Hi jr,
> > Â Â $ Â Â awk -F: '$1 == "root" || $3 ~ /^0*$/ {print NR, $0}' /etc/group
> > Â Â 1 root:x:0:
>
> just wondering why the last field's empty (and doesn't contain user
> 'root')?
>
> man (5) group specifies: group_name:passwd:GID:user_list
group(5) looks like a bit of a poor stub man page on this system;
user_list is allowed to be empty. Since /etc/passwd specifies the group
ID used when I log in, that group often doesn't have my user name listed
against it in /etc/group.
$ g "^$USER:" /etc/passwd
ralph:x:1000:1000:Ralph Corderoy,,,:/home/ralph:/bin/bash
$ awk -F: '$3 == 1000' /etc/group
ralph:x:1000:
$
The groups that normally do have users listed are those that aren't the
initial group for any one particular user. newgrp(1) will still let me
change to group `ralph' even though I'm not explicitly listed in
/etc/group.
$ id -gn; id -gnr
ralph
ralph
$ newgrp users
$ id -gn; id -gnr
users
users
$ newgrp
$ id -gn; id -gnr
ralph
ralph
$
If you want to play around with this kind of thing, then
perl -le 'print "$(\n$)"'
can also be useful. perlvar(1) explains their contents.
Cheers,
Ralph.
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