frank@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Frank G. Fiamingo) (07/04/90)
I'm trying to setup a front end for the Telnet program for use by novices. They'll be telneting to various hosts that presents them with several menu's. I'd like to get them through the menu's by taking telnet's input from a file, then have the input switch to stdin. Can this be done? If so, how? I'm doing this on an HP9000/840 running HP-UX7.0. Thanks, Frank -=- Frank Fiamingo frank@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (614)292-4843
david@csource.oz.au (david nugent) (07/05/90)
In <2516@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> frank@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Frank G. Fiamingo) writes: >I'm trying to setup a front end for the Telnet program for use >by novices. They'll be telneting to various hosts that presents them >with several menu's. I'd like to get them through the menu's by >taking telnet's input from a file, then have the input switch >to stdin. Can this be done? If so, how? Not a file, but it could be taking it from a pipe from another process. That process could then freopen() stdin to /dev/ttyXX if it knew the controlling terminal (or just /dev/tty if it happened to have the same one). BTW, I've never tried this exactly; but this is the first tack I'd take in attempting to solve the problem. -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Unique Computing Pty Ltd Melbourne Australia - Communications Specialists david@csource.oz.au 3:632/348@fidonet 28:4100/1@signet
sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) (07/06/90)
>I'm trying to setup a front end for the Telnet program for use >by novices. Get the program 'expect', by Don Libes, available for ftp from durer.cme.nist.gov . This program was written up in the most recent Usenix proceedings - I think it will do what you want. expect can be used to control interactive programs such as telnet - you can have it feed telnet some lines from a file, and then switch telnet's input so it comes from the user. Sounds like just what you need. Here's the README file: This is the README file from "expect", a program that performs programmed dialogue with other interactive programs. It is briefly described by its man page, expect(1). More examples and further discussion about implementation, philosophy, and design are in "expect: Curing Those Uncontrollable Fits of Interaction" by Don Libes, Proceedings of the Summer 1990 USENIX Conference, Anaheim, California, June 11-15, 1990. expect was designed and written by Don Libes, January - April, 1990. Design and implementation of this program was paid for by U.S. tax dollars. Therefore it is public domain. However, the author and NIST would appreciate credit if this program or parts of it are used. expect may be ftp'd as pub/expect.shar.Z from durer.cme.nist.gov. If you cannot ftp, you may request email copies by mailing to "library@ cme.nist.gov". The contents of the message should be (no subject line) "send pub/expect.shar.Z". Once you have retrieved the system, please read the INSTALL file. The paper mentioned above can be ftp'd separately as pub/expect.ps.Z. expect requires Tcl. Tcl may be ftp'd as pub/tcl.tar.Z from ucbvax.berkeley.edu. If not available, a potentially older but working version of Tcl may be ftp'd as pub/tcl.tar.Z from durer.cme.nist.gov. If you cannot ftp, you may request email copies of Tcl by writing to ouster@sprite.berkeley.edu. expect is known to work on SunOS 4.0 systems but it does nothing Sun specific and will probably work on most BSD-derived systems. While it has not been compiled on SV or POSIX systems, I have made provisions enough so that probably only minor changes remain. (See the Makefile for more info.) This might be presumptive however, as I recently looked at the process control in gnuemacs and am amazed how much pain it took them to make it portable. Perhaps someday I will change to using their code. I would be willing to work with you to complete a port. Although I can't promise anything in the way of support, I'd be interested to hear about your experiences using it (either good or bad). I'm also interested in hearing bug reports (please include version # reported by expect -d) and suggestions for improvement even though I can't promise to implement them immediately. Please send money, love letters, and bug reports to: Don Libes National Institute of Standards and Technology Bldg 220, Rm A-127 Gaithersburg, MD 20899 (301) 975-3535 libes@cme.nist.gov or uunet!cme-durer!libes Hope this helps. ..steve -- Steve Hayman Workstation Manager Computer Science Department Indiana U. sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (812) 855-6984