NAME

User::pwent - by-name interface to Perl's built-in getpw*() functions


SYNOPSIS

 use User::pwent;
 $pw = getpwnam('daemon') or die "No daemon user";
 if ( $pw->uid == 1 && $pw->dir =~ m#^/(bin|tmp)?$# ) {
     print "gid 1 on root dir";
 } 

 use User::pwent qw(:FIELDS);
 getpwnam('daemon') or die "No daemon user";
 if ( $pw_uid == 1 && $pw_dir =~ m#^/(bin|tmp)?$# ) {
     print "gid 1 on root dir";
 } 

 $pw = getpw($whoever);


DESCRIPTION

This module's default exports override the core getpwent, getpwuid, and getpwnam functions, replacing them with versions that return ``User::pwent'' objects. This object has methods that return the similarly named structure field name from the C's passwd structure from pwd.h; namely name, passwd, uid, gid, quota, comment, gecos, dir, and shell.

You may also import all the structure fields directly into your namespace as regular variables using the :FIELDS import tag. (Note that this still overrides your core functions.) Access these fields as variables named with a preceding pw_ in front their method names. Thus, $passwd_obj->shell corresponds to $pw_shell if you import the fields.

The getpw funtion is a simple front-end that forwards a numeric argument to getpwuid and the rest to getpwnam.

To access this functionality without the core overrides, pass the use an empty import list, and then access function functions with their full qualified names. On the other hand, the built-ins are still available via the CORE:: pseudo-package.


NOTE

While this class is currently implemented using the Class::Template module to build a struct-like class, you shouldn't rely upon this.


AUTHOR

Tom Christiansen