cpython/Doc/library/netrc.rst
2011-01-27 20:38:46 +00:00

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:mod:`netrc` --- netrc file processing
======================================
.. module:: netrc
:synopsis: Loading of .netrc files.
.. moduleauthor:: Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
.. sectionauthor:: Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
**Source code:** :source:`Lib/netrc.py`
--------------
The :class:`netrc` class parses and encapsulates the netrc file format used by
the Unix :program:`ftp` program and other FTP clients.
.. class:: netrc([file])
A :class:`netrc` instance or subclass instance encapsulates data from a netrc
file. The initialization argument, if present, specifies the file to parse. If
no argument is given, the file :file:`.netrc` in the user's home directory will
be read. Parse errors will raise :exc:`NetrcParseError` with diagnostic
information including the file name, line number, and terminating token.
.. exception:: NetrcParseError
Exception raised by the :class:`netrc` class when syntactical errors are
encountered in source text. Instances of this exception provide three
interesting attributes: :attr:`msg` is a textual explanation of the error,
:attr:`filename` is the name of the source file, and :attr:`lineno` gives the
line number on which the error was found.
.. _netrc-objects:
netrc Objects
-------------
A :class:`netrc` instance has the following methods:
.. method:: netrc.authenticators(host)
Return a 3-tuple ``(login, account, password)`` of authenticators for *host*.
If the netrc file did not contain an entry for the given host, return the tuple
associated with the 'default' entry. If neither matching host nor default entry
is available, return ``None``.
.. method:: netrc.__repr__()
Dump the class data as a string in the format of a netrc file. (This discards
comments and may reorder the entries.)
Instances of :class:`netrc` have public instance variables:
.. attribute:: netrc.hosts
Dictionary mapping host names to ``(login, account, password)`` tuples. The
'default' entry, if any, is represented as a pseudo-host by that name.
.. attribute:: netrc.macros
Dictionary mapping macro names to string lists.
.. note::
Passwords are limited to a subset of the ASCII character set. All ASCII
punctuation is allowed in passwords, however, note that whitespace and
non-printable characters are not allowed in passwords. This is a limitation
of the way the .netrc file is parsed and may be removed in the future.