36.4. grp — The group database

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. Also note that a gr_name that starts with a + or - is likely to be a YP/NIS reference and may not be accessible via getgrnam() or getgrgid().)

It defines the following items:

grp.getgrgid(gid)

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

grp.getgrnam(name)

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

grp.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.