On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 10:36:21AM +0100, Erik Faye-Lund wrote:
> > You really want to open "/dev/tty" on most Unix systems (which is what
> > getpass() does).
>
> Yes, you're right. Opening "/dev/tty" is much better. But what happens
> for processes started by GUI applications (with no easily observable
> tty, if any)? Does open simply fail? If so, is it desirable for us to
> fail in that case?
Yes, the open will fail (on Linux, I get ENXIO).
And yes, we should fail in that case. getpass() will generally return
NULL in that instance, and the current implementation of git_getpass()
will die(), explaining that we could not get the password.
> > I have no idea what would be appropriate on Windows.
>
> It's pretty similar, but not exactly: CreateFile("CONIN$", ...) or
> CreateFile("CONOUT$", ...), depending on if you want the read-handle
> or the write-handle... I can probably cook up something a bit more
> concrete, though.
OK, that maps to the /dev/tty concept quite well. Though I suspect the
code for turning off character echo-ing is going to also be different.
> But _getch() that we already use always reads from the console
> (according to MSDN, I haven't actually tested this myself:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/078sfkak%28v=VS.80%29.aspx).
> But I don't think this allows us to fail when no console is attached.
> Question is, should we fail in such cases? Windows does have an API to
> prompt for passwords in a GUI window... Perhaps fallbacking to those
> are the way to go? Something like:
>
> if (GetConsoleWindow()) {
> /* normal console-stuff */
> } else {
> /* call CredUIPromptForWindowsCredentials(...) instead */
> }
Certainly on non-Windows something like that would not be welcome. The
user can already have specified GIT_ASKPASS if they don't have a
terminal. And once the credential-helper code is in, they can use a
platform-specific helper that provides a nice dialog if they want it.
So I would say trying to do something graphical would be surprising and
unwelcome. But then, I am a very Unix-y kind of guy. Maybe on Windows
something like that would be more favorable. I'll leave that decision to
people who know more.
-Peff
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