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

I was using it in that way:

if [ $(getent passwd $user) ] ; then
        echo user $user exists
else
        echo user $user doesn\'t exists
fi