PLAYBACK(1)

NAME
playback - IBM x3270 trace file playback tool

SYNOPSIS
playback [ -b ] [ -w ] [ -p port ] trace_file

DESCRIPTION
playback opens a trace file (presumably created by the x3270 Trace Data Stream facility) and plays the host data it contains back over a socket to processes that connect to it. It also displays the data produced by the process in response.

It runs in one of two modes, bidirectional and interactive. In bidirectional mode, selected by the -b option, playback verfies that the emulator connected to it sends the correct stream of bytes in response to the host stream. This is useful for automated testing.

Otherwise, playback is used interactively. The -w command-line option prevents processing interactive commands until a process connects; otherwise commands are processed immediately. Keyboard commands control the flow of data from the file to the socket. These commands are:

s   Send one line of data.

r   Send one record of data (send data until the TELNET EOR sequence is reached).

m   Send data util a mark (a line beginning with $) is encountered in the file.

e   Send the rest of the data in the file.

t   Send a TELNET DO TIMING MARK sequence.

c   Echo the command to stdout as a comment.

d   Disconnect the current socket and wait for another connection.

q   Exit playback.

EXIT STATUS

0   Success.

1   Set-up failure.

2   Run-time failure, such as mismatched data.

EXAMPLES
Suppose you wanted to interactively play back a trace file called /tmp/x3trc.12345. In one window, run:

    playback /tmp/x3trc.12345

In another window, start x3270 with the command:

    x3270 localhost:4001

playback will announce the connection.

Thereafter, the s and r commands will send data from the file to x3270.

To automate a unit test to verify that x3270 produces a known data stream, run:

    playback -b /tmp/x3trc.12345

In another window, start x3270 as above. playback will exit with status 0 if the byte stream matches, and status 2 if it does not.

SEE ALSO
x3270(1)