fci <ces.fci at gmail.com>  wrote:
> I remember doing doing something like this awhile ago:
> echo $password | gpg [...]=20
> 
> there was also this article I saw recently which may be of some help:
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3D10929

Ugh.  What bad advise! If you were to use the commandline above, you
would encrypt your password for all the world to see...  So, let's get
a little more meat and bones to this discussion.  Take a look at the
manpage.  Scroll down to this line:

    --passphrase-fd n
        Read the passphrase from file descriptor n. If you use 0  for
        n,  the passphrase will be read from stdin.  This can only be
        used if only one passphrase  is  supplied.   Don't use  this
        option if you can avoid it.

So, yes you can do this, just make sure you use the correct options.
However, I would suggest you look into using a gpg agent instead.
Read the manpage for more details.

-- 
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>           http://www.wookimus.net/
           assert(expired(knowledge)); /* core dump */