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:mod:`getpass` --- Portable password input
==========================================
.. module:: getpass
:synopsis: Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid.
.. moduleauthor:: Piers Lauder <piers@cs.su.oz.au>
.. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>
.. Windows (& Mac?) support by Guido van Rossum.
The :mod:`getpass` module provides two functions:
.. function:: 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.
.. versionchanged:: 2.5
The *stream* parameter was added.
.. function:: getuser()
Return the "login name" of the user. Availability: Unix, Windows.
This function checks the environment variables :envvar:`LOGNAME`,
:envvar:`USER`, :envvar:`LNAME` and :envvar:`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 :mod:`pwd` module, otherwise, an exception is raised.