Re: [PLUG] check for existing user

["Michael C. Toren" <mct@netaxs.com>]

> Since there's a possibility of the regex failing with grep 
> (uppercase/lowercase, other fields from the passwd file containing 

If you grep for ^${var}:, you eliminate the possiblity of the regex
matching against another field in the passwd file.  You can also feed
grep the -i flag to instruct it to ignore case.

> the same pattern -- what about NIS, shadow password files, etc...), 
> is it an option to just use another utility?

You're right, this technique won't work for systems that use yp.

-mct