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:

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

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

	      ·	  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 termi-
		  nal.

	      ·	  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  discon-
       nected  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 Dislo-
       cate (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 "next #"
		send -i $out "$i\r"
	    }

       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 argu-
       ments.  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
       communicating with disconnected processes is  easy.   There  are	 many
       features	 that could be added, but that is not the intent of this pro-
       gram.


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)