How to find a user's home directory on linux or unix?

Question

How do I find the home directory of an arbitrary user from within Grails? On Linux it\'s often /home/user. However, on some OS\'s, like OpenSolaris for example, the path i

Answer 1

Find a Java wrapper for getpwuid/getpwnam(3) functions, they ask the system for user information by uid or by login name and you get back all info including the default home directory.