Question

I have a script that needs to switch between various branches in my subversion repository in order to do a copy. This results in having to enter the password repeatedly. Now, once I have done this a couple of time and i am well into my script. I mess up causing me great anger.

I have used expect to enter a password on a prompt before. I was hoping to learn how to get expect to run over multiple password prompts again and again and again, until the task is finished.

So far this is what I have.

#!/usr/bin/expect
global env
set timeout 10
spawn command that requires password
expect "^user"
send "password\r"
#i need this to repeat over and over until the prompt stops showing up.

Please and thank you.

Answer 1

Naive, brute force method:

while 1 {
    expect $prompt
    send $password\r
}

Better:

expect {
    $prompt {
        send $password\r
        exp_continue
    }
    timeout {
        puts "haven't seen prompt for $timeout seconds"
    }
    "some pattern that indicates password no longer required"
}
puts "continuing ..."