Expect, an extension to the
Tcl scripting language written by
Don Libes, is a program to automate interactions with programs that expose a
text terminal interface. Expect was originally written in 1990 for
Unix systems, but is now also available for
Microsoft Windows and other systems. It is used to automate control of interactive
applications such as
telnet,
ftp,
passwd,
fsck,
rlogin,
tip,
ssh, and others. Expect uses
pseudo terminals (Unix) or emulates a console (Windows), starts the target program, and then communicates with it, just as a human would, via the terminal or console interface.
Tk, another Tcl extension, can be used to provide a
GUI.