From: Gary Wright <gwtmp01@...>
Date: 2009-10-13T10:25:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Etc.passwd on OS X


On Oct 12, 2009, at 8:28 PM, Steven Hansen wrote:
> However, the Etc class still manages to find all of the users on my
> system...  For OSX, does the Etc class inspect an alternate file?  If
> so, what file is it getting its information from?

Without looking at the Ruby source I would guess that ruby uses the
POSIX getpwnam function.  The man page ("man getpwnam") for that  
function
says:

> These functions obtain information from DirectoryService(8),  
> including records in /etc/passwd which is described in passwd(5).   
> Each entry in the database is defined by the structure passwd found  
> in the include file <pwd.h>

So the magic is happening in the Apple supplied getpwnam function
which accesses Mac OS's DirectoryService daemon  (as well as the
static /etc/passwd file apparently) for the actual data.

Gary Wright