using perl to "press enter"

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am not sure this is possible, but I want to somehow write to stdio or some such and make a perl script that will press enter on a timer. This is for a windows application that I have to mindlessly babysit. (and that I can't launch as a child process) This is what I am using currently to tell me when to hit enter....

while (true) {
   print"\n$t"
   $t=$t-1
   sleep(1);
   if($t<0) {
      print "press enter NOW";
      #TODo - hit enter automagically
      $t = $timerlength; #reset
   }
}
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Re: using perl to "press enter" by Not_a_Number (Prior) on Dec 05, 2012 at 20:33 UTC
This seems to work for me: `use strict; use warnings; use Win32::Console; my $console = Win32::Console->new( STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE ); my $timerlength = 5; # or whatever while ( 1 ) { sleep $timerlength; $console->Write( "\n" ); }` [download] If you have ActiveState perl, Win32::Console is packaged with it.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: using perl to "press enter" by space_monk (Chaplain) on Dec 05, 2012 at 18:40 UTC
It sounds to me as though you really want an automated test application, or to create one in Perl. I bumped into Win32::GuiTest which seems to do the sort of thing you want. i.e. send keystrokes to a Windows application. A Monk aims to give answers to those who have none, and to learn from those who know more.	[reply]