From: "Ara.T.Howard" <Ara.T.Howard@...>
Date: 2005-06-10T03:55:18+09:00
Subject: Re: How to take password from user

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, James Edward Gray II wrote:

> On Jun 9, 2005, at 1:08 PM, Ara.T.Howard wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, James Edward Gray II wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> #!/usr/local/bin/ruby -w
>>> 
>>> require "rubygems"
>>> require "highline/import"
>>> 
>>> pass = ask("Enter your password:  ") { |q| q.echo = false } # or q.echo = 
>>> "*"
>>> puts "Your password is #{pass}!"
>>> 
>>> __END__
>> 
>> does this clear out the password buffer in memory?
>
> Forgive me if I didn't understand your question completely, but I believe the 
> answer is basically yes.
>
> Behind the scenes, HighLine is using a cross platform character reader and 
> just accumulating the results in a local variable.  It returns the contents 
> of that variable to you and then the scope is lost.
>
> I hope that's what you meant, but feel free to correct me if I just didn't 
> get the question.

hmmm... it's probably still in memory for a while unless there is an explicit
method to clear it.  some password libs have this feature.

thanks.

-a
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