Linux manual pages Section 3  

Name

getgrnam, getgrnam_r, getgrgid, getgrgid_r — get group file entry

Synopsis

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <grp.h>
struct group *getgrnam( const char *name);
 
struct group *getgrgid( gid_t gid);
 
int getgrnam_r( const char *name,
  struct group *grp,
  char *buf,
  size_t buflen,
  struct group **result);
 
int getgrgid_r( gid_t gid,
  struct group *grp,
  char *buf,
  size_t buflen,
  struct group **result);
 
[Note] Note
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
getgrnam_r(), getgrgid_r():
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 1 || _XOPEN_SOURCE || _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _POSIX_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

The getgrnam() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken-out fields of the record in the group database (e.g., the local group file /etc/group, NIS, and LDAP) that matches the group name name.

The getgrgid() function returns a pointer to a structure containing the broken-out fields of the record in the group database that matches the group ID gid.

The getgrnam_r() and getgrgid_r() functions obtain the same information, but store the retrieved group structure in the space pointed to by grp. This group structure contains pointers to strings, and these strings are stored in the buffer buf of size buflen. A pointer to the result (in case of success) or NULL (in case no entry was found or an error occurred) is stored in *result.

The group structure is defined in <grp.h> as follows:

struct group {
  char * gr_name;
/* group name */
  char * gr_passwd;
/* group password */
  gid_t   gr_gid;
/* group ID */
  char ** gr_mem;
/* group members */
};

The maximum needed size for buf can be found using sysconf(3) with the argument _SC_GETGR_R_SIZE_MAX.

RETURN VALUE

The getgrnam() and getgrgid() functions return a pointer to a group structure, or NULL if the matching entry is not found or an error occurs. If an error occurs, errno is set appropriately. If one wants to check errno after the call, it should be set to zero before the call.

The return value may point to a static area, and may be overwritten by subsequent calls to getgrent(3), getgrgid(), or getgrnam(). (Do not pass the returned pointer to free(3).)

On success, getgrnam_r() and getgrgid_r() return zero, and set *result to grp. If no matching group record was found, these functions return 0 and store NULL in *result. In case of error, an error number is returned, and NULL is stored in *result.

ERRORS

0 or ENOENT or ESRCH or EBADF or EPERM or ...

The given name or gid was not found.

EINTR

A signal was caught.

EIO

I/O error.

EMFILE

The maximum number (OPEN_MAX) of files was open already in the calling process.

ENFILE

The maximum number of files was open already in the system.

ENOMEM

Insufficient memory to allocate group structure.

ERANGE

Insufficient buffer space supplied.

FILES

/etc/group

local group database file

CONFORMING TO

SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

NOTES

The formulation given above under "RETURN VALUE" is from POSIX.1-2001. It does not call "not found" an error, hence does not specify what value errno might have in this situation. But that makes it impossible to recognize errors. One might argue that according to POSIX errno should be left unchanged if an entry is not found. Experiments on various Unix-like systems shows that lots of different values occur in this situation: 0, ENOENT, EBADF, ESRCH, EWOULDBLOCK, EPERM and probably others.

SEE ALSO

endgrent(3), fgetgrent(3), getgrent(3), getpwnam(3), setgrent(3), group(5)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.


  Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (davidprism.demon.co.uk)

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

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,
which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
professionally.

Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.

References consulted:
    Linux libc source code
    Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
    386BSD man pages

Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith (faithcs.unc.edu)
Modified 2003-11-15 by aeb