Each user account has a unique identifier with associated information, such as a name and a domain. This information is usually stored in an operating system database, such as /etc/passwd or the Network Information Service (NIS) in UNIX, or the Security Account Manager (SAM) in Windows NT. The os_user class provides a portable method for accessing and manipulating this information.

You can create os_user objects from either an account name or an operating system-specific identifier. Once these objects are constructed, you can query information about the user such as domain and group values.

Example <ospace/security/examples/user1.cpp>


  #include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <ospace/security.h>

void
main()
  {
  os_security_toolkit initialize;

  // Construct user object to reference the user with name "root".
  os_user user1( string( "root" ) );

  // Construct user object to reference the user with UID 100.
  os_user user2( 100 );

  cout << "user1 = " << user1 << end1;
  cout << "user2 = " << user2 << end1;

  cout << user1 << " == " << user2 << " = ";
  cout << (user1 == user2) << endl;
  cout << user1 << " == " << user1 << " = ";
  cout << (user1 == user1) << endl;
  }

user1 = os_user( root, 0 )
user2 = os_user( fred, 100 )
os_user( root, 0 ) == os_user( fred, 100 ) = 0
os_user( root, 0 ) == os_user( root, 0 ) = 1

The following UNIX-specific example displays all groups to which the user "fred" belongs. This example also invokes the static function users() to obtain a list of all users in the system.

Example <ospace/security/examples/user2.cpp>


  #include <iostream>
#include <ospace/security.h>

void
main()
  {
  os_security_toolkit initialize;

  os_user user( "fred" );
  vector< gid_t > groups = user.groups();
  cout << user << " belongs to the following groups: " << endl;
  vector< gid_t >::iterator i;
  for ( i = groups.begin(); i != groups.end(); i++ )
    cout << "  " << os_group( *i ) << endl;
  cout << endl;

  vector< uid_t > users = os_user::users();
  cout << "List of all the users in the user database:" << endl;
  vector< uid_t >::iterator j;
  for ( j = users.begin(); j != users.end(); j++ )
    cout << "  " << os_user( *j ) << endl;
  }

os_user( fred, 100 ) belongs to the following groups:
  os_group( other, 20 )
  os_group( cavemen, 21 )

List of all the users in the user database:
  os_user( root, 0 )
  os_user( sys, 2 )

  os_user( fred, 100 )

The next example shows how account names are case-insensitive on the Windows NT platform. On most UNIX platforms, user names are case-sensitive.

Example <ospace/security/examples/user3.cpp>


  #include <iostream>
#include <ospace/security.h>

void
main()
  {
  os_security_toolkit initialize;

  os_user user1( "administrator" );
  os_user user2( "Administrator" );

  cout
    << "User names are case-insensitive under Windows NT:"
    << endl << '\t'
    << "os_user( \"administrator\" ) == os_user( \"Administrator\" ) = "
    << ( user1 == user2 ) << endl;
  }

User names are case-insensitive under Windows NT:
        os_user( "administrator" ) == os_user( "Administrator" ) = 1