Expect-lite 4.6.0 introduces foreach loops

The developers behind expect-lite, a wrapper for the Unix tool Expect, have released version 4.6.0 of their software. New features include foreach loops and added string-math functions. The location of the SSH login configuration has also been moved from the tool's configuration to the SSH client's own configuration file.

Expect-lite wraps the powerful Expect tool in a way that allows users without knowledge of Expect's native syntax to use it. Instead, expect-lite uses a number of special characters that can be inserted into terminal commands to build scripts. The tool features structured programming with the help of code blocks and includes a powerful debugger and IPv6 support. With expect-lite, users can write automation scripts to perform regression tests and system tasks or use it for compiler validation.

Foreach loops in expect-lite 4.6.0 allow users to create conditional loops with an easy-to-read syntax:

$list=abc def ghi
[ $x=$list
   >echo $x
] 

The new version also adds the following string-math operations for manipulating strings: concatenation, subtraction, and search and replace with and without regular expression.

Source code for expect-lite 4.6.0 is available for download from SourceForge. The software is licensed under a three-clause BSD licence. Expect-lite runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and on Windows under Cygwin.

(fab)