fgetpwent(3)

💖 fgetpwent(3) — the manual page, but make it bestie-coded 💖

okay so bestie, we're in section 3 of the library functions manual today and the star of the show is fgetpwent — she reads password file entries off a stream you already opened. no cap, she's a whole vibe.

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🎀 LIBRARY 🎀

Standard C library (libc, -lc). the classic. the blueprint. 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <pwd.h>

struct passwd *fgetpwent(FILE *stream);

🧚 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

fgetpwent():
    Since glibc 2.19:
        _DEFAULT_SOURCE
    glibc 2.19 and earlier:
        _SVID_SOURCE

like, define the right macro or she literally will not show up. that's the rules.

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so fgetpwent() hands you back a pointer to a structure holding the broken out fields of one line in the file stream. first call? she gives you the first entry. after that? successive entries, one at a time, like she's scrolling the feed for you. 🫶

the file that stream points at has to have the same format as /etc/passwd (peep passwd(5) for the tea on that format).

the passwd structure lives in <pwd.h> and looks exactly like this:

struct passwd {
    char   *pw_name;       /* username */
    char   *pw_passwd;     /* user password */
    uid_t   pw_uid;        /* user ID */
    gid_t   pw_gid;        /* group ID */
    char   *pw_gecos;      /* real name */
    char   *pw_dir;        /* home directory */
    char   *pw_shell;      /* shell program */
};

seven fields, all iconic, no notes. 👑

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💀 RETURN VALUE 💀

fgetpwent() gives you back a pointer to a passwd structure — or NULL if there are no more entries or an error happened. and if an error happened? errno gets set to tell you what went down. not me getting a NULL and having to check errno like a detective. 😭

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🙈 ERRORS 🙈

• ENOMEM — not enough memory to allocate the passwd structure.

that's the whole list. one error. she keeps it simple. periodt.

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /etc/passwd — password database file

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🌈 ATTRIBUTES 🌈

for the explanation of the terms used in this here section, go see attributes(7).

• Interface: fgetpwent()
• Attribute: Thread safety
• Value: MT-Unsafe race:fgetpwent

⚠️ bestie. she is MT-Unsafe and there's a race on fgetpwent. translate that: don't be sharing her across threads unsupervised. multitasking is not her moment. 💀

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👑 STANDARDS 👑

None. literally none. she's not in any standard, she's just out here existing. 💅

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

SVr4.

an elder. a legend. she's been around.

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

endpwent(3), fgetpwent_r(3), fopen(3), getpw(3), getpwent(3), getpwnam(3), getpwuid(3), putpwent(3), setpwent(3), passwd(5)

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and that's the whole page, bestie — you ate that 💖 this one's from Linux man-pages 6.20, dated 2026-02-08, and it's the fgetpwent(3) page. go forth and read your passwd entries responsibly. mwah 🎀✨