problem with accepting password

Hi,

I'm developing a console application in which I've to accept password from the user. When the user enters the password, I want only the asteriks(*) to appear on the screen or else nothing should appear like in UNIX machines. Kindly give me an idea to implement it both ways.

Thanks,
Babu

i believe something like this has come up before.. give it a search.

I'm guessing you want a Windows version. Since I already wrote one on these forums but with some errors in checking if the HANDLEs are valid or not, I'll put a corrected one here:

Code:

---

char *getPass(char *szBuffer, size_t len)
{
        size_t i;
        HANDLE hIn = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
        HANDLE hOut = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
        DWORD dwOld, dwNumRead, dwNumWritten;
        if((hIn != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) && (hOut != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE))
        {
                if(GetConsoleMode(hIn,&dwOld))
                {
                        if(SetConsoleMode(hIn,ENABLE_PROCESSED_INPUT))
                        {
                                for(i=0;i<len-1;i++)
                                {
                                        if(ReadConsole(hIn,&szBuffer[i],1,&dwNumRead,NULL))
                                        {
                                                if(szBuffer[i] == '\r')
                                                {
                                                        break;
                                                }
                                                else WriteConsole(hOut,"*",1,&dwNumWritten,NULL);
                                        }
                                        else break;
                                }
                                WriteConsole(hOut,"\n",1,&dwNumWritten,NULL);
                                szBuffer[i] = '\0';
                                SetConsoleMode(hIn,dwOld);
                                return szBuffer;
                        }
                }
        }
        return NULL;
}

---

There's a *nix version floating around somewhere in the same topic. I think it was in the C++ section.

If you want nothing or spaces instead of *'s, you can alter this function to do that, too.

Edit: Fixed an important bug where the '\0' wouldn't be properly put in place in some cases..... ;)

I think you can use the c++ getch() with accepts a character without displaying it.