbitrary order.
</dl>
<P>
<div class="seealso">
<p class="heading"><b>See Also:</b></p>
<dl compact class="seemodule">
<dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-grp.html">grp</a></tt>:</b>
<dd>An interface to the group database, similar to this.
</dl>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.2, documentation updated on December 21, 2001.</span>
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