Add new user with a specif password in script

[romildo@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hello.

What command(s) should I use in order to
add a new user to my system (from a bash
script) and specify a default (not null)
password for this user?

I see that the command "useradd" does have
the "-p passwd" option, but the "passwd"
should be encrypted, as returned by crypt(3).
Then how can I obtain the encrypted password?

Any clues?

Romildo