autoexpect & cron
 

when i run a script made with autoexpect from the command line, it works fine.
when i have cron run the same script it returns
spawn /bin/sh
sh-3.1$
instead of running

anyone have idea what causes this?

thanks

More details?

$ /home/ktemper/ghostbin/autoftp
runs a bash script that sftp's a file to my webhost.
it works everytime when i run it from the command line as above.

the contents of the bash script are:

#!/bin/bash

cd /home/ktemper/ghostbin
./autoftp.exp


the last line is a script made with the program autoexpect.

when i add the bash script to cron with this line:
12 * * * * /home/ktemper/ghostbin/autoftp >> /home/ktemper/autoftpOutputfile

it does not sftp to my webhost and the file autoftpOutputfile contains:

spawn /bin/sh
sh-3.1$

i'm not sure what the output means and also dont understand why it works at the command line and not in cron. shouldnt they be same?

Two things: can you give the output of "cat /home/ktemper/ghostbin/autoftp.exp". Also, did you try changing the line "./autoftp.exp" to "exec sh autoftp.exp".

changing "./autuftp.exp" "exec sh autoftp.exp" than you for the suggestion.
i also tried opening autoftp.exp in emacs and commenting out the line
spawn $env(SHELL)
that didnt work, and it wouldnt run at the command line or in cron.


ktemper@lofi:~$ cat ghostbin/autoftp.exp
#!/usr/bin/expect -f
#
# This Expect script was generated by autoexpect on Fri Sep 22 23:05:41 2006
# Expect and autoexpect were both written by Don Libes, NIST.
#
# Note that autoexpect does not guarantee a working script. It
# necessarily has to guess about certain things. Two reasons a script
# might fail are:
#
# 1) timing - A surprising number of programs (rn, ksh, zsh, telnet,
# etc.) and devices discard or ignore keystrokes that arrive "too
# quickly" after prompts. If you find your new script hanging up at
# one spot, try adding a short sleep just before the previous send.
# Setting "force_conservative" to 1 (see below) makes Expect do this
# automatically - pausing briefly before sending each character. This
# pacifies every program I know of. The -c flag makes the script do
# this in the first place. The -C flag allows you to define a
# character to toggle this mode off and on.

set force_conservative 0 ;# set to 1 to force conservative mode even if
;# script wasn't run conservatively originally
if {$force_conservative} {
set send_slow {1 .1}
proc send {ignore arg} {
sleep .1
exp_send -s -- $arg
}
}



set timeout -1
spawn $env(SHELL)
match_max 100000
expect -exact "]0;ktemper@lofi: ~/ghostbinktemper@lofi:~/ghostbin\$ "
send -- "sftp tantrumradio@forint.dreamhost.com\r"
expect -exact "Password: "
send -- "UWneYP#\r"
expect -exact "sftp> "
send -- "cd tantrumradio.com/playlist"
expect -exact "cd tantrumradio.com/playlist"
send -- "\r"
expect -exact "sftp> "
send -- "put playlisy"
expect -exact [K"
send -- "
expect -exact [K"
send -- "t.html\r"
expect -exact "sftp> "
send -- "quit\r"
expect -exact "]0;ktemper@lofi: ~/ghostbinktemper@lofi:~/ghostbin\$ "
send -- "exit\r"
expect eof