Major improvements:
* Default to using /dev/tty for the password prompt and input before
falling back to sys.stdin and sys.stderr.
* Use sys.stderr instead of sys.stdout.
* print the 'password may be echoed' warning to stream used to display
the prompt rather than always sys.stderr.
* warn() with GetPassWarning when input may be echoed.
diff --git a/Doc/library/getpass.rst b/Doc/library/getpass.rst
index da1f9f5..25a82af9 100644
--- a/Doc/library/getpass.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/getpass.rst
@@ -14,13 +14,29 @@
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).
+ written to the file-like object *stream*. *stream* defaults to the
+ controlling terminal (/dev/tty) or if that is unavailable to ``sys.stderr``
+ (this argument is ignored on Windows).
+
+ If echo free input is unavailable getpass() falls back to printing
+ a warning message to *stream* and reading from ``sys.stdin`` and
+ issuing a :exc:`GetPassWarning`.
Availability: Macintosh, Unix, Windows.
.. versionchanged:: 2.5
The *stream* parameter was added.
+ .. versionchanged:: 2.6
+ On Unix it defaults to using /dev/tty before falling back
+ to ``sys.stdin`` and ``sys.stderr``.
+ .. note::
+ If you call getpass from within idle, the input may be done in the
+ terminal you launched idle from rather than the idle window itself.
+
+
+.. exception:: GetPassWarning
+
+ A :exc:`UserWarning` subclass issued when password input may be echoed.
.. function:: getuser()