[Expectperl-discuss] 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