Scripted terminal

A scripted terminal runs a terminal app inside a terminal of fixed size that a script can type into and read back as text. A test drives a command-line or full-screen app through it, as a user at a keyboard would.

Finding it

Look in the project's tests for a helper that starts the app in a terminal multiplexer or a pseudo-terminal, and in the test dependencies for a terminal-emulator library. When the project has none, tmux on the machine serves.

Using it

• Fix the size: start the session at a set width and height (tmux new-session -d -s app -x 120 -y 40 '<command>'), so the screen is the same on every run.
• Type as a user would: tmux send-keys -t app 'q' Enter, control keys included.
• Read the screen back: tmux capture-pane -p -t app prints it as text; -e keeps the colours when they matter.
• Wait for text, not a timer: capture the screen in a loop until the expected text appears, with a timeout.

Examples: tmux (send-keys, capture-pane), a pseudo-terminal with a VT100 parser, such as pexpect with pyte (Python).