Expect for Ant

Expectit comes with three custom Ant tasks for performing expect operations on the standard input and output streams of spawn processes, sockets and SSH services.

Installation

The expect Ant tasks are defined as an antlib resource in the expectit-ant.jar file. The file can be downloaded from the project release page or from the Maven central. Here is an example of the taskdef element that adds the expect tasks definitions to the current project with the given XML namespace URI.

 <taskdef classpath="${expectit-ant.jar}"
             resource="net/sf/expectit/ant/antlib.xml" uri="antlib:net.sf.expectit.ant" />
 <target name="main" xmlns:expect="antlib:net.sf.expectit.ant">
    <expect:exec executable="/bin/sh">
      <expect:sequential>
        <expect:send line="exit"/>
      </expect:sequential>
    </expect:exec>
 </target>

For more information about the task definition please refer to the Ant taskdef documentation. The expect ssh task depends on external library which is not included in the Ant distribution. For more information please refer to the Ant sshexec task documentation.

Common Parameters

All three tasks share same set of parameters to configure an Expect instance.

Attributes

Attribute	Description	Required
expectTimeout	The timeout for expect operations. Defaults to 30 seconds.	No
charset	The charset used to convert bytes to characters. Defaults to the system local default.	No
errorOnTimeout	Stops when the first expect operation times and exits with error status. Defaults to false.	No
lineSeparator	The default line separator for send. Default to the system default.	No
echoOutput	Enables logging of the input and output streams by the Ant's logger. Default to false	No

Nested container elements

Element	Description
filters	The container for the input filter elements applied for the Expect instance
sequential	The container for the expect elements as well as any Ant tasks that will be executed sequentially

Filter elements

Filter	Description	Attributes
removeColors	Removes [ANSI escape sequences for colors] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#Colors) from the input streams	No
removeNonPrintable	Removes all the non-printable characters expect white spaces	No
replaceInString	Replaces every substring in the input string that matches the given regular expression and replaces it with given replacement	regexp - the regular expression replacement - the string to be substituted for each match
replaceInBuffer	Replaces every substring in the entire input buffer that matches the given regular expression and replaces it with given replacement	regexp - the regular expression replacement - the string to be substituted for each match

Sequential expect tasks

The sequential element can contains any Ant tasks that will be executed sequentially. The following table describes the expect specific tasks.

Tasks	Description	Attributes
send	Sends string data to the output stream	string - a string to be passed to the output stream line - a string to be passed to the output stream and followed by the line separator
contains	Matches when the examined input contains the given string	string - the string to find
regexp	Matches when the examined input contains the given regular expression	regexp - the regular expression to find. Common expect attributes
matches	Matches when the examined input matches the given regular expression	regexp - the regular expression to match Common expect attributes
anyString	Matches if the input contains any characters	Common expect attributes
eof	Matches is the input has been closed	Common expect attributes
times	A container element for another matcher. Matches when the child matcher matches the given number of times.	number - the number of times the child matcher must match Common expect attributes
anyOf	A container element for other matchers. Matches when any of the child matcher matches.	Common expect attributes
allOf	A container element for other matchers. Matches when any of the child matcher matches.	Common expect attributes

Common expect attributes

Attribute	Description
input	The number of the input stream. Defaults to 0.
timeout	The timeout in milliseconds of the expect operation. Defaults to the global expect timeout
resultPrefix	The prefix for the properties that will be set as the result of the successful expect operation. The properties key/value format is as follows: prefix.before = result.getBefore() prefix.group = result.group() prefix.success = true prefix.group.number = result.group(), where the number is between 1 and result.groupCount()