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, disconnect, walk down the hall, and reconnect on another terminal.

              •   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 example, 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
       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  communicating  with  disconnected
       processes  is  easy.   There  are  many  features 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 Programs" by Don  Libes,  O'Reilly  and
       Associates, January 1995.

AUTHOR

       Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology

                                                 7 October 1993                                     DISLOCATE(1)