getpass obsolete?

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[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  The getpass() function is scheduled to be withdrawn from a future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.