Shell Programming and Scripting

I was able to use expect successfully, I think, but what to do after?

Here's my goal:
use expect to log in to a remote terminal with sftp
copy over some files from my local computer to the remote computer
run a process on the remote computer on these files
copy the output back to my local computer
done

So far I can successfully log in with this script:

1 #!/bin/bash
2 HOST="hostAddress"
3 USER="logInName"
4 PASS="password"
5 LS="ls"
6
7
8 expect -c "
9 spawn sftp $USER@$HOST
10 expect "Password:"
11 send $PASS
12 interact
13 "
14 echo $LS
15 ls
16 ls

The problem is that it only logs in, I see the prompt "sftp>" but the "ls" is not being typed . I spammed a lot of ls but none of them are being typed.

Are you trying to automate sftp, where it asks for a password? In a word, don't.
If you can connect over there with a password, your really should use ssh keys, otherwise you are defeating the purpose of sftp or ssh.

See:
Setting up SSH public/private keys

then use

Code:

sftp remoteusername@remotebox <<END
cd /path
put afile
get anotherfile
exit
END
# this is a here document - you can use expect to this, too.