% Module and documentation by Eric S. Raymond, 21 Dec 1998 
\section{Standard Module \module{netrc}}
\stmodindex{netrc}
\label{module-netrc}

The \code{netrc} class parses and encapsulates the netrc file format
used by Unix's ftp(1) and other FTP clientd

\begin{classdesc}{netrc}{\optional{file}}
A \class{netrc} instance or subclass instance enapsulates data from 
a netrc file.  The initialization argument, if present, specifies the file
to parse.  If no argument is given, the file .netrc in the user's home
directory will be read.  Parse errors will throw a SyntaxError
exception with associated diagnostic information including the file
name, line number, and terminating token.
\end{classdesc}

\subsection{netrc Objects}
\label{netrc-objects}

A \class{netrc} instance has the following methods:

\begin{methoddesc}{authenticators}{}
Return a 3-tuple (login, account, password) of authenticators for the
given 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.
\end{methoddesc}

\begin{methoddesc}{__repr__}{host}
Dump the class data as a string in the format of a netrc file.
(This discards comments and may reorder the entries.)
\end{methoddesc}

Instances of \class{netrc} have public instance variables:

\begin{memberdesc}{hosts}
Dictionmary mapping host names to login/account/password tuples.  The
`default' entry, if any, is represented as a pseudo-host by that name.
\end{memberdesc}

\begin{memberdesc}{macros}
Dictionary mapping macro names to string lists.
\end{memberdesc}