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16.4 grp -- The group database

Availability: Unix.

This module provides access to the Unix group database. It is available on all Unix versions.

Group database entries are reported as a tuple-like object, whose attributes correspond to the members of the group structure (Attribute field below, see <pwd.h>):

Index Attribute Meaning
0 gr_name the name of the group
1 gr_passwd the (encrypted) group password; often empty
2 gr_gid the numerical group ID
3 gr_mem all the group member's user names

The gid is an integer, name and password are strings, and the member list is a list of strings. (Note that most users are not explicitly listed as members of the group they are in according to the password database. Check both databases to get complete membership information.)

It defines the following items:

getgrgid( gid)
Return the group database entry for the given numeric group ID. KeyError is raised if the entry asked for cannot be found.

getgrnam( name)
Return the group database entry for the given group name. KeyError is raised if the entry asked for cannot be found.

getgrall( )
Return a list of all available group entries, in arbitrary order.

See Also:

Module pwd:
An interface to the user database, similar to this.
Module spwd:
An interface to the shadow password database, similar to this.

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Release 2.5, documentation updated on 19th September, 2006.
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