How to read a password in Ruby

Hi,

I am running ruby and MySQL on a Windows box.

I have some Ruby code that needs to connect to a MySQL database a perform a select. To connect to the database I need to provide the password (amongst other things). My question is this: How can I get ruby to display the types password as a line of asterisks in the 'dos box'.

In other words, the ruby code can display a prompt requesting the password, the user types in the password and hits the enter key. What I need is for the password, as it is typed, to be displayed as a line of asterisks.

Many thanks.

From stackoverflow Simon Knights

• Poor man's solution:

  system "stty -echo"
  # read password
  system "stty echo"
  

  Or using http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/ruby-password/

  The target audience for this library is system administrators who need to write Ruby programs that prompt for, generate, verify and encrypt passwords.

  Edit: Whoops I failed to notice that you need this for Windows :(

  From jk

• To answer my own question - and for the benefit of anyone else who would like to know:

  There is a ruby gem called highline that you need.

  require 'rubygems'
  require 'highline/import'
  
  def get_password(prompt="Enter Password")
     ask(prompt) {|q| q.echo = false}
  end
  
  thePassword = get_password()
  

  Works a treat!

  From Simon Knights

• According to the Highline doc, this seems to work. Not sure if it will work on Windows.

  #!/usr/local/bin/ruby
  require 'rubygems'
  require 'highline/import'
  
  username = ask("Enter your username:  ") { |q| q.echo = true }
  password = ask("Enter your password:  ") { |q| q.echo = "*" }
  

  Here's the output on the console:

  $ ruby highline.rb 
  Enter your username:  doug
  Enter your password:  ******
  

  From Eric Monti