dislocate

DISLOCATE(1)                                                      DISLOCATE(1)



NAME
       Dislocate - disconnect and reconnect processes

SYNOPSIS
       dislocate [ program args...  ]

INTRODUCTION
       Dislocate  allows  processes  to be disconnected and reconnected to the
       terminal.  Possible uses:

              o   You can disconnect a process from a  terminal  at  work  and
                  reconnect from home, to continue working.

              o   After  having your line be dropped due to noise, you can get
                  back to your process  without  having  to  restart  it  from
                  scratch.

              o   If  you  have a problem that you would like to show someone,
                  you can set up the scenario at your  own  terminal,  discon-
                  nect, walk down the hall, and reconnect on another terminal.

              o   If you are in the middle of a great game (or whatever)  that
                  does  not  allow you to save, and someone else kicks you off
                  the terminal, you can disconnect, and reconnect later.

USAGE
       When run with no arguments, Dislocate tells you about your disconnected
       processes and lets you reconnect to one.  Otherwise, Dislocate runs the
       named program along with any arguments.

       By default, ^] is an escape that lets you talk to Dislocate itself.  At
       that  point,  you  can disconnect (by pressing ^D) or suspend Dislocate
       (by pressing ^Z).

       Any Tcl or Expect command is also acceptable at this point.  For  exam-
       ple, to insert the contents of a the file /etc/motd as if you had typed
       it, say:

            send -i $out [exec cat /etc/motd]


       To send the numbers 1 to 100 in response to the prompt "next #", say:

            for {set i 0} {$i<100} {incr i} {
                expect -i $in "n"xt #"
                send -i $out "$i
            }

       Scripts can also be prepared and sourced in so that you don't  have  to
       type them on the spot.

       Dislocate  is  actually just a simple Expect script.  Feel free to make
       it do what you want it to do or just use Expect directly, without going
       through  Dislocate.   Dislocate  understands  a  few special arguments.
       These should appear before any program name.  Each should be  separated
       by  whitespace.   If  the  arguments  themselves takes arguments, these
       should also be separated by whitespace.

       The -escape flag sets the escape  to  whatever  follows.   The  default
       escape is ^].


CAVEATS
       This program was written by the author as an exercise to show that com-
       municating with disconnected processes is easy.  There  are  many  fea-
       tures  that could be added, but that is not the intent of this program.


SEE ALSO
       Tcl(3), libexpect(3)
       "Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive  Pro-
       grams" by Don Libes, O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

AUTHOR
       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology



                                7 October 1993                    DISLOCATE(1)