#!/usr/bin/expect not working

Question

This is probably an easy question, however have a simple expect script that I've add the executable bit to that seems to be ignoring the #!/usr/bin/expect interpreter line. Further more, it also seems like variables are not being set since when I echo them they are blank...

#!/usr/bin/expect -f
set device "1.1.1.1"
set user   "testuser"

spawn ssh $user@$device
echo $device
echo $user

ls -lh
-rwxr-xr-x  root  root    testexpect.exp

Thanks for your help community!!

P.S. I'm running Debian Wheezy, installed expect via apt-get install expect...thanks

Solution

Expect is based on Tcl language, so you shouldn't use bash 'echo' - you should use 'puts' to print something on the screen:

#!/usr/bin/expect -f
set device "1.1.1.1"
set user   "testuser"
spawn ssh $user@$device
puts $device
puts $user

And you will got result like this:

$ ./test.exp
spawn ssh [email protected]
1.1.1.1
testuser

Comments

[John]

What error (if any) are you getting?

[Jim]

spawn command not found

[krisFR]

Please can you post post the full error ?

[Paul Haldane]

How are you running the script? Does it work as expected if you explicitly run it using expect (expect -f textexpect.exp)? Is the #! line the very first line of the file (that includes blank lines - the first two characters of file should be #!).

[Paul Haldane]

Also (not related to your immediate issue) echo isn't an expect command. You probably want send_user.

[John]

@Paul - actually, echo is valid in expect. It simply echoes the value passed to it to STDOUT.

[Paul Haldane]

@John - that's a tcl feature rather than expect and only applies to interactive shells not within scripts (at least by default). See wiki.tcl.tk/2541