Edit File: getpass.txt
:mod:`getpass` --- Portable password input ========================================== .. module:: getpass :synopsis: Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid. .. moduleauthor:: Piers Lauder <piers@cs.su.oz.au> .. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org> .. Windows (& Mac?) support by Guido van Rossum. The :mod:`getpass` module provides two functions: .. function:: getpass([prompt[, stream]]) Prompt the user for a password without echoing. The user is prompted using the string *prompt*, which defaults to ``'Password: '``. On Unix, the prompt is written to the file-like object *stream*. *stream* defaults to the controlling terminal (/dev/tty) or if that is unavailable to ``sys.stderr`` (this argument is ignored on Windows). If echo free input is unavailable getpass() falls back to printing a warning message to *stream* and reading from ``sys.stdin`` and issuing a :exc:`GetPassWarning`. Availability: Macintosh, Unix, Windows. .. versionchanged:: 2.5 The *stream* parameter was added. .. versionchanged:: 2.6 On Unix it defaults to using /dev/tty before falling back to ``sys.stdin`` and ``sys.stderr``. .. note:: If you call getpass from within IDLE, the input may be done in the terminal you launched IDLE from rather than the idle window itself. .. exception:: GetPassWarning A :exc:`UserWarning` subclass issued when password input may be echoed. .. function:: getuser() Return the "login name" of the user. Availability: Unix, Windows. This function checks the environment variables :envvar:`LOGNAME`, :envvar:`USER`, :envvar:`LNAME` and :envvar:`USERNAME`, in order, and returns the value of the first one which is set to a non-empty string. If none are set, the login name from the password database is returned on systems which support the :mod:`pwd` module, otherwise, an exception is raised.