Automating regular manual procedures

For 2023 - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))

Do you want to automate a process that you normally run manually? If the process runs from a terminal window (or can be, even if you normally use a GUI), then have a look at Expect. With Expect, you spawn the process you want to automate, then programatically send inputs to it and expect responses. Very neat, very clever.

Expect is an extension of the Tcl language which gives you full capabilities of processing the results that you get back from the automated process, making conditional decisions and running loops based on the results returned.

If you want to run Expect through a GUI, you can do so using the Tk extension to Tcl, and if you want to run it via a Web interface, that's very practical too as you can run Tcl and Expect from your web server.

(written 2005-04-21, updated 2006-06-05)

Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles

T211 - Tcl/Tk - What is Expect? Why use it?
  [435] Expect for Windows - (2005-09-04)
  [1173] Cheat Sheet / Check list for Expect maintainers - (2007-05-02)
  [1174] Installing Tcl and Expect on Solaris 10 - a checklist - (2007-05-02)
  [1409] What is Expect? - (2007-10-26)
  [1411] Buffering of inputs to expect, and match order - (2007-10-27)
  [1469] Curley brackets v double quotes - Tcl, Tk, Expect - (2007-12-12)
  [1531] Expecting a item from a list of possibles - (2008-02-04)
  [1602] Automating processes through Expect - (2008-04-05)
  [2474] Using Tcl and Expect to automate repetitive jobs - (2009-10-24)
  [2489] Parallel Pinging, using Python Threads or Expect spawn lists - (2009-11-02)
  [3009] Expect in Perl - a short explanation and a practical example - (2010-10-22)
  [3286] Should we cover expect and/or Tk on our public Tcl courses? - (2011-05-11)
  [3572] Adding Expect on top of Tcl - what is it and where can I get a training course to learn about it? - (2012-01-08)
  [4405] Backup procedures - via backup server - (2015-01-24)
  [4678] Expect with Ruby - a training example to get you started - (2016-05-18)

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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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