getpass() and getuser() in Python (Password without echo)

Difficulty Level : Easy
Last Updated : 11 May, 2017

getpass() prompts the user for a password without echoing. The getpass module provides a secure way to handle the password prompts where programs interact with the users via the terminal.

This module provides two functions :

getpass()

getpass.getpass(prompt='Password: ', stream=None)

The getpass() function is used to prompt to users using the string prompt and reads the input from the user as Password. The input read deafults to “Password: ” is returned to the caller as a string.

Let’s walk through some examples to understand its implementation.

Example 1 : No Prompt provided by the caller

# A simple Python program to demonstrate 
# getpass.getpass() to read password
import getpass
  
try:
    p = getpass.getpass()
except Exception as error:
    print('ERROR', error)
else:
    print('Password entered:', p)

Here, no prompt is provided by the caller. So, it is set to the default prompt “Password”.
Output :

$ python3 getpass_example1.py

Password: 
('Password entered:', 'aditi')

Example 2 : Security Question
There are certain programs that ask for security questions rather than asking for passwords for better security. Here, the prompt can be changed to any value.

# A simple Python program to demonstrate 
# getpass.getpass() to read security question
import getpass
  
p = getpass.getpass(prompt='Your favorite flower? ')
  
if p.lower() == 'rose':
    print('Welcome..!!!')
else:
    print('The answer entered by you is incorrect..!!!')

Output :

$ python3 getpass_example2.py

Your favorite flower?
Welcome..!!!

$ python3 getpass_example2.py

Your favorite flower?
The answer entered by you is incorrect..!!!

getuser()
getpass.getuser()

The getuser() function displays the login name of the user. This function checks the environment variables LOGNAME, USER, LNAME and USERNAME, in order, and returns the value of the first non-empty string.

Example 3 :

# Python program to demonstrate working of
# getpass.getuser()
import getpass
  
user = getpass.getuser()
  
while True:
    pwd = getpass.getpass("User Name : %s" % user)
  
    if pwd == 'abcd':
        print "Welcome!!!"
        break
    else:
        print "The password you entered is incorrect."

Output :

$ python3 getpass_example3.py

User Name : bot
Welcome!!!

$ python3 getpass_example3.py

User Name : bot
The password you entered is incorrect.

This article is contributed by Aditi Gupta. If you like GeeksforGeeks and would like to contribute, you can also write an article using contribute.geeksforgeeks.org or mail your article to contribute@geeksforgeeks.org. See your article appearing on the GeeksforGeeks main page and help other Geeks.

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