This simple immutable
class encapsulates a username and a password. The password is stored
as a character array rather than as a String
object so that the caller can erase the contents of the array after
use for increased security. Note that the
PasswordAuthentication( ) constructor clones the
specified password character array, but
getPassword(
) returns a reference to the object's
internal array.
Application programmers defining an Authenticator
object for their application need to create and return a
PasswordAuthentication object from the
getPasswordAuthentication(
) method of that object. System programmers
writing URLStreamHandler implementations or
otherwise interacting with a network server that requests password
authentication may obtain a PasswordAutentication
object representing the user's name and password by
calling the static
Authenticator.requestPasswordAuthentication( )
method.
public final class PasswordAuthentication {
// Public Constructors
public PasswordAuthentication(String userName, char[ ] password);
// Public Instance Methods
public char[ ] getPassword( );
public String getUserName( );
}