Re: Connect - Password

[Simon Coulter <shc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday, December 5, 2003, at 09:05  PM, McCallion, Martin wrote:

> For that matter if you do CHGUSRPRF and change the password, it's
> visible.  I've always thought that this was because they don't have a
> "Re-enter password for confirmation" field.  Of course, they _could_
> have such a field, and make both of them not show the password.

Note the password is only visible while you type it. Once you press 
Enter the password is removed from the command string. F9 will retrieve 
the command and you'll see the PASSWORD() keyword with no value.

The DSPINPUT keyword on the command PARM statement controls this 
behaviour. The default is *YES which causes the input and the result to 
be visible, but it also supports *PROMPT which causes the input to 
display but the result to be hidden, and *NO which hides both the input 
and the result.

IBM commands generally use DSPINPUT(*PROMPT) and you are correct that 
the reason for this is because there is no confirmation field. If the 
PASSWORD field on CHGUSRPRF were set to DSPINPUT(*NO) it would be easy 
to mistype the password resulting in a profile that could not sign on 
until the password is corrected.
While a confirmation parameter could be added to commands like 
CHGUSRPRF there is usually a distinction made between a command being 
prompted and a prompt panel. For example, CHGPWD is a command with no 
parameters but it displays a prompt panel on which the three password 
fields are hidden. The prompt panel has a confirmation field so a user 
cannot mistype the new password and then not be able to sign on.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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