Expect

Expect is a scripting language and Unix tool, written in Tcl, for automating interactive programs that expose a text terminal interface. Don Libes wrote it, and it dates from 1990, first for Unix systems and later also for Microsoft Windows and other platforms. A script can feed input to another program and perform pattern matching on that program's output, which lets it drive utilities such as telnet, FTP, passwd, fsck and rlogin without a person at the keyboard. This also makes it useful for testing such applications. By adding Tk, interactive applications can be wrapped in X11 graphical interfaces. The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing cites Libes's 1991 article on scripts for controlling interactive tasks as its reference, and the Programming Language Database relates it to Tcl, Perl, Python and Ruby.