Add support for expect (as a form of tcl)

[cooljeanius]

Language name

Expect

URL of example file

https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/master/gcc/testsuite/lib/compat.exp

URL of syntax highlighting grammar

https://github.com/textmate/tcl.tmbundle

Most popular extensions

.exp

Detected language

None

Commentary

Expect is an extension to the Tcl scripting language, used by the dejagnu testing framework, which is in turn used to implement the testsuites for many important GNU toolchain projects, such as GCC and GDB. It can also easily be added to any project that uses automake by simply adding dejagnu to the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([]) invocation in configure.ac, and/or the AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable in Makefile.am. Note that I'm not sure if it should be treated as its own separate language, or if it would make more sense to just add .exp to the list of supported extensions for tcl, so I'm going to hold back from submitting a PR until we can develop some consensus as to how to answer that question.

Links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expect
• https://core.tcl-lang.org/expect/index
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/expect/
• https://www.nist.gov/services-resources/software/expect

[Alhadis]

or if it would make more sense to just add .exp to the list of supported extensions for Tcl

If expect(1) can execute arbitrary Tcl code, then yes, it makes more sense to treat .exp as Tcl instead of a whole new DSL. Similarly, expect would need to be added to the list of Tcl interpreters, so that correct syntax highlighting is displayed for scripts with #!/usr/bin/env expect -f hashbangs.

[cooljeanius]

or if it would make more sense to just add .exp to the list of supported extensions for Tcl

If expect(1) can execute arbitrary Tcl code, then yes, it makes more sense to treat .exp as Tcl instead of a whole new DSL. Similarly, expect would need to be added to the list of Tcl interpreters, so that correct syntax highlighting is displayed for scripts with #!/usr/bin/env expect -f hashbangs.

OK, I did this in PR #6614

[cooljeanius]

I wonder if @donlibes is the same one who invented Expect?

[ed6767]

Hi @cooljeanius - spotted your ticket on the Expect sourceforge

I have resolved this issue by using the .tcl extension, as Expect script is essentially just tcl with extensions. I distinguish them by adding the expect shbang in the script. Hope this helps.

[cooljeanius]

Hi @cooljeanius - spotted your ticket on the Expect sourceforge

I have resolved this issue by using the .tcl extension, as Expect script is essentially just tcl with extensions. I distinguish them by adding the expect shbang in the script. Hope this helps.

The thing is, there are already a bunch of expect scripts out there with the .exp extension, and I want Linguist to be able to recognize them without requiring people to rename them all... any idea of a heuristic that could work for the #6614 PR?