Simple Expect advice needed

[cdwells]

Hello all,

I am writing an Expect script which logs into a remote machine and determines if a userid (informix) exists on that system to determine if it needs a password reset. I am faced with the problem of executing the shell script on the remote machine which will give me the output to assign to a variable in my Expect script.

The shell script on the remote system is: isinformixhere.sh

The command I've tried to use to execute the remote script and assign it to a variable in my expect script is:

set informix [exec "$scriptdir/isinformixhere.sh\n"]

However, of course, the exec command tries to execute the command on the local machine. Can someone explain how I can execute the command on the remote machine? Thanks for all your help!

 

[marsd]

Just send "sh scriptname\r"
and expect the next prompt
seen.
If you want to see the output of the script
look at expect_out(buffer).

 

[cdwells]

Thanks for the tip. Only when I do this:

set variable $expect_out(buffer)

it gives me the sent command also. I only need the command output.

 

[marsd]

Use a regexp...
expect -re ".*\r(.*)$prompt"...
or just regsub the sent command from your variable.

 

[AviaTraining]

That's because the default behavior of most systems (actually, the terminal driver) is to echo all character received. When you sit at a terminal and type, the characters usually are echoed to the terminal so you can see what you're typing (except for cases like entering passwords). Expect emulates this exactly -- in fact, much of Expect's value is fooling the other program into thinking that it's interacting with a user sitting at a terminal.

So, in most cases, you need to anticipate the echo and deal with it accordingly.

- Ken Jones, President, ken@avia-training.com
Avia Training and Consulting,

http://www.avia-training.com

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