getgrnam, getgrnam_r, getgrgid, getgrgid_r - get group file entry
#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);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
getgrnam_r(), getgrgid_r():
_POSIX_C_SOURCE || /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE
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 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; /* NULL-terminated array of pointers
to names of group members */
};
For more information about the fields of this structure, see group(5).
The getgrnam_r() and getgrgid_r() functions obtain the same information as getgrnam() and getgrgid(), but store the retrieved group
structure in the space pointed to by grp
. The string fields pointed to by the members of the group
structure 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 call
sysconf(_SC_GETGR_R_SIZE_MAX)
returns either -1, without changing errno
, or an initial suggested size for buf
. (If this size is too small, the call fails with ERANGE, in which case the caller can retry with a larger buffer.)
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
.
The given name
or gid
was not found.
A signal was caught; see signal(7).
I/O error.
The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors has been reached.
The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been reached.
Insufficient memory to allocate group
structure.
Insufficient buffer space supplied.
/etc/group
local group database file
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
Interface | Attribute | Value |
getgrnam() | Thread safety | MT-Unsafe race:grnam locale |
getgrgid() | Thread safety | MT-Unsafe race:grgid locale |
getgrnam_r(), getgrgid_r() |
Thread safety | MT-Safe locale |
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
The formulation given above under "RETURN VALUE" is from POSIX.1. 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 show that lots of different values occur in this situation: 0, ENOENT, EBADF, ESRCH, EWOULDBLOCK, EPERM, and probably others.
This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux man-pages
project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.