Reading a line at a time from a file

[bjg]

Hey,

Just wondering what the best way to do this is?

What i specifically want to do is check if a user exists on a unix machine.
The best way i was told was to read a line at a time of /etc/passwd and
check if the username is in that line.

Cheers

[RG]

"bjg" <bjg_at_internode.on.net> wrote in message
news:3f70508d$1@duster.adelaide.on.net...

> Hey,
>
> Just wondering what the best way to do this is?
>
> What i specifically want to do is check if a user exists on a unix

machine.

> The best way i was told was to read a line at a time of /etc/passwd and
> check if the username is in that line.
>
> Cheers
>
>

see file();
RG

[David Gillen]

An noise sounding like bjg said:

> Hey,
>
> Just wondering what the best way to do this is?
>
> What i specifically want to do is check if a user exists on a unix machine.
> The best way i was told was to read a line at a time of /etc/passwd and
> check if the username is in that line.
>

system("grep <username> /etc/password") and process the result. Probably a
whole hella lot quicker on system with a large number of users and reading in
and having php parse and search the whole file.

Dave
--

I'm a dead man, and buggered to boot!