Noob Expect Scripting Question


 
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# 1  
Old 03-04-2013
Noob Expect Scripting Question

I'm having some difficulty with convincing Expect to do what I need..
I have a loop that waits for input, a specific phrase of text followed by a single word. I need Expect to capture that word following the specific phrase. It should then store the word in a variable.
I'm fairly sure it's simple, but for some reason, the solution is eluding me. Any help would be appreciated.
# 2  
Old 03-04-2013
What do you have so far?
# 3  
Old 03-04-2013
I have literally nothing as far as this function. This is a chat bot for a hopelessly obscure TTY-based chat system. Right now, it logs in, idles, and responds to specific commands as part of a loop. So far, I haven't had to make any of those responses depend on a particular part of the command. This function will be the instruction to move the bot to another room. If this were IRC, it'd be so much easier. Smilie
Essentially, the bot will see as text in the room "kimiko, go to " (the bot's account name is kimiko), and the word immediately following the space after 'to' will be the room name. I want the script to use "kimiko, go to " as the trigger (expect "kimiko, go to ") and the action to be to capture the following word.

This is part of the main loop. I left some of the functions in so you can see how it operates. The changing room thing basically has me scratching my head completely. I know how to make it look for the trigger phrase. I don't know how to initiate capturing the next word after the trigger phrase.

Code:
while {$Exit != 1 } {
# Temporary simulated commands/responses
expect {
# Greeting, response
    "hai kimiko"    {
        send "\r"
        send "o hai\r"
    }
# Change rooms
    "kimiko, go to"    {
        #Capture the word following 'kimiko, go to ' and store in GoRoom
        send "g" # Initiates room change
        send "$GoRoom\r" #Dumps GoRoom variable into change room command
     }
# Approval of all 'kick' actions against user 'magizian'
    "needs approval to kick magizian"    {
        send "k"
        send "approve\r"
    }
# Exit commandÍ
    "kimiko, you may go now"    {
# Sets Exit variable to 1 to cause loop to exit
        set Exit "1"
        send "\r"
        send "bai\r"
    }
}

# Close brace for end of 'while' loop
}

# 4  
Old 03-04-2013
This might help:

Code:
$ echo "kimiko, go to work" | ./kimiko.sh
Going to: work

$ cat kimiko.sh
#!/usr/bin/expect -f
expect {
   -re "kimiko, go to (.*)\n" {
       set output $expect_out(1,string)
       send "Going to: $output\n"
   }
}
expect eof

This User Gave Thanks to Chubler_XL For This Post:
# 5  
Old 03-04-2013
That looks like something I can work with. I'm going to have to wedge that in and see how it acts before I'm sure I understand it. Smilie
I'll get back with you here in a bit if it works.

---------- Post updated at 03:45 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:31 PM ----------

Ok so I modified the function to suit the weird vi-like command/talk mode structure of the chat app.. here's what it looks like now.

Code:
# Change rooms
    "kimiko, go to (.*)\n" {
       set TargetRoom $expect_out(1,string)
       send "\r"
       send "going to $TargetRoom\r"
       send "g"
       send "$TargetRoom\r"
     }

I tested it out, and the bot just ignores the text as if it's not one of the strings it looks for.
# 6  
Old 03-04-2013
Don't forget to put the -re in front of your string, this tells the expect command your using a regular expression (vi-like command/talk)
# 7  
Old 03-04-2013
DERP
That did it. It works beautifully now. Thanks so much. I *should* be able to adapt that to whatever I need for other functions.

*edit*
I'm going to have to work on learning regular expressions to provide some input validation. Don't suppose anyone would like to show me how to make that accept upper/lowercase letters only, would they?

Last edited by LongLeafTea; 03-04-2013 at 06:13 PM..
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