8.8.1 Example

Here's a function that prompts for a password with echoing turned off. Note the technique using a separate tcgetattr() call and a try ... finally statement to ensure that the old tty attributes are restored exactly no matter what happens:

def getpass(prompt = "Password: "):
    import termios, sys
    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

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