Advice on automated text processing script

[Amit Uttamchandani <atu13439@csun.edu>]

Hey guys,

I thought of no better place than to ask the experts here at deb-users list. ;)

Anyways, I wanted to write a script that takes a "snapshot" of the current screen on the serial console.

 - i.e. I have a device connected through an RS-232 interface and I want to save the output into a text file and process it.

 - Ex. "Bytes Rcvd        32494830" -> I want to be able to use this number.

Now comes several different questions.

 1. Should I use a software like cutecom and script it?

 2. Or should I use perl/python/tcl? Do they have packages that have direct access to the RS-232 port?

 3. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

I am currently running debian etch.

Thanks again for all your help.

Amit