Interfacing with menu driven apps

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

I was looking for information in possibly having an external program interface with a curses based program? IE have the external program press buttons, enter text in boxes etc etc..Has anyone ever run into a problem like this?

Comment on Interfacing with menu driven apps

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Re: Interfacing with menu driven apps by davorg (Chancellor) on Feb 13, 2001 at 21:50 UTC
You might take a look at Expect.pm. -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "Perl makes the fun jobs fun and the boring jobs bearable" - me	[reply]
Re: Interfacing with menu driven apps by TheoPetersen (Priest) on Feb 13, 2001 at 22:27 UTC
I tried this once using ExpecTk (this was before Expect.pm), and decided that it was more hassle than it was worth. You can pull it off if the interface is very simple and very predictable, but that doesn't describe the custom apps I had to drive. Does the external program have any other interface, or do you have the code? You might right a much more reliable controller via another mechanism before you get curses control right.	[reply]
Re: Interfacing with menu driven apps by cleen (Pilgrim) on Feb 17, 2001 at 07:44 UTC
Thanks for your replies guys! I ended up doing the expect thing! -c	[reply]