send: spawn id exp7 not open

Question

When I try to execute autoexpect file I get an error send: spawn id exp7 not open Here is my file sh.exp:

#!/usr/bin/expect

# mysql credentials and connection data
db_host='localhost'
db_name='webui_dev'
db_user='root'
db_pass=''
new_db_name='db_2011'

expect <<EOF
  log_user 0
  spawn mysql -h $db_host -u $db_user -p $db_pass 'create database $new_db_name'
  expect "password:"
  send "$db_pass\r"
  log_user 1
  expect eof
EOF

Can't find where is an error.

Answer 1

Try quoting your variables properly:

  spawn mysql -h "$db_host" -u "$db_user" -p "$db_pass" "create database $new_db_name"

Variables not quoted in double quotes are subject to word splitting and pathname expansion. And variables under single quotes don't expand. Read more about shell quoting here.

Update: It seems that you're actually expanding it through a here document, but it would still apply since your arguments still need to be quoted in expect. This is what it would appear as input to expect:

  log_user 0
  spawn mysql -h "localhost" -u "root" -p "" "create database db_2011"
  expect "password:"
  send "\r"
  log_user 1
  expect eof

This is how it would appear if you haven't quoted it yet:

  ...
  spawn mysql -h localhost -u root -p  'create database db_2011'
  ...

UPDATE:

The cause of the problem actually is because mysql ends quickly without showing a prompt for password due to the extra argument. The solution is to send the command manually. It's also preferable to just run the whole script as an expect script, not an embedded one for lesser confusion

#!/usr/bin/expect

# mysql credentials and connection data
set db_host "localhost"
set db_name "webui_dev"
set db_user "root"
set db_pass ""
set new_db_name "db_2011"

log_user 0
spawn mysql -h "$db_host" -u "$db_user" -p
expect "password:"
send "$db_pass\r"
expect "mysql>"
send "create database $new_db_name; exit; \r"
log_user 1
expect eof

Save the script as an expect file and run it with expect -f expect_file.