perl function endpwent

The endpwent function in Perl is used to free system resources associated with the password file that were previously allocated by the getpwent function. Here's an example of how to use endpwent:

use POSIX qw(getpwent endpwent);

my $username = 'root';
my $user_info;

while (my ($name, $passwd, $uid, $gid, $quota, $comment, $gcos, $dir, $shell) = getpwent()) {
  if ($name eq $username) {
    $user_info = "User $name has UID $uid and home directory $dir";
    last;
  }
}

endpwent();

print "$user_info\n";

In this example, the getpwent function is used in a loop to iterate over each entry in the system's password file. For each password entry, the script checks if its name matches the value of $username. If a matching user is found, information about the user's UID and home directory is stored in the $user_info variable. The loop is then exited using the last keyword.

After the loop has finished, the endpwent function is called to free system resources associated with the password file. Finally, the script prints the information about the user specified by $username.

The endpwent function is typically used after calling getpwent, getpwnam, or getpwuid to ensure that system resources are properly freed. If you forget to call endpwent, it may cause resource leaks or other issues.