MATLAB: How to create an encrypted password in MATLAB

Question

I am writing a set of MATLAB scripts that communicate with a database. I need to prompt the user for a password to get into the database. Currently, when the user enters the password you can actually see the password as the user is typing. Is there a way to get a character (such as *) to appear on the display instead of letters/numbers while the user is entering the password?

Answer 1

Currently, you cannot have letters or numbers appear as particular characters in MATLAB. This has been forwarded to our development staff to be considered for a future version of MATLAB.

Please consider the following workarounds:

1. Use an ActiveX control

2. Set the foreground color to be the same as the background color, the typing will not be visible.

 

h = uicontrol('Style','Edit','ForeGroundColor',[.75 .75 .75]);

3. Use a font that does not appear as normal letters.

 

h = uicontrol('Style','Edit','Fontname','symbol');

4. A file exchange submission that replaces the characters typed with asterisks can be found in the following link:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/8499-login

Also, keep in mind if you are creating an application that will be used on a number of different platforms you will need to use a font name particular for each platform.

See the following as a possible MATLAB code workaround:

 

function passwd_test
u = uicontrol('style','edit','enable','inactive','backgroundcolor','w',...
    'units','norm',...
    'position',[.1 .1 .5 .1],...
    'tag','edit')
u = uicontrol('style','text','enable','inactive','backgroundcolor','w',...
    'units','norm',...
    'position',[.1 .25 .5 .1],...
    'tag','text')
set(gcf,'keypressfcn', {@handle_passwd})
function handle_passwd(h,eventData)
CK = get(gcf,'currentkey');
h_disp = findobj(gcbf,'tag','text');
h_asterix = findobj(gcbf,'tag','edit');
if gco == h_asterix,
    str = get(h_disp,'string');
      if strcmp(CK,'backspace'),
          % Do something here if the backspace key was pressed
          if length(str) > 1,
              str = str(1:end-1);
          end
      elseif strcmp(CK,'space')
          str = [str,' '];
      else
          str = [str,CK];
      end
      set(h_disp,'string',str);
      set(h_asterix,'string',char(ones(1,length(str))*double('*')));
  end