UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am trying to figure out a way to proceed through a menu-based program in UNIX with just one command to execute several steps. Is this possible?

From the command prompt I would normally type the name of the program, 'disk_analysis' to start the program and bring up its menu.
I would then enter '7' to choose an input and output file and then manually type the location of the input file for example,"H:/data/input.txt"; Then I would enter '2' to execute the analysis.

I tried just listing them sequentially like so,

disk_analysis; 7; H:/data/input.txt; 2

but the program only opens and never even executes the first step. Is there some way to have it wait a bit for the menu to show up before sending each next command?

Thanks

Combine them in functions, thus, when you type diskSpace, the script will execute diskSpace() function.

pardon my ignorance, but what would a function like that look like if say I wanted to wait 5 seconds between each command.

also, the reason I want to run everything in one command is because I'll be making a system call to unix from another c++ program and I was hoping to have the unix program run from this system call instead of stopping everything to manually pull up a window and navigate through the menu. If this is too crazy an idea let me know and i'll save my energy!

sounds like expect might be what you want: Expect - Expect - Home Page

I checked out expect. that would be a great program to try for anyone else trying to do the same thing. I found out by searching the source code that there was a hidden option to run in batch mode. Thanks for the input.