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Re: getpass obsolete?
[Marcus Brinkmann]
> The man pages are not the documentation of the GNU C library. Read
> the glibc info manual (or the manual that is available online in
> various formats). "info libc" might work on your system, if you
> have info reader and the GNU C library manual installed.
Yeah, yeah. Ignore manual pages, use the info file instead. Sounds
like a reflex reaction. The GNU C library is not developed in a
vacuume. What about answering the question asked instead?
Looking at
<URL:http://www.uwm.edu/cgi-bin/Dept/IMT/wwwman?topic=getpass(3)&msection=1>,
I find the following:
[DIGITAL] The getpass() function is not threadsafe because it manipulates
global signal state.
The getpass() function is scheduled to be withdrawn from a future
version of the X/Open CAE Specification.
The interesting question is why it is scheduled for removal. Looking
at
<URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/getpass.html>,
The Single UNIX ® Specification, Version 2, I find the explanation:
This function was marked LEGACY since it provides no functionality
which a user could not easily implement, and its name is misleading.