Expect – Writing a Tcl Extension in Only Seven Years (1997)

zem · on Jan 29, 2015

is expect still the default tool for command line automation, or has it been superseded by something else?

zaphar · on Jan 29, 2015

I haven't seen anything else in use anywhere. I believe it's still pretty much the undisputed king.

cafard · on Jan 29, 2015

Perl has the work-alike Expect module.

bjg · on Jan 29, 2015

Python has one as well: https://pexpect.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

robmil · on Jan 29, 2015

…and Ruby has the PTY module which includes an `expect` method, which is in the same ballpark:

http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.2.0/libdoc/pty/rdoc/PTY.html

ArkyBeagle · on Jan 30, 2015

I have found that simply opening sockets , pipes or serial ports and "fconfigure -translation binary -blocking 0 -buffering none" and using event driven I/O in regular Tcl to be superior. You use this same pattern for all activity, which makes things more consistent.

biomimic · on Jan 29, 2015

What's next for Tcl? I'm a fan.

michaelsbradley · on Jan 29, 2015

There's the Caius framework:

http://caiusproject.com/

I haven't spent any hands-on time with it yet, but what I've read so far is what led me to start learning more about expect, and Tcl in general. I'm looking for a robust way to test the systems I'm building with docker: machine, compose (fig), swarm, etc.

FabianBeiner · on Jan 29, 2015

Neat. I wrote TCL like 10 years ago daily, mostly for different shell scripts and Eggdrop extensions. That was fun…