1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991 The Regents of the University of California. 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)getpass.3 6.3 (Berkeley) 04/19/91 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt GETPASS 3 10.Os 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm getpass 13.Nd get a password 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Fd #include <unistd.h> 16.Ft char * 17.Fn getpass "const char *prompt" 18.Sh DESCRIPTION 19The 20.Fn getpass 21function prompts for a password 22from 23.Pa /dev/tty . 24If the file 25.Pa /dev/tty is not accessible, 26.Fn getpass 27reads from the 28.Em stdin . 29The prompt string must be 30.Dv NUL Ns -terminated 31and after it is written 32to the output, 33.Fn getpass 34turns off character echoing. 35.Pp 36.Sh RETURN VALUES 37If successful, 38.Fn getpass 39returns a pointer to the 40password. The password may be up to 128 41characters long and is null terminated. 42The calling process should zero the password as soon as possible 43to avoid leaving the cleartext password visible in the process's 44address space. 45.Sh FILES 46.Bl -tag -width /dev/tty - compact 47.It Pa /dev/tty 48.El 49.Sh SEE ALSO 50.Xr crypt 3 51.Sh HISTORY 52A 53.Fn getpass 54function appeared in 55.At v7 . 56.Sh BUGS 57The 58.Fn getpass 59function leaves its result in an internal static object and returns 60a pointer to that object. Subsequent calls to 61.Fn getpass 62will modify the same object. 63