Expect: Changing locale causes spawned process to exit
Contents
Problem
I'm using `expect' to test bash. When bash has its locale set to `en_US.UTF-8' and this locale is changed within the `expect' script to `LC_CTYPE=C' and a unicode character is send, `expect' incorrectly detects end of file (eof), causing subsequent `sends' to yield an error:
send: spawn id exp6 not open
Steps to reproduce the problem
1. Create a file unicode.exp containing:
spawn bash send "LC_CTYPE=C\r" send "aaébb"; # unicode é = \u00e9 expect -ex "cc"; # 'expect' detects eof when reading \u00e9? send "dd"; # 'expect' error: spawn id not open
2. Run: LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 expect -f unicode.exp
3. I get this error output:
$ expect -f unicode.exp
spawn bash
LC_CTYPE=C
aaébb$ LC_CTYPE=C
$ aasend: spawn id exp6 not open
while executing
"send "dd""
(file "unicode.exp" line 6)
4. What I expected is the same output as with LC_CTYPE=C expect -f unicode.exp:
$ LC_CTYPE=C expect -f unicode.exp spawn bash LC_CTYPE=C aaébb$ LC_CTYPE=C $ aaC)bb$
Environment
- Debian-5.0.6 (lenny)
- expect-5.43.0 (
expect -v) - tcl-8.4.19 (
tclsh,info patchlevel)
Error also occurs on expect-5.44.1.15 and tcl-8.5.9.
Workaround
Change the LC_CTYPE not within, but outside the `except' script:
$ cat unicode2.exp spawn bash send "aaébb" expect -ex "cc" send "dd" $ LC_CTYPE=C expect -f unicode.exp
Journal
2010-10-17
Compiled expect-5.44.1.15 and tcl-8.5.9 on Debian, but same error occurs.
2010-10-16
I cannot reproduce the problem on another (faster) machine Ubuntu-10.04 (Lucid Lynx) with expect-5.44.1.14 and tcl-8.4.19.
