[Expectperl-discuss] expect closing port handle

[Sayre S. <sa...@qu...>]

I am new to Expect. I am using it to control some serial devices that 
our company manufactures. They are connected on /dev/tty ports directly 
as RS232 devices. I open the port using IO::File and then connect that 
handle to Expect.

I have a problem where Expect.pm occasionally closes the filehandle on 
the port giving the following message from the debug output:

Waiting for new data (6 seconds)...
handle id(3): new data.
handle id(3): EOF
handle id(3): closing...
Returning from expect with TIMEOUT or EOF


I have patched my problem by commenting out the       

 $exp->hard_close();

on line 853 of Expect.pm - which I realize is a drastic step.

What am I doing wrong? Why would expect decide to close my filehandle? 
What can I do about it so that I do not have to modify the Expect.pm 
program.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,
Sayre Swarztrauber