Prefer ?* to hide passwords

It might be argued that a hidden string is more legible when using
?* as the hidden character instead of ?.
For example, the following strings have the same length:
"......"

"******"

It's slighly easier to visually count the number of characters in the second
string (Bug#32220).

* lisp/subr.el (read-passwd): Prefer ?* as default char instead of ?.
* doc/lispref/minibuf.texi (Reading a Password): Update manual.
; * etc/NEWS (Changes in Emacs 27.1): Announce the change.

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/doc/lispref/minibuf.texi b/doc/lispref/minibuf.texi
index 889b64af8ae..d091787a680 100644
--- a/doc/lispref/minibuf.texi
+++ b/doc/lispref/minibuf.texi
@@ -2199,7 +2199,7 @@ function @code{read-passwd}.
 @defun read-passwd prompt &optional confirm default
 This function reads a password, prompting with @var{prompt}.  It does
 not echo the password as the user types it; instead, it echoes
-@samp{.}  for each character in the password.  If you want to apply
+@samp{*}  for each character in the password.  If you want to apply
 another character to hide the password, let-bind the variable
 @code{read-hide-char} with that character.