getpass(3C)

getpass -- read a password

Synopsis

   #include <unistd.h>
   
   char getpass(const char prompt);
   

   char getpass_r(const char prompt, char ret, size_t length);

Description

getpass_r- read a password

getpass reads up to a newline or EOF from the file /dev/tty, after prompting on the standard error output with the null-terminated string prompt and disabling echoing. A pointer is returned to a null-terminated string of at most 80 characters (the value of PASS_MAX in /usr/include/limits.h). If /dev/tty cannot be opened, a null pointer is returned. An interrupt will terminate input and send an interrupt signal to the calling program before returning.

getpass_r passes a user supplied buffer pointed to by ret of size length to store the entered password. getpass_r returns ret upon successful completion.

Files

/dev/tty

Errors

getpass_r returns NULL on failure.

Notices

The return value of getpass points to static data whose content is overwritten by each call.

Use the reentrant function getpass_r for multi-threaded applications.