[Expectperl-discuss] Help: clearing out previous command output

[Eric G. <er...@re...>]

Hi,

I having this problem:

I issue command1 and use a timeout to terminate the expect() call since 
I don't know what I'm going to get back from command1.  This sets 
before() to command1's output as expected.

I issue command2 with both a pattern match and a timeout.  I find that 
when the output from command1 contains the pattern match, the expect() 
call for command2 terminates before it's looked at the output from 
command2, and I essentially get out of sync with commands and command 
output.

I tried clear_accum() between command1 and command2, but before() was 
not altered, and the problem persists.

I would have thought Expect would have sucked up command1's output into 
before() and made it unavailable for matching on future expect() calls. 
  Guess not, but I can't seem to get rid of it with clear_accum().  It 
seems that an actual pattern match acts differently from a timeout in 
terms of what is available to match on the next expect() call.  For a 
timeout, the contents of before() appears available for matching on the 
next expect() call while on an actual pattern match, before() is not 
available.

Ideas on how to fix this?  I thought of making a call to expect() 
between command1 and command2 feeding the end of the before() result 
which should cause an actual pattern match.  Is there a simpler/more 
elegant way?

-Eric