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

Actually I cannot reproduce the problem. The script as written in the question works fine, except for the case where $1 is empty.

However, there is a problem in the script related to redirection of stderr. Although the two forms &> and >& exist, in your case you want to use >&. You already redirected stdout, that's why the form &> does not work. You can easily verify it this way:

getent /etc/passwd username >/dev/null 2&>1
ls

You will see a file named 1 in the current directory. You want to use 2>&1 instead, or use this:

getent /etc/passwd username &>/dev/null

This also redirects stdout and stderr to /dev/null.

Warning Redirecting stderr to /dev/null might not be such a good idea. When things go wrong, you will have no clue why.