Online getpass Compiler

getpass is a module in Python's standard library for asking for a password or another secret. getpass.getpass() works like input(), but in a terminal it turns off echo, so the characters you type do not appear on the screen. The module also has getpass.getuser(), which returns the name of the current user. People use it to ask for an API key or a database password while a script runs, instead of writing the secret into the code. This page is an online getpass compiler: the code runs in your browser, so you can try it without installing anything. Run the example first, then paste any snippet below into a new cell to try it.

What the example does

getpass.getpass("Enter your API Key: ") shows the prompt and returns what you type as a string. On this page it opens a browser dialog, the same one that input() uses, and the code waits until you click OK or Cancel. The key is stored in the api_key variable, not in the code, so it is not part of the notebook when you save or share it. The example prints only len(api_key), which confirms that a key arrived without showing it.

Ask for a new password twice

To set a password, ask twice and compare the answers. This loop also rejects passwords shorter than 8 characters:

import getpass

while True:
    password = getpass.getpass("New password: ")
    if len(password) < 8:
        print("Use at least 8 characters.")
        continue
    if password == getpass.getpass("Repeat the password: "):
        break
    print("The passwords do not match. Try again.")

print("Password set,", len(password), "characters long")

Keep an API key in an environment variable

Libraries such as OpenAI read their key from an environment variable when you do not pass one. This common notebook pattern asks only while the variable is missing or empty, so running the cell a second time does not ask again:

import getpass
import os

if not os.environ.get("OPENAI_API_KEY"):
    os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("OpenAI API key: ").strip()

key = os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"]
print("Key set:", "*" * (len(key) - 4) + key[-4:])

strip() removes spaces or a line break that come along when you paste. The last line shows only the final four characters. The variable lasts until you reload the page.

Get the user name

getpass.getuser() does not ask anything. It checks the environment variables LOGNAME, USER, LNAME and USERNAME in that order and returns the first one that is set:

import getpass
import os

print(getpass.getuser())
for name in ("LOGNAME", "USER", "LNAME", "USERNAME"):
    print(name, os.environ.get(name))

In the browser nobody is logged in, so the result is web_user, a placeholder name that the Python runtime sets.

Good to know