Expect script if a user exists before creating - expect

Question

I wrote an expect script to create a user in unix server. It basically connects via SSH to a server using my credential and su to root to do useradd and etc. (I understand there are other methods to accomplish the same but I am restricted with such settings and environment currently.)
set prompt "(%|#|>|\\\$ )"
set prompt [string trim $prompt]
spawn ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -l $my_user $hostname
expect "?assword: "
send "$my_pass\r"
expect -re $prompt
send "/usr/bin/su - \r"
expect "?assword: "
send "$root_pass\r"
expect -re $prompt
send "/usr/sbin/useradd -d /export/home/$user -m -s /bin/sh $user \r"
expect -re $prompt
send "/usr/bin/passwd $user \r"
expect "?assword:"
send "$new_pass\r"
expect "?assword:"
send "$new_pass\r"
send "exit\r"
expect -re $prompt
send "exit\r"
expect -re $prompt
However if I am stuck at adding a logic to check whether a user already exists in the system. If it were in bash, I would have added grep -c '^USER' /etc/passwd to check for the returned number. But I am unable to capture the return number from expect. There is so much information returned once I added:
send "egrep -c '^$user' /etc/passwd \r"
set output $expect_out(buffer)
Could someone tell me how to parse out all the output? I know it is a very simple task. It is probably a simple if ... then .. else but I am unable to produce anything useful in the past week.

Answer 1

Assuming your shell on the remote host is sh-based, and the remote system is linux:
set cmd [format {getent passwd %s >/dev/null 2>&1; [ "$?" -eq 2 ] && /usr/sbin/useradd -d /export/home/%s -m -s /bin/sh %s} $user $user $user]
send "$cmd\r"
I'm using format (known as sprintf in other languages) to ease quoting.

Answer 2

After spending another few hours studying tcl, this is working now.
I replace this block of code after I enter the root_pass.
send "\r"
expect -re $prompt
expect *;
send "egrep -c '^$user:' /etc/passwd \r"
expect -re $prompt
set output $expect_out(buffer);
set ans [ split $output \n ]
set var [lindex $ans 1]
if { $var >= 1 } {
puts "Found.\r"
send "exit\r"
expect eof
} else {
puts "Not found.\r"
send "/usr/sbin/useradd -d /export/home/$user -m -s /bin/sh $user \r"
.....
}