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FAQ
===
+**Q: Where can I get help with pexpect? Is there a mailing list?**
+
+A: You can use the `pexpect tag on Stackoverflow <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/pexpect>`__
+to ask questions specifically related to Pexpect. For more general Python
+support, there's the python-list_ mailing list, and the `#python`_
+IRC channel. Please refrain from using github for general
+python or systems scripting support.
+
+.. _python-list: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
+.. _#python: https://www.python.org/community/irc/
+
**Q: Why don't shell pipe and redirect (| and >) work when I spawn a command?**
A: Remember that Pexpect does NOT interpret shell meta characters such as
@@ -117,14 +128,13 @@ another application.
**Q: Can I do screen scraping with this thing?**
A: That depends. If your application just does line-oriented output then
-this is easy. If it does screen-oriented output then it may work, but it
-could be hard. For example, trying to scrape data from the 'top' command
-would be hard. The top command repaints the text window.
-
-I am working on an ANSI / VT100 terminal emulator that will have methods
-to get characters from an arbitrary X,Y coordinate of the virtual screen.
-It works and you can play with it (see :mod:`pexpect.ANSI`), but I have
-no working examples at this time.
+this is easy. If a program emits many terminal sequences, from video
+attributes to screen addressing, such as programs using curses, then
+it may become very difficult to ascertain what text is displayed on a screen.
+
+We suggest using the `pyte <https://github.com/selectel/pyte>`_ library to
+screen-scrape. The module :mod:`pexpect.ANSI` released with previous versions
+of pexpect is now marked deprecated and may be removed in the future.
**Q: I get strange behavior with pexect and gevent**