Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!necntc!dandelion!ulowell!page
From: page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Arbitron "Users" count is very wrong under BSD
Message-ID: <2450@swan.ulowell.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 88 21:53:48 GMT
References: <15538@onfcanim.UUCP> <1978@s.cc.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Organization: University of Lowell, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 21

YaBut...

# @(#)arbitron	2.4.2	06/05/87

# Range of /etc/passwd UID's that represent actual people (rather than
# maintenance accounts or daemons or whatever)
lowUID=90
highUID=20000

# # ###### Scheme #1: fast but usually returns too big a number
nusers=`awk -F: "BEGIN {N=0}\\$3>=$lowUID && \\$3<=$highUID{N=N+1}END{print N}" </etc/passwd`

Maybe arbitron needs to combine 1 & 2.  Do a 'last' to get the active
users, then filter out daemons etc.  Or awk the passwd file then
prune it based on active users (in 'last').

No, I'm not volunteering for anything.

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept.  page@swan.ulowell.edu  ulowell!page
"I don't know such stuff.  I just do eyes."  -- from 'Blade Runner'