PW_DUP(3) BSD Programmer's Manual PW_DUP(3)NAMEpw_dup - make a copy of a struct passwd
SYNOPSIS
#include <pwd.h>
struct passwd *
pw_dup(const struct passwd *pw);
DESCRIPTION
The pw_dup() function allocates sufficient memory for a copy of the
struct passwd pw, does the copy, and returns a pointer to it. This is
useful as subsequent calls to getpwent(), getpwnam(), and getpwuid() will
overwrite the data they returned from previous calls.
The returned pointer may be deallocated by a single call to free(3).
Since pw_dup() allocates space for the copy in one chunk, it is not
necessary to free the individual strings contained in the returned struct
passwd.
If insufficient memory is available, NULL is returned.
EXAMPLES
The following will make a copy of the struct passwd for root and store it
in "pw_save":
struct passwd *pw, *pw_save;
if ((pw = getpwnam("root")) == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Cannot find root in the password file.\n");
exit(1);
}
if ((pw_save = pw_dup(pw)) == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Out of memory.\n");
exit(1);
}
ERRORSpw_dup() function may fail and set the external variable errno for any of
the errors specified for the library function malloc(3).
SEE ALSOfree(3), getpwent(3), malloc(3)HISTORY
The pw_dup() function first appeared in OpenBSD 2.9.
MirOS BSD #10-current November 15, 2000 1