expect_out(buffer)和expect_out(0,string)的差别

以下文字摘录自expect的manpage

Upon matching a pattern (or eof or full_buffer), any matching and previously unmatched output is saved in the variable expect_out(buffer). Up to 9 regexp substring matches are saved in the variables expect_out(1,string) through expect_out(9,string). If the -indices flag is used before a pattern, the starting and ending indices (in a form suitable for lrange) of the 10 strings are stored in the variables expect_out(X,start) and expect_out(X,end) where X is a digit, corresponds to the substring position in the buffer. 0 refers to strings which matched the entire pattern and is generated for glob patterns as well as regexp patterns. For example, if a process has produced output of "abcdefgh\n", the result of:

    expect "cd"

is as if the following statements had executed:

    set expect_out(0,string) cd
    set expect_out(buffer) abcd

and "efgh\n" is left in the output buffer. If a process produced the output "abbbcabkkkka\n", the result of:

    expect -indices -re "b(b*).*(k+)"

is as if the following statements had executed:

    set expect_out(0,start) 1
    set expect_out(0,end) 10
    set expect_out(0,string) bbbcabkkkk
    set expect_out(1,start) 2
    set expect_out(1,end) 3
    set expect_out(1,string) bb
    set expect_out(2,start) 10
    set expect_out(2,end) 10
    set expect_out(2,string) k
    set expect_out(buffer) abbbcabkkkk

and "a\n" is left in the output buffer. The pattern "*" (and -re ".*") will flush the output buffer without reading any more output from the process.Normally, the matched output is discarded from Expect's internal buffers. This may be prevented by prefixing a pattern with the -notransfer flag. This flag is especially useful in experimenting (and can be abbreviated to "-n" for convenience while experimenting).

The spawn id associated with the matching output (or eof or full_buffer) is stored in expect_out(spawn_id).