Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs

FROM OUR EDITORS

Fatbrain Review Expect is a commercial software suite specifically optimized to help automate interactive programs. It is a Tcl-based toolkit and uses Tcl, the powerful and extensible scripting language developed by Dr. Ousterhout. This tutorial and user's guide is based on the man page documentation bundled with the product, but enhanced and expanded from 25 to 566 pages. Discusses the Expect basics, regular expressions, pattern, action and limits. Explains process, multiple process, background processing and simultaneous multiple process handling and interaction. Debugging information is logically presented, a very good chapter explains C/C++ function calls (Expect can also be used without Tcl). Information is presented in a logical and eminently readable style with very good examples throughout. Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, by John K. Ousterhout was reviewed on pp 7 of our Summer '94 New Book Bulletin and is a highly recommended companion volume for Exploring Expect.

ANNOTATION

Expect is a commercial software suite specifically optimized to help automate interactive programs. It is a Tcl-based toolkit and uses Tcl, the powerful and extensible scripting language developed by Dr. Ousterhout. This tutorial and user's guide is based on the man page documentation bundled with the product, but enhanced and expanded from 25 to 566 pages. Discusses the Expect basics, regular expressions, pattern, action and limits. Explains process, multiple process, background processing and simultaneous multiple process handling and interaction. Debugging information is logically presented, a very good chapter explains C/C++ function calls (Expect can also be used without Tcl). Information is presented in a logical and eminently readable style with very good examples throughout. Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, by John K. Ousterhout was reviewed on pp 7 of our Summer '94 New Book Bulletin and is a highly recommended companion volume for Exploring Expect.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Written by the author of Expect, this is the first book to explain how this new part of the UNIX toolbox can be used to automate Telnet, FTP, passwd, rlogin, and hundreds of other interactive applications. Based on Tcl (Tool Command Language), Expect lets you automate interactive applications that have previously been extremely difficult to handle with any scripting language.

SYNOPSIS

Expect is quickly becoming a part of every UNIX user's toolbox. It allows you to automate Telnet, FTP, passwd, rlogin, and hundreds of other applications that normally require human interaction. Using Expect to automate these applications will allow you to speed up tasks and, in many cases, solve new problems that you never would have even considered before.

For example, you can use Expect to test interactive programs with no changes to their interfaces. Or wrap interactive programs with Motif-like front-ends to control applications by buttons, scrollbars, and other graphic elements with no recompilation of the original programs. You don't even need the source code! Expect works with remote applications, too. Use it to tie together Internet applications including Telnet, Archie, FTP, Gopher, and Mosaic.

Don Libes is the creator of Expect as well as the author of this book. In Exploring Expect, he provides a comprehensive tutorial on all of Expect's features, allowing you to put it immediately to work on your problems. In a down-to-earth and humorous style, he provides numerous examples of challenging real-world applications and how they can be automated using Expect to save you time and money.

Expect is the first of a new breed of programs based on Tcl, the Tool Command Language that is rocking the computer science community. This book provides an introduction to Tcl and describes how Expect applies Tcl's power to the new field of interaction automation. Whether your interest is in Expect or interaction automation or you simply want to learn about Tcl and see how it has been used in real software, you will find Exploring Expect a treasure trove ofeasy-to-understand and valuable information.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

Authored by the creator of Expect, this handbook shows how to use this Tcl-based toolkit to automate telnet, passwd, rlogin and other applications in a UNIX environment. Includes an introduction to Tcl (Tool Command Language), and discussions on glob patterns, debugging patterns, handling multiple processes, and the spawn and send commands. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION