Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 02:57:23 -0400 Message-Id: <200106040657.CAA16211@envy.delorie.com> X-Authentication-Warning: envy.delorie.com: dj set sender to dj AT envy DOT delorie DOT com using -f From: DJ Delorie To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com In-reply-to: (message from Eli Zaretskii on Mon, 4 Jun 2001 09:56:30 +0300 (IDT)) Subject: Re: Re-Submit: add extra fields to structs group and passwd References: Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk > Empty passwords? Isn't it better to return some string, like > "password"? We do similar things with username and group. No, because the string must be a hash of the password, not the password itself. "x" is probably better than anything else; many unix systems (including Linux) have "x" in the password field of /etc/passwd for security reasons. Unix accounts that do not have a password *will* return "" for the password field, and since DJGPP "accounts" don't have passwords, returning an empty password field to indicate that seems to make the most sense.