@(#)getpass.3 6.2 (Berkeley) 01/24/89

.AT 3 getpass - read a password

 char *getpass(prompt)  char *prompt; 

Getpass reads a password from the file /dev/tty , or if that cannot be opened, from the standard input, after prompting with the null-terminated string prompt and disabling echoing. A pointer is returned to a null-terminated string of at most 8 characters. A calling process should zero the password as soon as possible to avoid leaving the cleartext password visible in the process' address space. /dev/tty crypt(3) The return value points to static data whose content is overwritten by each call.