Re: [LINUX5250] scripting tn5250

[Scott Klement <klemscot@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, Steven Kurylo wrote:
>
> I've been looking through the archive about scripting and Brian's recent
> post (http://archive.midrange.com/linux5250/index.htm)  seems to be the
> closest to what I want.

Are you talking about this message?
  http://archive.midrange.com/linux5250/200205/msg00041.html

The link you provided just goes to the "search the Linux5250 archives"
box.

>
> What I want to do is to be able to script tn5250, cross platform, to tie
> some programs together.  So if program X says something, an intermediate
> program (say a perl script) listens and then starts up a tn5250 session
> (or modifies an existing one) and issues a couple of commands to bring
> up the right information.
>

Can you clarify this?   Are you expecting the TN5250 window to be
another Window on the users display, and your program just sends
keystrokes to it, and the data is displayed in the TN5250 window?

Or are you expecting the resulting screens to be returned directly to
your program, and have it interpret them, and then work with the data?
And would this scripting feature support merely the input of keystrokes,
or would it be able to do more, like make decisions on what keystrokes
to type based on which responses come from the iSeries?

> Can someone with more knowledge than I comment on how close to possible
> this currently is?  Or a vague outline of what it would take to have
> this happen?  I'd be interesting in helping make it happen, if I can.
>

If you're referring to the message that I provided the link to, above,
then I received a (private) e-mail from Brian (the author of that message)
containing his patches (which aren't complete, yet) to make his idea of
scripting work.   I could forward them to you, and you could pick it up
where he left off.

Personally, though, I'd like to either see the existing macro support be
extended, or I'd like to see a somewhat more external way of handling this
(such as opening up a telnet session in your program, and using that to
control in the input and output, or writing a separate terminal object for
the emulator that works similarly to the way the debug term works... etc)

But, I don't have the time to do the work myself right now, so I'm just
able to be an advisor for the time being :)