[racket] Expect library?

From: Neil Van Dyke (neil at neilvandyke.org)
Date: Tue Sep 24 17:33:40 EDT 2013

I believe there is *not* a general Expect-like tool for Racket, and I'm 
not aware of anyone working on one.

I think it's feasible.  I have done some application-specific 
Expect-like stuff before in Racket (monitoring multiple streams, 
efficient I/O, matching patterns, timeouts) for some closed-source 
software, and Racket handled the mechanics of it fine, but I have not 
generalized that.

As Eli pointed out when this question came up in the past, an 
Expect-like tool also sometimes has to deal with Unix-like TTYs.  If you 
need to TTY control beyond stdio, you might need to use the Racket FFI.  
For my "charterm", "roomba", and "vlc"(?) Racket packages, I was able to 
avoid the FFI by exec-ing the Unix-ish "stty" program, but that can't do 
everything TTY, and AFAIK it doesn't work on Windows.

Neil V.


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