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(python2.1-lib.info)getpass

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Portable password input
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Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid.  This module
was written by Piers Lauder <piers@cs.su.oz.au>.
This manual section was written by Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>.
The `getpass' module provides two functions:

`getpass([prompt])'
     Prompt the user for a password without echoing.  The user is
     prompted using the string PROMPT, which defaults to `'Password: ''.
     Availability: Macintosh, UNIX, Windows.

`getuser()'
     Return the "login name" of the user.  Availability: UNIX, Windows.

     This function checks the environment variables `LOGNAME', `USER',
     `LNAME' and `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 `pwd' module, otherwise, an exception is raised.