hotshot,

or have some fun with the c function fgetpwent and INLINE

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w

use Inline C;
use Data::Dumper;

@ARGV || die "usage $0 <filename>\n";

$entries = getmypwent($ARGV[0]);

print Dumper( $entries );

__END__
__C__
#include <pwd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

SV *getmypwent( char *filename )
{
   FILE *ih;
   struct passwd *p;
   int len;
   AV *array;
   HV *hash = newHV();

   if( ( ih = fopen( filename, "r" ) ) != NULL ) {
      while( p = fgetpwent( ih ) ) {
         hv_store(hash, p->pw_name, strlen(p->pw_name),
                        newRV_noinc((SV*)array = newAV()), 0);
         av_push(array, newSVpvf("%s", p->pw_passwd));
         av_push(array, newSVpvf("%d", p->pw_uid));
         av_push(array, newSVpvf("%d", p->pw_gid));
         av_push(array, newSVpvf("%s", p->pw_gecos));
         av_push(array, newSVpvf("%s", p->pw_dir));
         av_push(array, newSVpvf("%s", p->pw_shell));
      }
      fclose(ih);
   }

   return newRV_noinc((SV*) hash);
}
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-derby