Expect scripting, source and return.

Question

On page 35, in the book "Exploring Expect", it says "The return command can be used to make a source command return. Otherwise, source returns only after executing the last command in the file."

I don't quite understand what it's getting at. I'd like to know what this means and how this is useful.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Basically, when the 'return' command is encountered, 'expect' will stop processing the script further, and return to the parent script (if any) that ran it using the 'source' command. It's much like 'return' in any programming language.

Answer 2

an example:

main script:

puts "about to source external file"
set some_var true
source something.exp
puts "done sourcing"

something.exp

puts "in something.exp"
if {$some_var} return
puts "you won't see this if some_var is true"