Check Whether a User Exists

Question

I want to create a script to check whether a user exists. I am using the logic below:

# getent passwd test > /dev/null 2&>1
# echo $?
0
# getent pa         


        

Answer 1

Why don't you simply use

grep -c '^username:' /etc/passwd

It will return 1 (since a user has max. 1 entry) if the user exists and 0 if it doesn't.