[RndTbl] UNIX command transcript with canned input, echoed in output?

[Bill Reid]

Hi Gilbert,

I used expect a lot but it was a decade ago. The problem of synchronizing the 
input with the output is tough because of buffering. Also I expect the prof does 
not want the input/output just merged but the input be highlighted in some way 
so that the student can quickly identify it.

I was using expect to make decisions based on the output of the program which 
does get complicated.

I checked for expect samples and they really do not do what you want.

-- Bill

On 25/11/11 14:16, Gilbert E. Detillieux wrote:
> On 2011-11-25 14:07, Bill Reid wrote:
>> I think the TCL expect package might do the trick. It simulates a person
>> entering text in a terminal session. The command and output are intermix
>> as you want.
>
> I though about "expect", but figured that it might be a bit too low-level, and
> more complicated, than what I'm looking for. This has to be easy enough for
> novice UNIX users to use. (It's essentially to run a test suite on their
> programs, written in Prolog. Yikes!)
>
> I'm also not very familiar with actually coding for "expect" (though I've
> tweaked other people's expect scripts, and at least know a bit about how to use
> it), and the prof is not at all familiar with it.
>
> Would it be easy to write an expect script to do what I want? (I.e. feed the
> input from a file, line-by-line, to a program, and collect all the output,
> including tty echo, into a file?)
>
> Gilbert
>
>> On 25/11/11 13:56, Gilbert E. Detillieux wrote:
>>> Howdy folks!
>>>
>>> I got a request from a prof this morning that stumped this old UNIX
>>> hack. He
>>> wants to run a UNIX command (for a language interpreter), using input
>>> from a
>>> file, and saving a transcript of the output. That much is trivial. The
>>> catch is
>>> that he'd like the transcript to have the input echoed, as if it had
>>> been typed
>>> in at the tty.
>>>
>>> I've looked at options on the script command and ssh, but can't find a
>>> simple
>>> solution to this. And it has to be simple enough for his students (who
>>> may not
>>> have much UNIX experience) to use.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions?
>