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[Hans Mulder]

On 17/08/11 10:03:00, peter wrote:
> Is there an equivalent to msvcrt for Linux users?  I haven't found
> one, and have resorted to some very clumsy code which turns off
> keyboard excho then reads stdin. Seems such an obvious thing to want
> to do I am surprised there is not a standard library module for it. Or
> have I missed someting (wouldn't be the first time!)

The quick and dirty way is to invoke stty(1) using os.system:

import os

def getpassword(prompt="Password: "):
     try:
         os.system("stty -echo")
         passwd = raw_input(prompt)
     finally:
         os.system("stty echo")
     return passwd


Strictly speaking, os.system is deprecated and you should use
the equivalent invocation of subprocess.call:

import subprocess

def getpassword(prompt="Password: "):
     try:
         subprocess.call(["stty", "-echo"])
         passwd = raw_input(prompt)
     finally:
         subprocess.call(["stty", "echo"])
     return passwd


If you don't want to use an external process, use termios:

import termios, sys

def getpassword(prompt="Password: "):
     fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
     old = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
     new = termios.tcgetattr(fd)
     new[3] = new[3] & ~termios.ECHO          # lflags
     try:
         termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, new)
         passwd = raw_input(prompt)
     finally:
         termios.tcsetattr(fd, termios.TCSADRAIN, old)
     return passwd


These functions work on any Posix system (including Mac OSX),
but not on Windows.

Hope this helps,

-- HansM