Waits until the output from a process matches one of the patterns, a specified time period has passed, or an EOF is seen

# expect_expectl

(PECL expect >= 0.1.0)

expect_expectl — Waits until the output from a process matches one of the patterns, a specified time period has passed, or an EOF is seen

### Description

expect_expectl(resource `$expect`, array `$cases`, array `&$match` = ?): int

Waits until the output from a process matches one of the patterns, a specified time period has passed, or an EOF is seen.

If `match` is provided, then it is filled with the result of search. The matched string can be found in `match[0]`. The match substrings (according to the parentheses) in the original pattern can be found in `match[1]`, `match[2]`, and so on, up to `match[9]` (the limitation of libexpect).

### Parameters

`expect`
  An Expect stream, previously opened with expect_popen().
`cases`

  An array of expect cases. Each expect case is an indexed array, as described in the following table:

  Expect Case Array
  Index Key | Value Type | Description | Is Mandatory | Default Value
  --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
  0 | string | pattern, that will be matched against the output from the stream | yes |
  1 | mixed | value, that will be returned by this function, if the pattern matches | yes |
  2 | integer | pattern type, one of: `EXP_GLOB`, `EXP_EXACT` or `EXP_REGEXP` | no | `EXP_GLOB`

### Return Values

Returns value associated with the pattern that was matched.

On failure this function returns: `EXP_EOF`, `EXP_TIMEOUT` or `EXP_FULLBUFFER`

### Changelog

Version | Description
--- | ---
PECL expect 0.2.1 | Prior to version 0.2.1, in `match` parameter a match string was returned, not an array of match substrings.

### Examples

Example #1 expect_expectl() example

`<?php
// Copies file from remote host:
ini_set("expect.timeout", 30);
$stream = fopen("expect://scp user@remotehost:/var/log/messages /home/user/messages.txt", "r");
$cases = array(
// array(pattern, value to return if pattern matched)
array("password:", "asked for password"),
array("yes/no)?", "asked for yes/no")
);
while (true) {
switch (expect_expectl($stream, $cases)) {
case "asked for password":
fwrite($stream, "my password\n");
break;
case "asked for yes/no":
fwrite($stream, "yes\n");
break;
case EXP_TIMEOUT:
case EXP_EOF:
break 2; // break both the switch statement and the while loop
default:
die("Error has occurred!");
}
}
fclose($stream);
?>`

### See Also

- expect_popen() - Execute command via Bourne shell, and open the PTY stream to the process

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