Re: Conditionals in expect script for create lists

[Steven Moody <smoody@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 04:37 PM 4/26/2004 -0400, you wrote:
> I've been using Expect scripts and Perl scripts to generate title lists
> for my web site (and for other purposes) thanks to the kind folks at NOBLE
> who put up the howto on their Swapshop.  This works great except for (1)
> when I can't predict whether the review file will be empty or not when I
> start,

I base my scripts on the expectation the review file will be full - I use 
an appropriate naming protocol to keep others from deleting it and my 
script has built in the "overwrite this file" aspect of the process.



> and (2) when I can't be sure that the query will produce a non-zero
> number of records.  Could somebody send me an example of how you handle
> things like this?

I had that problem (it was a patron search) and created a dummy patron 
record that filled the search criteria, so I would always get at least one hit.


> More details:  I have a report to find problems, which I would like to run
> every night with no intervention necessary (using cron); often it will
> find no records.  If it gets zero results, I'd like to skip over all the
> instructions for printing and have it continue on to the next part of the
> report or to the end.  Also, because it might leave the review file empty
> or not empty, the next time it runs I'd like it to be able to deal with
> either of these cases (currently the script expects that the file will not
> be empty).
>
> I have found examples of having the script send different things based on
> what it receives from the server, but nothing about branching to a
> different part of the script based on what it receives.  Thanks for any
> help you can give me.


I have looked into trying to embed conditional responses in expect and PERL 
and never got very far, since my programming skills are intermediate at 
best.  I would also be interested if someone has tips or good sources on 
programming conditonals in these languages.

Steven Moody
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steven Moody                               smoody@xxxxxxxxxx
Library Systems Manager               http://library.jfku.edu
Robert M. Fisher Library                 phone: 925-969-3110
John F. Kennedy University
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