[Python-ideas] [Python-Dev] Proposal for the getpass module

[Guido van Rossum]

[redirecting to python-ideas]

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to propose a small change in the getpass module so it's
> able to get passwords from keyrings (like KWallet, Keychain, etc)
>
> The idea is to provide a getpass.cfg configuration file where people
> can provide the name of a function to use when getpass is called.
> Then third-party projects can implement this function. For example the
> Python Keyring library.[1] could be installed and configured to be
> used by people that wants getpass calls to be handled by this tool.
>
> That's a backward compatible change, and it avoids adding any new
> module in the stdlib. Plus, it offers a greatly improved getpass
> module with no risks for the stdlib stability : it becomes a reference
> implementation with an interface for third-party implementers.
>
> A prototype is here : http://bitbucket.org/tarek/getpass/ (work in
> progress but you can get the idea)
>
> [1] http://pypi.python.org/pypi/keyring

Don't you usually have to tell the keyring which password to retrieve?
The signature for getpass() doesn't have enough info for that.

I'm not sure that not adding a new module to the stdlib is a
sufficient reason to foist the new semantics on an old function.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)