[Pmwiki-users] PmWiki password puzzle

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 01:39:24PM +0100, Ciaran wrote:
> Why restrict what characters can be in the password? Does the hash
> function not produce an 'unbroken' string anyway ?

If we want the ability to set an array of passwords in a text field, there 
has to be some character or sequence in the field that marks where 
one password begins and the next one ends; thus that character/sequence 
cannot be part of a password (unless we introduce special quoting rules, 
which seems a bit like overkill).

I.e., if, as John suggested, we want to use the GroupAttributes page
to set four read passwords:

   read: pass1,pass2,pass3,pass4

where commas are being used to separate the passwords, then a password
set this way cannot contain a comma.  I'm simply asking if it'd be okay
to use space instead of comma, such that one could set

   read: pass1 pass2 pass3 pass4

This is to avoid confusion for when I introduce user-based authorization,
where I want someone to be able to specify a list of authorized users
separated by commas.

Of course, passwords set in configuration files via the $DefaultPasswords
array can contain any character desired.

Pm