I have a simple perl expect script that does the following (1) ssh to an access gateway (2) from the gateway ssh to a router a run show commands on the router. All this works when (1) and (2) are part of the same subroutine. However, now I have to do step #2 on 10s of routers. Therefore I want to split (1) and (2) across separate functions. This is what I tried put it does not work: 
use strict;
use Expect;

my $exp;
sub sshGatewayLogin;
sub getRtrinfo;

{
    my %rtrList;
    $rtrList{chicago}{RTR}{R1}{IP}             = '114.1.2.3';
    $rtrList{chicago}{RTR}{R1}{PROMPT}         = 'chicago-R1';
    
    $rtrList{stlouis}{RTR}{R1}{IP}             = '114.1.12.3';
    $rtrList{stlouis}{RTR}{R1}{PROMPT}         = 'stlouisR1';
    
    sshGateway;
    foreach my $rtr (sort keys %rtrList) {
        getRtrInfo($rtr,\%rtrList);
    }
    
    $exp->soft_close();
}
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
+----------
sub sshGatewayLogin {

    my $server         = '110.10.10.2';
    my $username    = 'access';
    my $pwd            = 'xyz123';
    my $port        = 10568;
    my $cmd;
    my $timeout;
    my $before;
    my $after;
    
    #ssh to the gateway
    $cmd = "ssh $username\@$server -p $port";
    print "dbg: cmd=$cmd\n";
    
    $exp = Expect->spawn("$cmd") or die "Cannot spawn ssh command = $c
+md\n";
    $exp->log_user(0);
    $exp->expect(30, -re, 'password');
    $exp->send("$pwd\n");
    $exp->expect(20,"\$ ");

}
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
+----------
sub getRtrInfo {
    my ($rtr, $rtrList) = @_;
    
    my $cmd;
    my $pwd = 'pqr456';

    #ssh to the router
    $cmd = 'ssh -o stricthostkeychecking=ask admin@' . $rtrList->{$rtr
+}{RTR}{R1}{IP};
    print "dbg: $cmd\n";
    $exp->expect(30, -re, 'password');
    $exp->send("$pwd\n");
    $exp->log_file("$rtrList->{$rtr}{RTR}{R1}{PROMPT}.txt");
    $exp->expect(30,-re, $rtrList->{$rtr}{RTR}{R1}{PROMPT});
    $exp->send("show version\n");
    $exp->expect(300,-re,$rtrList->{$rtr}{RTR}{R1}{PROMPT});
    $exp->log_file(undef);
}

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The error I'm getting is "can't call method expect on an undefined value at line 65". Line 65 is first exp->expect statement is subroutine getRtrInfo. Please suggest a fix. thanks

In reply to Perl Expect: passing the expect object by ericmisc

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