Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux

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

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Re: Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux by suaveant (Parson) on Dec 12, 2007 at 14:26 UTC
Need more info. If it is a console program, Expect will do it, if it is a windowed app, I don't know. Either way, more info, such as what kind of app, what you are trying to accomplish (just input, input then reading output?) etc will go a long way in getting you a good answer. - Ant - Some of my best work - (1 2 3)	[reply]
Re^2: Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux by SR (Novice) on Dec 12, 2007 at 14:33 UTC
Its a windowed program running under solaris	[reply]
Re^3: Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux by marto (Cardinal) on Dec 12, 2007 at 14:46 UTC
You may want to read How do I post a question effectively?, since this is information you should have stated in your first post. You should have a read at Driving X11 GUIs using X11::GUITest, which may be of use to you. Martin	[reply]
Re^3: Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux by hsinclai (Deacon) on Dec 12, 2007 at 14:48 UTC
Hi, This QA tool supports Perl scripting - it is on my list of things to try, haven't gotten to it yet:)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux by almut (Canon) on Dec 12, 2007 at 16:43 UTC
In addition to the Perl solutions already suggested, there's also this nifty little (non-Perl) program xdotool. Like X11::GUITest, it relies on the X server extension XTEST (pretty common these days — use `xdpyinfo \| grep -i xtest` to check if available). It should be mentioned that you'll need an X development environment (header files) to build `xdotool` — those are typically distributed as `X*-dev` packages, to be installed in addition to the regular X server / Xlib packages. BTW, security is handled the normal X way (auth cookies, or whatever the X server is configured to use).	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Simulating Keystrokes in Solaris/Linux by moritz (Cardinal) on Dec 12, 2007 at 14:41 UTC
I guess that's not possible in the general case, due to security concerns. Imagine an admin who is logged in as a normal user but has an open root shell in a xterm. Every program that he runs the normal user could gain root privileges easily by sending the commands to the open root shell. BTW Vista had a similar bug, I hope they sorted it out by now...	[reply]