This file describes the changes from Expect 4 to Expect 5.
The changes that people will find most interesting or annoying are as
follows. Some of them may seem rather arbitrary but fix inconsistencies
leading to much cleaner coding both internally and externally.
-- Expect version 5.20 and above is designed to work with Tcl 7.5 and
Tk 4.1. Expect 5.20 and above will not work with earlier versions.
-- Glob-style patterns do longest-possible matches (from the earliest
possible position) just like regexps. Previously, they matched the
shortest-possible strings. However, the documentation didn't actually
say this (it didn't say anything)
-- Exact patterns are now supported from expect. Use the "-ex" flag.
Exact patterns work just like those in interact. No special handling
is made of *, ^, etc.
-- The new command "expect_background" registers patterns that are to
be tested against spawned process output whenever it appears (i.e.,
asynchronously). This only works in the Tk environment. The
arguments are the same as the expect command.
-- expect_before and expect_after now handle their arguments like
expect_background. Previously, a command such as "expect_before"
with no arguments deleted patterns for all spawn ids. Now, it only
deletes patterns for the current spawn id. Similarly with the "-i"
form.
-- expect_background/before/after support an -info flag to query what
the current patterns are. The results are returned in such a way that
they can be re-used by a new expect command.
The -info flag must be the first flag in the command. With no other
arguments, it returns the setting for the current spawn id. With a -i
descriptor, information is returned for that spawn id. The argument
-noindirect may be used to suppress indirects which also match a
direct spawn id. Only a single -i specification may be given with
-info. With the argument "-all", all spawn id specifications are
reported.
-- There is now a sleep command. It understands decimal values such as
sleep .5
Interrupts and other asynchronous events are processed while Expect sleeps.
-- Traps now use Tcl's "Async" support. This has advantages and
disadvantages. One advantage is that traps have no chance of screwing
up the Tcl internals. One disadvantage is that trap handlers are
delayed at certain specific times and places. For example, a handler
cannot occur inside another handler. While one handler is running,
all other handlers are blocked. This is probably the most noticable
place where handlers are blocked. Others are generally small windows,
so you shouldn't notice the delay in executing the handlers.
Several traps are initially defined:
trap exit {SIGINT SIGTERM}
If you use the -D flag to start the debugger, the following trap is
defined:
trap {exp_debug 1} SIGINT
You can, of course, override these. In particular, if you have your
own "trap exit SIGINT", this will override the debugger trap. Because
SIGINT is tied to exit (see above) by default anyway, you should
remove your own "trap exit SIGINT" unless you specifically do not want
to be able to get to the debugger by ^C.
If you want to define your own trap on SIGINT but still trap to the
debugger when it is running, use:
if ![exp_debug] {trap mystuff SIGINT}
Alternatively, you can trap to the debugger using some other signal.
The ONEXIT trap is no longer available. Instead, say "exit -onexit ..."
Traps are now deleted by using the empty ({}) handler. The current
handler is returned if no action is supplied. With no arguments, trap
returns the signal number of the trap command currently being executed.
-- The wait command now returns a four element list if a valid child
was waited on.
Element 1: pid
Element 2: spawn id
Element 3: 0 (or -1 if there was an OS error)
Element 4: status (or errno if element 3 == -1)
-- expect and interact notes:
The timeout and eof patterns were initially named "-timeout" and
"-eof" but have been renamed "timeout" and "eof" to match those of
expect. The ability to define default timeout/eof actions has been
removed. (You can do this more easily by grouping spawn ids.)
expect and interact now support a "null" keyword to match an ASCII 0.
send supports -null and -break keywords.
Since a large number of special keywords have been added to interact,
a new keyword "-ex" for "exact" was added descriptive of its default
treatment of patterns. This protects the next token from being
misinterpreted as a keyword. The expect command provides "-gl" for
"glob" for analogous reasons.
Any string starting with "-" should be protected by the "-ex" or "-gl"
flag, even those that are not keywords currently. (All strings
starting with "-" are reserved for future options.)
String start/end indices are no longer written to expect_out and
interact_out unless the -indices flag is given.
expect_out(spawn_id) is set to the spawn id associated with the spawn
id that produced the last output in an expect command. For example,
you can use this to delete files that have closed, by removing this
element from an indirect spawn ids spec. The same effect is
reproducable with interact (and interact_out(spawn_id)) but for
efficiency reasons, it requires the -iwrite flag before each pattern.
Expect's -i and interact's -i, -u, -input, and -output flags can now
describe a list of spawn ids. So you can say things like:
interact -input "$id1 $id2 $id3" .... -output "$id1 $id2" ...
In this case, id1, 2, 3 would be sent to id1, and 2.
The spawn id may be given as a global variable name (called an
"indirect spawn id specification"), in which case, the variable
contains the list of spawn ids. Whenever the variable is changed, the
new list of spawn ids is automatically used. This is particularly
useful with any long running expect command such as expect_before,
expect_after, expect_background, and interact.
The -update flag was removed. Use indirect spawn ids (see previous
paragraph).
-- interact notes:
Interact now support -input and -output flags that provide very
flexible means of moving data from/to multiple spawn ids in complex
ways (but very quickly). It is possible to write most expect loops
using a simple interact statement. For instance, the three way
interaction inside kibitz (between two users and a process) is written
this way:
interact {
-output $shell
-input $userin eof { . . . } -output $shell
-input $shell -output "$user_spawn_id $userout"
}
-- send command notes:
It is possible to send a break by using the "-break" flag.
Any string starting with "-" should be protected by preceding it with
the "--" flag, even those that are not keywords currently. (All
strings starting "-" are reserved for future options.)
-- The spawn command now takes an "-open" flag which in turns takes a
Tcl file as an argument. This lets you treat raw devices, files, and
pipelines as spawned processes without using a pty.
This was actually in Expect 4, but I forgot to document it. Oops!
-- The old "debug" command (which describes what Expect is doing
internally) was renamed "exp_internal". "debug" (and "exp_debug") now
invoke the interactive debugger.
-- The new command "stty" now takes over the job of "system stty". It
works much better, allowing POSIX-style redirection to affect other
ttys. It otherwise takes arguments as "system stty" did.
-- The "-tcl" option to "return" has gone away. (This was dangerous
to anyone that actually happened to return the value "-tcl".)
Instead, use inter_return.
-- Added exp_timestamp command to produce very fast timestamps.
-- Added exp_pid command to return pid of given spawn id.
-- The close command now takes an argument of "-onexec" with a following
0 or non-zero value. For example, the follow command stops the
current spawn id from being closed when another process is exec'd or
spawn'd.
close -onexec 0
While "-onexec 1" returns it to the default condition where it will be
closed upon exec or spawn.
-- log_user now returns previous value. It is acceptable to call now,
without arguments just to get the value.
-- The following forms are deprecated. They will be allowed
indefinitely but not advertised or supported if they break.
-eof, -timeout in interact (reason: didn't match expect.
Instead, use eof or timeout.)
-- in expect or interact (reason: no easier to read.
Instead, use -gl in expect or -ex in interact.)
continue -expect (reason: when mixing in extensions, you have
to use exp_continue, so -expect becomes irrelevant.
Instead, use exp_continue.)
getpid (reason: Tcl now supplies same functionality as "pid".
Instead, use pid.)
expect_version and expect_library (reason: the name implies
they have something to do with the expect command,
which they doesn't.
Instead, use exp_version and exp_library.)
-timestamp for obtaining tm and ctime in expect and interact
(reason: separate command now exists for this purpose.
Instead, use exp_timestamp.)
system stty (reason: bad interaction with redirection.
Instead, use stty.)
-- New examples have been added:
"dislocate" lets you disconnect and reconnect to processes.
"tkpasswd" illustrates passwd embedded in a GUI.
They may not be overwhelmingly useful, but run them once to see what
they do. If you ever need to do anything similar, you can look back
at them.
"tknewsbiff" pops up a window or plays a audio clip when you have
unread news.
-- Changes to the Expect libraries:
The expect-tcl library (libexpectcl.a) has been integrated with the
expect library (libexpect.a). So references to libexpectcl.a should
be removed.
The Expect C library now supports buffering, multiplexing, null
matching, full buffer matching. Basically, all of the features in
Expect are now in the library.
Buffering and multiplexing has caused the biggest change to the
library. Previously, exp_match contained the entire buffer that
matched. Now exp_match just points to where in the buffer the match
started. exp_buffer points to the beginning of the buffer.
Previously, the previous buffer was thrown away at the beginning of
each expect function call. Now, previously unmatched characters are
eligible for matching.
To match on different file descriptors, exp_match, exp_match_end,
exp_buffer_end must be restored to their previous values. Initially,
they should be zero.
The meaning of timeout == 0 in the Expect library has been changed.
See the man page for more info.