runscript(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | INVOCATION | KEYWORDS | OVERVIEW OF KEYWORDS | NOTES | SEE ALSO | BUGS | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

RUNSCRIPT(1)             General Commands Manual            RUNSCRIPT(1)

NAME         top

       runscript - script interpreter for minicom

SYNOPSIS         top

       runscript scriptname [logfile [homedir]]

DESCRIPTION         top

       runscript is a simple script interpreter that can be called from
       within the minicom communications program to automate tasks like
       logging in to a Unix system or your favorite BBS.

INVOCATION         top

       The program expects a script name and optionally a filename and
       the user's home directory as arguments, and it expects that it's
       input and output are connected to the "remote end", the system
       you are connecting to. All messages from runscript meant for the
       local screen are directed to the stderr output. All this is
       automatically taken care of if you run it from minicom.  The
       logfile and home directory parameters are only used to tell the
       log command the name of the logfile and where to write it. If the
       homedir is omitted, runscript uses the directory found in the
       $HOME environment variable. If also the logfile name is omitted,
       the log commands are ignored.

KEYWORDS         top

       Runscript recognizes the following commands:

            expect   send     goto     gosub    return   !<   !
            exit     print    set      inc      dec      if   timeout
            verbose  sleep    break    call     log

OVERVIEW OF KEYWORDS         top

       send <string>
            <string> is sent to the modem. It is followed by a '\r'.
            <string> can be:
              - regular text, e.g. 'send hello'
              - text enclosed in quotes, e.g. 'send "hello world"'

            Within <string> the following sequences are recognized:
                \n - newline
                \r - carriage return
                \a - bell
                \b - backspace
                \c - don't send the default '\r'.
                \f - formfeed
                \^ - the ^ character
                \o - send character o (o is an octal number)

            Control characters can be used in the string with the ^
            prefix (^A to ^Z, ^[, ^ ^], ^^ and ^_). If you need to send
            the ^ character, you must prefix it with the \ escape
            character.
            Octal characters are either four-digit or delimited by a
            non-digit character, e.g. the null character may be sent
            with \0000 and 'send 1234' is equivalent to 'send \0061234'.
            Also $(environment_variable) can be used, for example
            $(TERM).  Minicom passes three special environment
            variables: $(LOGIN), which is the username, $(PASS), which
            is the password, as defined in the proper entry of the
            dialing directory, and $(TERMLIN) which is the number of
            actual terminal lines on your screen (that is, the
            statusline excluded).

       print <string>
            Prints <string> to the local screen. Default followed by
            '\r\n'.  See the description of 'send' above.

       label:
            Declares a label (with the name 'label') to use with goto or
            gosub.

       goto <label>
            Jump to another place in the program.

       gosub <label>
            Jumps to another place in the program. When the statement
            'return' is encountered, control returns to the statement
            after the gosub.  Gosub's can be nested.

       return
            Return from a gosub.

       ! <command>
            Runs a shell for you in which 'command' is executed. On
            return, the variable '$?' is set to the exit status of this
            command, so you can subsequently test it using 'if'.

       !< <command>
            Runs a shell for you in which 'command' is executed. The
            stdout output of the command execution will be sent to the
            modem. On return, the variable '$?' is set to the exit
            status of this command, so you can subsequently test it
            using 'if'.

       exit [value]
            Exit from "runscript" with an optional exit status. (default
            1)

       set <variable> <value>
            Sets the value of <variable> (which is a single letter a-z)
            to the value <value>. If <variable> does not exist, it will
            be created.  <value> can be a integer value or another
            variable.

       inc <variable>
            Increments the value of <variable> by one.

       dec <variable>
            Decrements the value of <variable> by one.

       if <value> <operator> <value> <statement>
            Conditional execution of <statement>. <operator> can be <,
            >, != or =.  Eg, 'if a > 3 goto exitlabel'.

       timeout <value>
            Sets the global timeout. By default, 'runscript' will exit
            after 120 seconds. This can be changed with this command.
            Warning: this command acts differently within an 'expect'
            statement, but more about that later.

       verbose <on|off>
            By default, this is 'on'. That means that anything that is
            being read from the modem by 'runscript', gets echoed to the
            screen.  This is so that you can see what 'runscript' is
            doing.

       sleep <value>
            Suspend execution for <value> seconds.

       expect
              expect {
                pattern  [statement]
                pattern  [statement]
                [timeout <value> [statement] ]
                ....
              }
            The most important command of all. Expect keeps reading from
            the input until it reads a pattern that matches one of the
            specified ones.  If expect encounters an optional statement
            after that pattern, it will execute it. Otherwise the
            default is to just break out of the expect. 'pattern' is a
            string, just as in 'send' (see above).  Normally, expect
            will timeout in 60 seconds and just exit, but this can be
            changed with the timeout command.

       break
            Break out of an 'expect' statement. This is normally only
            useful as argument to 'timeout' within an expect, because
            the default action of timeout is to exit immediately.

       call <scriptname>
            Transfers control to another script file. When that script
            file finishes without errors, the original script will
            continue.

       log <text>
            Write text to the logfile.

NOTES         top

       If you want to make your script to exit minicom (for example when
       you use minicom to dial up your ISP, and then start a PPP or SLIP
       session from a script), try the command "! killall -9 minicom" as
       the last script command. The -9 option should prevent minicom
       from hanging up the line and resetting the modem before exiting.
       Well, I don't think this is enough information to make you an
       experienced 'programmer' in 'runscript', but together with the
       examples it shouldn't be too hard to write some useful script
       files. Things will be easier if you have experience with BASIC.
       The minicom source code comes together with two example scripts,
       scriptdemo and unixlogin. Especially the last one is a good base
       to build on for your own scripts.

SEE ALSO         top

       minicom(1)

BUGS         top

       Runscript should be built in to minicom.

AUTHOR         top

       Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.ow.org> Jukka Lahtinen,
       <walker@netsonic.fi>

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the minicom (a serial communication program)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom⟩.  If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to adam@lackorzynski.de.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://salsa.debian.org/minicom-team/minicom⟩ on 2023-12-22.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2023-09-22.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

User's Manual         $Date: 2007-10-07 18:13:51 $          RUNSCRIPT(1)

Pages that refer to this page: minicom(1)