Re: [tcljava-user] tcljava-user Digest, Vol 20, Issue 2

[Justin R. <ju...@ha...>]

>  IMO, spawn command is what creates a connection to the process so that it is accessible for other Expect commands. So, If I run the telnet client outside my tcl script, how does it work other Expect commands.

My understanding is that you are running telnetserver.jar as one
process. Then, you want to connect to it using a telnet client and
then automate the connection using expect. Right?

In C-based expect, when you run the command 'spawn telnet' it runs the
system's telnet client. Since the process was started by tcl, it has
control of child process's stdin and stdout.  The process connects via
tcp and handles all the weird telnet protocol stuff that goes on.
Expect uses the stdin and stdout to do its fancy expect/send
statements. Example of running:

> package require expect
> spawn /usr/bin/telnet hostname
> expect "login: "

In expect4j, to be as platform independent as possible, the spawn
command runs jakarta's commons-net library to connect via telnet. The
library simulates as much as possible, so you can the above command
just fine. The example found in the wiki
(http://code.google.com/p/expect4j/wiki/Installation) is:

> package require java
> java::load expect4j.ExpectEmulation
> package require expect
>
> spawn telnet 192.168.0.1
> expect "login: "
> send "root\r"
> expect "Password:"
> send "supersecret\r"
> expect "root@router:~# "

Your email pushed to be document some of this stuff. So I think you'll
find the example matches your initial email pretty closely.  Further
instructions pertaining to classpath can be found in the wiki too. If
you have any problems. I'd love to hear them.

If anyone knows how I can avoid the "java::load
expect4j.ExpectEmulation", when running from tcl.lang.Shell, I'd love
to know how. I've previously orchestrated the Intrep from my java
program, and had it load my class before running some a tcl scipt.
This way I can take c-based expect scripts and run them seamlessly.

Justin Ryan
Halfempty Industries