Export Bash command-line-argument variables for use in embedded Expect

Question

The `echo` test shows me my command line variables are working, but how do I pass them, export them, to be used in an embedded `expect`? ``` #!/bin/bash echo name of script is $0 echo host is $1 echo hostusername is $2 echo hostpassword is $3 expect -c 'spawn ssh -l $2 $1 < ./sf-wall_scp_bash.sh sleep 2 expect { "(yes/no)? " {send "yes
"} exp_continue } expect { "?assword" {send "$3"} } sleep 1 ' ``` If invoked with the `expect` shebang, it works like ``` #!/usr/bin/expect set host [lindex $argv 0] set hostusername [lindex $argv 1] set hostpassword [lindex $argv 2] spawn ssh -l $hostusername $host sleep 2 expect { "(yes/no)? " {send "yes
"} exp_continue } expect { "?assword" {send "$hostpassword"} } sleep 1 ``` ...which works as expected. I need to use `bash` though and embed `expect` because the script is needing to call bash specific commands, functions, built in variables...otherwise simply using the second example would be a working option, but it is not. I've tried declarin…

Accepted Answer

Code with nesting quotes is not easy to write and read. I recommend you use the shell's here-document syntax. For example (demo'ing 2 ways of passing `bash` vars to `expect`):

```
$ cat foo.sh
arg1=$1
export arg2=$2

expect << END
puts $arg1
puts \$env(arg2)
END
$ bash foo.sh hello world
hello
world
$
```

I prefer `export var` from the shell and reference it with `$env(var)` in expect as you'll not have to worry about if the `var` has some special chars (like `'`, `"` or spaces) in it.

Export Bash command-line-argument variables for use in embedded Expect

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