14.6 getpass -- Portable password input

The getpass module provides two functions:

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, which defaults to sys.stdout (this argument is ignored on Windows).

Availability: Macintosh, Unix, Windows. Changed in version 2.5: The stream parameter was added.

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.

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Python Library Reference

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Release 2.5, documentation updated on 19th September, 2006.