expectperl-announce — Announcements regarding Perl modules Expect.pm, IO::Tty and IO::Stty

[Expectperl-announce] IO-Tty v1.08 released

[Roland G. <rgi...@cp...>]

IO_Tty v1.08 has been uploaded to PAUSE and should be shortly available 
on CPAN.

Changes: added posix_openpt() as the preferred method for opening a pty. 
This should make it work again on newer *BSD versions.

Thanks to Ed Schouten for providing the patch.

Roland

[Expectperl-announce] New release: Expect-1.20

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Bug-Fix-Release, recommended.

+ added early return to send and send_slow if filehandle was closed

+ added test for send_slow

! fixed bug in expect() param handling (exact pattern "0" was ignored)

! fixed bug in _make_readable()

+ now included example ssh.pl in MANIFEST so it gets packaged :-(


--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New release: IO-Tty-1.07

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Tty.xs: added some more letters to BSD allocation

--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New release: Expect-1.19

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Bug-fix Release:

fixed non-localized usage of $_
added new example ssh.pl

--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New release: IO-Tty-1.06

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Bug-Fix release, fixing issue with ioctl.

--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New release: Expect-1.18

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Fixed hanging spawn on AIX (and others).

Closing the pty slave in the parent would hang if the spawned child
already wrote something to the pty. I added another sync via pipe to
make sure that the parent first closes the slave before the child
execs.

--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New release: IO-Tty-1.05

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Fixed include issue in Tty.xs. Should now build on HPUX.

--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New releases: IO-Tty-1.04 and Expect-1.17

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Available from your nearest CPAN mirror or from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=6894

Added z/OS support to IO-Tty.
Added sys/pty.h (for HPUX) to IO-Tty.
Fixed param check for expect() in Expect.

Tested under Linux, AIX 5.3 and Cygwin. Feedback for other OSs
appreciated.

Cheers, Roland
--
RGi...@cp...



--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] New releases: IO-Tty-1.03 and Expect-1.16

[Roland G. <RGi...@cp...>]

Available from your nearest CPAN mirror.

I finally found the time for incorporating some bugfixes and doing some
testing, unfortunately only on Linux, AIX 5.3 and Cygwin. Feedback for
other OSs appreciated.

IO-Tty shouldn't warn about bad ioctl constants anymore and also build
better on HPUX and Z/OS (and any other compiler that uses shell
metachars for compiler options).

For Expect I (hopefully) fixed a hangup-problem on AIX 5.2, also a
hangup for send_slow and $? corruption in DESTROY.

Cheers, Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] Re: mailinglists archive

[<RGi...@a1...>]

> I was looking for an archive for the expect perl mailing lists. Are
> they posted anywhere on the web? I couldn't find any.

Yes, they are archived at GeoCrawler (http://www.geocrawler.com), just 
follow the mailinglists link from

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/expectperl/

Hope this helps,

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] ANNOUNCE: IO-Tty v1.00 and Expect v1.14

[<RGi...@a1...>]

IO-Tty v1.00 and Expect v1.14 are now available from CPAN (when the 
packages have propagated) as well as from the project homepage at 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/expectperl/.

From the READMEs:

IO::Tty and IO::Pty provide an interface to pseudo tty's

To build this distribution, run

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make test
  make install

ALL BRAND NEW!!

I finally took the time to give the pty-allocation part a complete
overhaul.  Thanks to openssh and Xemacs teams for providing me with a
lot of inspiration through their own pty-allocation codes.

I also removed the spawn code, as this doesn't fit thematically in
here.  Look into 'try' or 'test.pl' to see how it is done by hand.
Problems with ackquiring a controlling terminal should also be fixed
and propagating terminal size changes is now supported.  Please read
the manpages, there is a lot of new stuff (e.g. IO::Tty::Constant).

Please note that pty creation is very system-dependend.  I am
beginning to get an overview, but there are a *lot* of different
systems out there.  If you have problems on your system, please send
me (<RGi...@cp...>) the output of a manual installation ('perl
Makefile.PL; make; make test;') and I'll see what I can deduce from
it.

Supported systems include Linux, Solaris, AIX, OSF, *BSD, IRIX, HP-UX
and finally Windows (under the Cygwin environment, see
http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/).  See the IO::Tty manpage for a
detailed list.  I also compiled an overview table, find it in the
project pages document manager at SourceForge
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/expectperl/).

Sorry, ActiveState Perl is not supported, basically because there are
no pseudo-terminals under Windows.  If somebody from ActiveState reads
this and wants to work on it, please contact me, maybe we could use
the equivalent of pipes to emulate the behaviour.

If it's working on your system, please send me a short note with
details (version number, distribution, etc. 'uname -a' is a good
start) so I can get an overview.  Thanks!

See the ChangeLog and the docs for details.

Oh, and many thanks to all testers, without their support this project
would still be limited to a few systems that I have access to.  Thanks
also to SourceForge (http://sf.net) who is hosting this and many other
projects, their services have made development and support a real
pleasure.  If you intend to donate something to the Open Source cause,
think about lending them a machine for their compile farm!

Roland <RGi...@cp...>
2002-03-12


Expect.pm v1.14
===============

Expect requires the latest version of IO::Tty, also available from
CPAN.  IO::Stty has become optional but I'd suggest you also install
it.  If you use the highly recommended CPAN module, there is a
Bundle::Expect available that installs everything for you.

If you prefer manual installation, the usual

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make test
  make install

should work.  I finally started a testsuite for Expect, but it doesn't
really test anything deeper right now.  The problem is to find some
external program to use for generating reproducible output that is
available across all platforms.  Luckily, we can always use perl
itself...  Contributions to the testsuite are of course welcome.

Note that IO::Tty is very system-dependend.  It has been extensively
reworked and tested, but there still may be systems that have
problems.

The Perl Expect module was inspired more by the functionality of
Tcl/Expect than any previous Expect-like tool such as Comm.pl or
chat2.pl.

The Tcl version of Expect is a creation of Don Libes (li...@ni...)
and can be found at http://expect.nist.gov/.  Don has written an
excellent in-depth tutorial of Tcl/Expect, which is _Exploring
Expect_.  It is the O'Reilly book with the monkey on the front.  Don
has several references to other articles on the Expect web page.

I try to stay as close to Tcl/Expect in interface and semantics as
possible (so I can refer questions to the Tcl/Expect docu).
Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

[Latest rumours have it that Don plans a rewrite of Expect as a
stand-alone library that can be easily embedded into various scripting
languages.]

There is now a FAQ section in the pod, complete with examples, so
please let me know if there's something you'd like to see answered
there that isn't.

There are two mailing lists available, expectperl-announce and
expectperl-discuss, at

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/expectperl-announce

and

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/expectperl-discuss


From the Changes file:
======================

! changed tests to check out pty behaviour (max. string length)

+ added various FAQ entries

+ added autoflush(1) to log_file

+ split 'new' and 'spawn' to be able to set slave pty params via stty
  before actually spawning the program

+ added raw_pty()

+ added notransfer()

+ added print_log_file(), send() now no longer prints to log file or 
stdout.

! spawn() now synchronizes child and parent, so exec errors are 
reported.

+ timeout handlers now also can exp_continue

+ added 'raw_pty' option, also setting master to raw if isatty()

+ added and corrected test for exit status; got rid of Test.pm

! use 'set_raw' instead of stty("raw"); IO::Stty now optional

+ updated docs & FAQs; explained how terminal sizes and SIGWINCH
  should be propagated

! fixed bug in log_file, parameter now gets set to undef.

! fixed select in interconnect, may return -1 if interrupted by signal.


Thanks to everybody who wrote to me, either with bug reports or
enhancement suggestions!

Roland Giersig (maintainer of Expect.pm, IO::Tty, IO::Stty, 
Tie::Persistent)
RGi...@cp...
2002-03-12

--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] ANNOUNCE: IO::Tty 0.05 and Expect 1.12

[Roland G. <RGi...@CP...>]

Finally!  A much improved version of IO::Tty that now even works
under Cygwin, which means: (tada!) Expect for Windows!  Only a few
very basic tests have been done, so I expect that further bugfixes
may be needed, but it's still a small giant step...

Find attached the READMEs for IO::Tty and Expect.  Note that I have
enhanced documentation, especially for Expect.

Both modules are available from CPAN.

Feedback is (as always) appreciated.

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...


IO::Tty v0.05
=============

IO::Tty and IO::Pty provide an interface to pseudo tty's

To build this distribution run

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make test
  make install

There is finally a 'make test' for this distribution!!
For manual tests there is still a script included called 'try'.

If try is run with arguments it will run then as a command with the
output connected via a pseudo tty, eg

   perl -Mblib try ls

This module was developed by Graham Barr <gb...@po...>
and is now maintained by Roland Giersig <RGi...@cp...>.

GREAT NEWS!!  It now works on Windows under Cygwin
(http://source.redhat.com/cygwin) !!  For all those interested: Cygwin
provides /dev/ptmx semantics, but there is no actual file called
'/dev/ptmx'.  Still, when someone opens it, Cygwin emulates the Right
Thing (tm).  Deep Magic!

It should finally work with HPUX 11.0 and FreeBSD, but I cannot do any
in-depth testing, so please provide feedback.

Please note that pty creation is very system-dependend.  If you have
problems on your system, please send me (<RGi...@cp...>) the output 
of a manual installation ('perl Makefile.PL; make; make test;') and 
I'll see what I can deduce from it.

Supported systems include Linux, Solaris, AIX, OSF, *BSD, HP-UX and
finally Windows (under the Cygwin environment, see
http://source.redhat.com/cygwin).  See the IO::Tty manpage for a list.
If it's working on your system, please send me a short note with
details (version number, distribution, etc. 'uname -a' is a good
start) so I can get an overview.  Thanks!

As this module is mainly used by Expect, support for it is available 
via the two Expect mailing lists, expectperl-announce and
expectperl-discuss, at

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/expectperl-announce

and

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/expectperl-discuss


Thanks to (in no particular order)

Mark Montague <mar...@um...> 
Olaf Flebbe <o.f...@sc...>
Nick Scott <Nic...@ve...>
Theo Petersen <th...@ac...> 
Rocco Caputo <tr...@ne...>
Dave Smith <dav...@ca...>
Bob Showalter <Bob...@ta...>

who helped fixing bugs on various platforms.

See the ChangeLog for details.

Roland <RGi...@cp...>
2001-08-16



Expect.pm v1.12
===============

GREAT NEWS!  Expect should finally work under the cywin environment
for Windows NT!  All you need is the latest version of IO::Tty (0.05),
which has been severely enhanced and bugfixed.  Also, *BSD and HPUX
should work now.  Please refer to the IO::Tty documentation.

Expect requires IO::Tty and IO::Stty, also available from CPAN.
It is highly recommended that you also upgrade to the latest IO::Tty.
There is a Bundle::Expect available that installs everything for
you.

If you prefer manual installation, the usual

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make test
  make install

should work.  I finally started a simple testsuite for Expect, but
it doesn't really test anything deeper right now.  The problem is to
find some external program to use for generating reproducible output
that is available across all platforms.  Luckily, we can always use perl
itself...  Contributions to the testsuite are of course welcome.

It would probably be wise to read the docs on IO::Tty before doing a
make install with it (or at least when there are problems).  Note that
IO::Tty is very system-dependend.  I'm in the process to steal the
pty-creation code from the Tcl version of Expect, which should be much
more stable, but this may take a while (no free tuits at the moment).

The Expect for Perl module was inspired more by the functionality the
Tcl tool provides than any previous Expect-like tool such as Comm.pl
or chat2.pl.

The Tcl version of expect is a creation of Don Libes (li...@ni...).
The Tcl Expect home page is http://expect.nist.gov/.  Don has written
an excellent in-depth tutorial of Tcl/Expect, which is _Exploring
Expect_.  It is the O'reilly book with the monkey on the front.  Don has
several references to other articles on the Expect web page.

I try to stay as close to Tcl/Expect in interface and semantics
as possible (so I can refer questions to the Tcl/Expect docu).
Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

There is now a FAQ section in the pod, complete with examples, so please
let me know if there's something you'd like to see answered there that
isn't.

There are two mailing lists available, expectperl-announce and
expectperl-discuss, at

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/expectperl-announce

and

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/expectperl-discuss


From the Changes file:
======================

! exp_Max_Accum didn't work for interact.

- removed soft_close() from DESTROY.  Being overly nice to a doomed
  process doesn't pay off.  Old behaviour is available via
  $Expect::Do_Soft_Close = 1;

! cleanup of log and exp_internal output

+ added various aliases for functions starting with 'exp_'

! moved FAQ and intro into the main pod as I got the impression
  that many users didn't bother to read all the documentation
  or didn't know that it was there.

+ added a hook for log_file: can be set to a code ref.


Thanks to everybody who wrote to me, either with bug reports or
enhancement suggestions!

Roland Giersig (maintainer of Expect.pm, IO::Pty, IO::Stty,
Tie::Persistent)
RGi...@cp...

2001-09-03

[Expectperl-announce] Prerelease2 IO::Tty v0.05 fixed for FreeBSD

[Roland G. <r.g...@xs...>]

Hi Folks (again)!

Found a bug in the Makefile.PL which prevents compilation on
*BSD systems, so all Free(and other)BSD users (and others that
only have BSD-style tty/pty pairs), please try it out if it 
now works and tell me.

Thanks!

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] Prerelease Expect v1.12 & IO::Tty v0.05

[Roland G. <Ro...@a1...>]

Hi folks,

I finally found some time to get all those fixes and suggestions into 
the code. Find attached the prerelease versions for IO::Tty and 
Expect. Please try them out at your convenience. IO::Tty finally has 
some tests, so it should be easy to 'make test' and provide me with the 
results. I'm especially interested in results from FreeBSD and HPUX 
systems, as those had the most troubles in the past.

Most notable changes:

IO::Tty:

* finally should work under Windows NT (via Cygwin)!!
* slave PTY should now be a controlling terminal, so spawning ssh 
should work.
* some SVR4 only define __SVR4; fixed.
* OSF machines need termio.h for various macros
* AIX doesn't define VOIDSIG; fixed.
* added openpty() version for FreeBSD and others

Expect:

* interact should work better, escaping should now work.
* destroying an expect object shouldn't take half a minute anymore.

Have fun!

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

Re: [Expectperl-announce] IO-Tty

[Roland G. <r.g...@xs...>]

Ferenc G?mesi wrote:
> I can't compile 'IO-Tty-0.04'
> Operating system:
> Unix Uru64
> Message:
> cc: Error: xssubs.c, line 732: In this statement, "struct termio" is an
> incomplete type, and so has no size. (sizeincomptyp)
> newCONSTSUB(stash,"TCGETA", newSViv(TCGETA));
> In Linux environment it's working good.

[Sorry to let this one through, this should have been posted to 
expectperl-discuss...]

What is Uru64?  I know of Ubik, but Uru?

Anyhow, this is a problem in the system header files of Uru64 insofar,
as struct termio is only declared and the definition is located
somewhere eles (either #ifdeffed out or in a separate #include file).

Please look through the header files to see if a #define or additional
#include can solve this problem.

Hope this helps,

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] IO-Tty

[Ferenc G. <GE...@we...>]

Dear Gurus,

I can't compile 'IO-Tty-0.04'
Operating system:
Unix Uru64
Message:
cc: Error: xssubs.c, line 732: In this statement, "struct termio" is an
incomplete type, and so has no size. (sizeincomptyp)
newCONSTSUB(stash,"TCGETA", newSViv(TCGETA));
In Linux environment it's working good.
Can somebody help me?
Thank You
gferi

[Expectperl-announce] NOTE: Expect v1.11

[Roland G. <r.g...@xs...>]

Expect users, please note:

The testsuite in Expect v1.11 will produce a false negative
under perl 5.6: test # 7 will fail.  This is OK, it's a bug
in the testsuite, not Expect, so you can still install it.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Roland Giersig (Expect.pm maintainer)
RGi...@cp...

2001-02-20

[Expectperl-announce] ANNOUNCE: Expect v1.11

[Roland G. <r.g...@xs...>]

Expect v1.11 has been uploaded to CPAN and is also
available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/expectperl/

From the README:

        Expect.pm v1.11

Expect requires IO::Tty and IO::Stty, also available from CPAN.
There is a Bundle::Expect available that installs everything for
you.

If you prefer manual installation, the usual

  perl Makefile.PL
  make
  make install

should work.  I finally started a simple testsuite for Expect, but
it doesn't really test anything deeper right now.

It would probably be wise to read the docs on IO::Tty before
doing a make install with it.

The Expect for Perl module was inspired more by the functionality the
Tcl tool provides than any previous Expect-like tool such as Comm.pl
or chat2.pl.

The Tcl version of expect is a creation of Don Libes (li...@ni...).
The Tcl Expect home page is http://expect.nist.gov/.  Don has written
an excellent in-depth tutorial of Tcl/Expect, which is _Exploring
Expect_.  It is the O'reilly book with the monkey on the front.  Don has
several references to other articles on the Expect web page.

I try to stay as close to Tcl/Expect in interface and semantics
as possible (so I can refer questions to the Tcl/Expect docu ;-).
Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

I started a new FAQ (Expect_FAQ.pod), so please let me know if there's
something you'd like to see answered there that isn't.


From the Changelog:
===================

        Bugs fixed:

! max_accum (match_max) finally really restricts the match-buffer-size.

! expect() didn't return the correct error state upon EOF

! soft_close() was re-reading the filehandle even when an EOF
  had already been detected, resulting in a very long delay.

! exp_continue() returned a value that got truncated with certain
  perl versions (5.6 :-( ) on certain systems.


        Features added:

+ Lee Eakin <le...@ja...>contributed a perl version of the
  kibitz script which might be of common interest.  See the
  examples/kibitz subdir.  Thanks Lee!

+ Expect got it's own print() so we can show what's getting
  sent to the spawned program when exp_internal is set.
  (suggested by ho...@ea...)

+ a session can now be logged to a file by setting log_file().  Thanks to
  Marcel Widjaja <mar...@su...> for suggesting this.

+ I added some aliases for certain methods to help Tcl/Expect users
  to a WLIE experience (Work Like I Expect).  'exp_pid', 'match_max',
  'log_file', 'log_user', even 'send' (which is an alias for 'print')
  are all there now.  But I won't make 'send_user' an alias for
  'print STDOUT', you have to draw a line somewhere.

+ some diagnosis messages now use cluck to print a stacktrace
  (suggested by ho...@ea...)

+ there is a new option 'restart_timeout_upon_receive', that, when
  set to 1, will restart the timeout within the expect call.  This is
  useful when supervising an application that produces periodic, but
  not well-defined output and you still want to react to certain
  patterns.  Just say

    $exp->restart_timeout_upon_receive(1);
    $exp->expect($timeout,
                 [ timeout => \&report_timeout ],
                 [ qr/pattern/ => \&handle_pattern ]);

  (suggested by ho...@ea...)
  

Thanks to everybody who wrote to me, either with bug reports or
enhancement suggestions!

Roland Giersig (Expect.pm maintainer)
RGi...@cp...

2001-02-20

[Expectperl-announce] Maintainance Downtime

[Roland G. <Rol...@al...>]

Hi all,

I'm sorry for not responding to any inquiries lately, but I am
between jobs right now and have other more pressing things to
do.  I hope to be up and running in the second week of january,
so please be patient.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...
Maintainer [Expect, IO::Tty, IO::Stty, Tie:Persistent]

[Expectperl-announce] ANNOUNCE: Expect 1.10

[<RGi...@cp...>]

It's so sad: Expect 1.09 had a syntax error!! Don't ask me how it
slipped through, I tried it with two test scripts that worked, but
must have botched when upping the version number for the release...

Anyhow, Expect 1.10 has entered CPAN and 1.09 is scheduled for
deletion, so I hope there was no major harm done.

With humblest apologies,

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] Re: ANNOUNCE: Expect v1.09

[Roland G. <Rol...@al...>]

Seems like the FAQ didn't make it, so I'm resending it...

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...

[Expectperl-announce] ANNOUNCE: Expect v1.09

[Roland G. <Rol...@al...>]

Expect v1.09 has been uploaded to CPAN and
Sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/expectperl/).

This is a bugfix release: exp_before didn't get set on timeout,
the expect call didn't return on matching EOF, spawn didn't 
die when exec failed, Expect crashed in certain cases.

I'm sure there are still other bugs, so keep those problem
reports coming!

Yes, I know, the documentation is bad, but I have now started 
a new FAQ (see attachment) that should help until I find the
time to give the docs a complete overhaul.

Roland
--
RGi...@cp...