From: Mike Hall <mghall@...>
Date: 2002-04-26T06:56:41+09:00
Subject: Re: User and Group name => user id and group id

Sean O'Dell wrote:

> This is kind of a trivial question, but I can't find reference for a
> function that returns a numeric user id given a user name (under Linux).
> I could parse the passwd and group file, but it seems there'd be a built-in
> function for it somewhere.

The "etc" module is standard;
it should have been built on your system.

	require 'etc'
	p Etc.getpwnam 'bin'

	#-> #<Struct::Passwd name="bin", passwd="x", uid=1, gid=1, 
		gecos="bin", dir="/bin", shell="">

Documented in Ruby in a Nutshell.
Source in .../ext/etc

(OT: should the file-system stuff appear under 'Etc'?)
--
Mike Hall
http://www.enteract.com/~mghall