Doesn't work on Windows in GitHub Actions

[jwodder]

Consider the following very simple use of expectrl:

use expectrl::{spawn, Error};
use std::time::Duration;

fn main() -> Result<(), Error> {
    println!("Spawning ...");
    let mut p = spawn("cat")?;
    p.set_expect_timeout(Some(Duration::from_secs(3)));
    println!("Sending line ...");
    p.send_line("Hello World")?;
    println!("Expecting line ...");
    p.expect("Hello World")?;
    println!("OK!");
    Ok(())
}

If this program is run in GitHub Actions (using expectrl 0.6.0 and Rust 1.65.0), it succeeds on Ubuntu and macOS but fails on Windows; you can see such a run here. In particular, the output on Windows is:

Spawning ...
Sending line ...
Expecting line ...
Error: ExpectTimeout

[zhiburt]

Hi @jwodder

Thanks for report.

As I remember I've encountered some issues with windows CI as well.
But I didn't figure it out.

It might be something related to CI container/host itself.

[zhiburt]

But I'll run it myself maybe something was changed after all.

[zhiburt]

Actually, you know it might be a bug.

[zhiburt]

But wait.... there's no cat on windows.

To be precise it's a different program.

[jwodder]

@zhiburt Well, this was just an attempt at an MVCE. Trying to use expectrl with my actual (complicated) program still fails under Windows. What Windows program would you recommend for an MVCE?

[zhiburt]

Hi @jwodder

Sorry that it was ignored for such a long time.

What Windows program would you recommend for an MVCE?

So I was playing with appveyor and github actions and neither of them "works".
I am not sure why still.....

I found out that both of them have a limited package of programs so I've tested custom python scripts.
And they both don't work.

So far it's still unclear why it fails.
I guess it might be some windows settings (e.g. I am not sure whether conpty requires some tweak inside windows settings)

https://ci.appveyor.com/project/zhiburt/expectrl-1oa5l/builds/46457768#L319
https://github.com/zhiburt/expectrl/actions/runs/4376327509/jobs/7658275779#step:8:82