The
getpass ();
function displays a prompt to, and reads in a password from,
/dev/tty
If this file is not accessible,
getpass ();
displays the prompt on the standard error output and reads from the standard
input.
The password may be up to _PASSWORD_LEN (currently 128)
characters in length.
Any additional
characters and the terminating newline character are discarded.
The
getpass ();
function turns off character echoing while reading the password.
RETURN VALUES
The
getpass ();
function returns a pointer to the null terminated password.
A
getpass ();
function appeared in
AT&T System
v7 .
BUGS
The
getpass ();
function leaves its result in an internal static object and returns
a pointer to that object.
Subsequent calls to
getpass ();
will modify the same object.
The calling process should zero the password as soon as possible to
avoid leaving the cleartext password visible in the process's address
space.
Upon receipt of a SIGTSTP, the input buffer will be flushed, so any
partially typed password must be retyped when the process
continues.
