TCL: TOOL COMMENT LANGUAGE

Introduction
Welcome to the Tcl tutorial. We wrote it with the goal of helping you to learn
Tcl. It is aimed at those who have some knowledge of programming,
although you certainly don't have to be an expert. The tutorial is intended as
a companion to the Tcl manual pages which provide a reference for all Tcl
commands.

It is divided into brief sections covering different aspects of the language.

Depending on what system you are on, you can always look up the reference
documentation for commands that you are curious about. On Unix for
example, man while would bring up the man page for the while command.

Each section is accompanied by relevant examples showing you how to put

to use the material covered.

Additional Resources

The Tcl community is an exceedingly friendly one. It's polite to try and figure
things out yourself, but if you're struggling, we're more than willing to help.
Here are some good places to get help:

 The comp.lang.tcl newsgroup. Accessible via a newsreader, or

Google Groups.
 The Wiki has a great deal of useful code, examples and
discussions of the finer points of Tcl usage.
 If you need help right away, there is often someone on the
#tcl channel on irc.freenode.net who can help you out, but
please don't be impatient if no one can help you instantly - if
you need that level of support, consider hiring a consultant.
 There are several recommended books for those who wish to
gain more in-depth knowledge of Tcl. Clif Flynt, the original
author of this tutorial is also the author of Tcl/Tk: A
Developer's Guide. Other popular books: Practical
Programming in Tcl and Tk.
Credits

Thanks first and foremost to Clif Flynt for making his material available
under a BSD license. The following people also contributed:

 Neil Madden
 Arjen Markus
 David N. Welton

Of course, we also welcome comments and suggestions about how it could

be improved - or if it's great the way it is, we don't mind a bit of thanks,
either!

Running Tcl
When you have installed Tcl, the program you will then call to utilize it
is tclsh. For instance, if you write some code to a file "hello.tcl", and you
want to execute it, you would do it like so: tclsh hello.tcl. Depending on
the version of Tcl installed, and the operating system distribution you use,
the tclsh program may be a link to the real executable, which may be
named tclsh8.6 or tclsh86.exe on Microsoft Windows.

The tclsh is a simple command-line interactive interpreter. You can either

start it with a script on the command line, in which case it runs the script to
completion and then exits, or you can start it without any arguments, in
which case you will be presented with an interactive prompt, usually using
a % symbol to prompt for input. In interactive mode, you can type in
commands, which Tcl will then execute and display the result, or any error
messages that result. To exit the interpreter, type exit and press Return.
Playing around with the interactive interpreter is a great way to learn how to
use Tcl. Most Tcl commands will produce a helpful error message explaining
how they are used if you just type in the command with no arguments. You
can get a list of all the commands that your interpreter knows about by
typing info commands.

The tclsh executable is just one way of starting a Tcl interpreter. Another
common executable, which may be installed on your system, is the wish, or
WIndowing SHell. This is a version of Tcl that automatically loads the Tk
extension for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs). This tutorial does not
cover Tk, and so we will not use the wish interpreter here. Other options are
also available, providing more functional environments for developing and
debugging code than that provided by the standard tclsh. One very popular
choice is the TkCon enhanced interpreter, written by Jeff Hobbs. The Eclipse
IDE offers good Tcl support, in the form of the DLTK extension, and the
Tcl'ers Wiki offers a list of IDEs with Tcl support and a
comprehensive catalogue of Tcl source code editors. Don't panic, though! If
you don't know how to use a sophisticated development environment, it is
still very easy to write Tcl code by hand in a simple text editor (such as
Notepad).

Simple Text Output

The traditional starting place for a tutorial is the classic "Hello, World"
program. Once you can print out a string, you're well on your way to using
Tcl for fun and profit!

The command to output a string in Tcl is the puts command.

A single unit of text after the puts command will be printed to the standard
output device. The default behavior is to print a newline character ("return")
appropriate for the system after printing the text.

If the string has more than one word, you must enclose the string in double
quotes or braces ({}). A set of words enclosed in quotes or braces is treated
as a single unit, while words separated by whitespace are treated as multiple
arguments to the command. Quotes and braces can both be used to group
several words into a single unit. However, they actually behave differently.
In the next lesson you'll start to learn some of the differences between their
behaviors. Note that in Tcl, single quotes are not significant, as they are in
other programming languages such as C, Perl and Python.

Many commands in Tcl (including puts) can accept multiple arguments. If a

string is not enclosed in quotes or braces, the Tcl interpreter will consider
each word in the string as a separate argument, and pass each individually
to the puts command. The putscommand will try to evaluate the words as
optional arguments. This will probably result in an error.

A command in Tcl is a list of words terminated by a newline or semicolon. Tcl

comments are a # at the beginning of the line, or after the command is
closed with a ;semicolon.

Example

puts "Hello, World - In quotes" ;# This is a comment after the command.

# This is a comment at beginning of a line
 puts {Hello, World - In Braces}
puts {Bad comment syntax example} # *Error* - there is no semicolon!

puts "This is line 1"; puts "this is line 2"

puts "Hello, World; - With a semicolon inside the quotes"

# Words don't need to be quoted unless they contain white space:

puts HelloWorld

Assigning values to variables

In Tcl, everything may be represented as a string, although internally it may

be represented as a list, integer, double, or other type, in order to make the
language fast.

The assignment command in Tcl is set.

When set is called with two arguments, as in:

set fruit Cauliflower

it places the second argument (Cauliflower) in the memory space referenced

by the first argument (fruit). Set always returns the contents of the variable
named in the first argument. Thus, when set is called with two arguments, it
places the second argument in the memory space referenced by the first
argument and then returns the second argument. In the above example, for
instance, it would return "Cauliflower", without the quotes.

The first argument to a set command can be either a single word,

like fruit or pi , or it can be a member of an array. Arrays will be discussed
in greater detail later, for the time being just remember that many data can
be collected under a single variable name, and an individual datum can be
accessed by its index within that array. Indexing into an array in Tcl is
handled by putting the index within parentheses after the name of the
variable.
Setcan also be invoked with only one argument. When called with just one
argument, it will return the contents of that argument.

Here's a summary of the set command.

set varName ?value?

If value is specified, then the contents of the variable varName are

set equal to value .
If varName consists only of alphanumeric characters, and no
parentheses, it is a scalar variable.
If varName has the form varName(index) , it is a member of an
associative array.

If you look at the example code, you'll notice that in the set command the
first argument is typed with only its name, but in the putsstatement the
argument is preceded with a $.

The dollar sign tells Tcl to use the value of the variable - in this case X or Y.

Tcl passes data to subroutines either by name or by value. Commands that

don't change the contents of a variable usually have their arguments passed
by value. Commands that do change the value of the data must have the
data passed by name.

Example

set X "This is a string"

set Y 1.24

puts $X
puts $Y

puts "..............................."

set label "The value in Y is: "

 puts "$label $Y"

Evaluation & Substitutions 1: Grouping arguments with ""

This lesson is the first of three which discuss the way Tcl handles
substitution during command evaluation.

In Tcl, the evaluation of a command is done in 2 phases. The first phase is a

single pass of substitutions. The second phase is the evaluation of the
resulting command. Note that only one pass of substitutions is made. Thus
in the command

puts $varName

the contents of the proper variable are substituted for $varName, and then the
command is executed. Assuming we have set varName to "Hello World", the
sequence would look like this: puts $varName ⇒ puts"Hello World", which is
then executed and prints out Hello World.

During the substitution phase, several types of substitutions occur.

A command within square brackets ([]) is replaced with the result of the
execution of that command. (This will be explained more fully in the lesson
"Results of a Command - Math 101.")

Words within double quotes or braces are grouped into a single argument.
However, double quotes and braces cause different behavior during the
substitution phase. In this lesson, we will concentrate on the behavior of
double quotes during the substitution phase.

Grouping words within double quotes allows substitutions to occur within the
quotations - or, in fancier terms, "interpolation". The substituted group is
then evaluated as a single argument. Thus, in the command:

puts "The current stock value is $varName"

the current contents of varName are substituted for $varName, and then the
entire string is printed to the output device, just like the example above.
In general, the backslash (\) disables substitution for the single character
immediately following the backslash. Any character immediately following
the backslash will stand without substitution.

However, there are specific "Backslash Sequence" strings which are replaced
by specific values during the substitution phase. The following backslash
strings will be substituted as shown below.

String Output Hex Value

\a Audible Bell 0x07

\b Backspace 0x08

Form Feed
\f 0x0c
(clear screen)

\n New Line 0x0a

\r Carriage Return 0x0d

\t Tab 0x09

\v Vertical Tab 0x0b

\0dd Octal Value d is a digit from 0-7

H is a hex digit
\uHHHH 0-9,A-F,a-f. This
represents a 16-
 String Output Hex Value

bit Unicode
character.

H is a hex digit 0-9,A-F,a-

f. Notethat the \x substitution
"keeps going" as long as it has
hex digits, and only uses the last
\xHH.... Hex Value two, meaning that \xaa and
\xaaaa are equal, and that
\xaaAnd anyway will "eat" the A
of "And". Using the \u notation is
probably a better idea.

The final exception is the backslash at the end of a line of text. This causes
the interpreter to ignore the newline, and treat the text as a single line of
text. The interpreter will insert a blank space at the location of the ending
backslash.

Example

set Z Albany
set Z_LABEL "The Capitol of New York is: "

puts "$Z_LABEL $Z" ;# Prints the value of Z

puts "$Z_LABEL \$Z" ;# Prints a literal $Z instead of the value of Z

puts "\nBen Franklin is on the \$100.00 bill"

set a 100.00
puts "Washington is not on the $a bill" ;# This is not what you want
puts "Lincoln is not on the $$a bill" ;# This is OK
 puts "Hamilton is not on the \$a bill" ;# This is not what you want
puts "Ben Franklin is on the \$$a bill" ;# But, this is OK

puts "\n................. examples of escape strings"

puts "Tab\tTab\tTab"
puts "This string prints out \non two lines"
puts "This string comes out\
on a single line"

Evaluation & Substitutions 2: Grouping arguments with

{}

During the substitution phase of command evaluation, the two grouping

operators, the brace ({) and the double quote ("), are treated differently by
the Tcl interpreter.

In the last lesson you saw that grouping words with double quotes allows
substitutions to occur within the double quotes. By contrast, grouping words
within double braces disables substitution within the braces. Characters
within braces are passed to a command exactly as written. The only
"Backslash Sequence" that is processed within braces is the backslash at the
end of a line. This is still a line continuation character.

Note that braces have this effect only when they are used for grouping (i.e.
at the beginning and end of a sequence of words). If a string is already
grouped, either with quotes or braces, and braces occur in the middle of the
grouped string (i.e. "foo{bar"), then the braces are treated as regular
characters with no special meaning. If the string is grouped with quotes,
substitutions will occur within the quoted string, even between the braces.

Example

set Z Albany
set Z_LABEL "The Capitol of New York is: "
 puts "\n................. examples of differences between \" and \{"
puts "$Z_LABEL $Z"
puts {$Z_LABEL $Z}

puts "\n....... examples of differences in nesting \{ and \" "

puts "$Z_LABEL {$Z}"
puts {Who said, "What this country needs is a good $0.05 cigar!"?}

puts "\n................. examples of escape strings"

puts {There are no substitutions done within braces \n \r \x0a \f \v}
puts {But, the escaped newline at the end of a\
string is still evaluated as a space}

Evaluation & Substitutions 3: Grouping arguments with []

You obtain the results of a command by placing the command in square

brackets ([]). This is the functional equivalent of the back single quote (`) in
sh programming, or using the return value of a function in C.

As the Tcl interpreter reads in a line it replaces all the $variables with their
values. If a portion of the string is grouped with square brackets, then the
string within the square brackets is evaluated as a command by the
interpreter, and the result of the command replaces the square bracketed
string.

Let's take the following code segment, for example:

puts [readsensor [selectsensor]]

 The parser scans the entire command, and sees that there is a
command substitution to perform: readsensor [selectsensor] ,
which is sent to the interpreter for evaluation.
 The parser once again finds a command to be evaluated and
substituted, selectsensor
 The fictitious selectsensor command is evaluated, and it
presumably returns a sensor to read.
  At this point, readsensor has a sensor to read, and the
readsensor command is evaluated.
 Finally, the value of readsensor is passed on back to
the puts command, which prints the output to the screen.

The exceptions to this rule are as follows:

 A square bracket that is escaped with a \ is considered as a

literal square bracket.
 A square bracket within braces is not modified during the
substitution phase.

Example

set x abc
puts "A simple substitution: $x\n"

set y [set x "def"]

puts "Remember that set returns the new value of the variable: X: $x Y:
$y\n"

set z {[set x "This is a string within quotes within braces"]}

puts "Note the curly braces: $z\n"

set a "[set x {This is a string within braces within quotes}]"

puts "See how the set is executed: $a"
puts "\$x is: $x\n"

set b "\[set y {This is a string within braces within quotes}]"

# Note the \ escapes the bracket, and must be doubled to be a
# literal character in double quotes
puts "Note the \\ escapes the bracket:\n \$b is: $b"
puts "\$y is: $y"
 Results of a command - Math 101
The Tcl command for doing math type operations is expr. The following
discussion of the expr command is extracted and adapted from the expr man
page. Many commands use expr behind the scenes in order to evaluate test
expressions, such as if, while and for loops, discussed in later sections. All
of the advice given here for expralso holds for these other commands.

expr takes all of its arguments ("2 + 2" for example) and evaluates the
result as a Tcl "expression" (rather than a normal command), and returns
the value. The operators permitted in Tcl expressions include all the
standard math functions, logical operators, bitwise operators, as well as
math functions like rand(), sqrt(), cosh()and so on. Expressions almost
always yield numeric results (integer or floating-point values).

Performance tip: enclosing the arguments toexpr in curly braces will result
in faster code. So do expr {$i * 10} instead of simply expr $i * 10

WARNING: You should always use braces when evaluating

expressions that may contain user input, to avoid possible
security breaches. The expr command performs its own round of
substitutions on variables and commands, so you should use
braces to prevent the Tcl interpreter doing this as well (leading to
double substitution). To illustrate the danger, consider this
interactive session:
% set userinput {[puts DANGER!]}
[puts DANGER!]
% expr $userinput == 1
DANGER!
0
% expr {$userinput == 1}
0

In the first example, the code contained in the user-supplied input

is evaluated, whereas in the second the braces prevent this
potential danger. As a general rule, always surround expressions
with braces, whether using expr directly or some other command
that takes an expression (such as if or while).
OPERANDS

A Tcl expression consists of a combination of operands, operators, and

parentheses. White space may be used between operands, operators and
parentheses; it is ignored by the expression processor. Where possible,
operands are interpreted as integer values. Integer values may be specified
in decimal (the normal case), in octal (if the first character of the operand is
0), or in hexadecimal (if the first two characters of the operand are 0x).

Note that the octal and hexadecimal conversion takes place differently in
the exprcommand than in the Tcl substitution phase. In the substitution
phase, a \x32 would be converted to an ascii "2", while expr would
convert 0x32 to a decimal 50.

If an operand does not have one of the integer formats given above, then it
is treated as a floating-point number, if that is possible. Floating-point
numbers may be specified in any of the ways accepted by an ANSI-
compliant C compiler. For example, all of the following are valid floating-
point numbers:

2.1
3.
6E4
7.91e+16
.000001

If no numeric interpretation is possible, then an operand is left as a string

(and only a limited set of operators may be applied to it).

Note however, that it does not support numbers of the following forms:

2,1 - a decimal comma, instead of a decimal point

2,100 - a thousands separator

It is possible to deal with numbers in that form, but you will have to
convert these "strings" to numbers in the standard form first.

Beware of leading zeros: 0700 is not interpreted as the decimal number 700
(seven hundred), but as the octal number 700 = 7*8*8 = 448 (decimal).

Worse, if the number contains a digit 8 or 9 an error results:

 % expr {0900+1}
expected integer but got "0900" (looks like invalid octal number)

Octal numbers are in fact a relic of the past, when such number
formats were much more common.

Operands may be specified in any of the following ways:

 As an numeric value, either integer or floating-point.

 As a Tcl variable, using standard $ notation. The variable's
value will be used as the operand.

OPERATORS

The valid operators are listed below, grouped in decreasing order of

precedence:

-+~!
Unary minus, unary plus, bit-wise NOT, logical NOT. None of
these operators may be applied to string operands, and bit-
wise NOT may be applied only to integers.
**
Exponentiation (works on both floating-point numbers and
integers)
*/%
Multiply, divide, remainder. None of these operators may be
applied to string operands, and remainder may be applied only
to integers. The remainder will always have the same sign as
the divisor and an absolute value smaller than the divisor.
+-
Add and subtract. Valid for any numeric operands.
<< >>
Left and right (bit) shift. Valid for integer operands only.
< > <= >=
 Relational operators: less, greater, less than or equal, and
greater than or equal. Each operator produces 1 if the
condition is true, 0 otherwise. These operators may be applied
to numeric operands as well as strings, in which case string
comparison is used.
eq ne in ni
compare two strings for equality (eq) or inequality (ne). and
two operators for checking if a string is contained in a list (in)
or not (ni). These operators all return 1 (true) or 0 (false).
Using these operators ensures that the operands are regarded
exclusively as strings (and lists), not as possible numbers:

% expr { "9" == "9.0"}

1
% expr { "9" eq "9.0"}
0

&
Bit-wise AND. Valid for integer operands only.
^
Bit-wise exclusive OR. Valid for integer operands only.
|
Bit-wise OR. Valid for integer operands only.
&&
Logical AND. Produces a 1 result if both operands are non-
zero, 0 otherwise. Valid for numeric operands only (integers or
floating-point).
||
Logical OR. Produces a 0 result if both operands are zero, 1
otherwise. Valid for numeric operands only (integers or
floating-point).
x?y:z
If-then-else. If x evaluates to non-zero, then the result is the
value of y. Otherwise the result is the value of z. The x
operand must have a numeric value.

% set x 1
% expr { $x>0? ($x+1) : ($x-1) }
2

MATH FUNCTIONS

Tcl supports the following mathematical functions in expressions:

abs acos asin atan

atan2 bool ceil cos
cosh double entier exp
floor fmod hypot int
isqrt log log10 max
min pow rand round
sin sinh sqrt srand
tan tanh wide

Besides these functions, you can also apply commands within an expression.
For instance:

% set x 1
% set w "Abcdef"
% expr { [string length $w]-2*$x }
4

TYPE CONVERSIONS

Tcl supports the following functions to convert from one representation of a

number to another:

double int wide entier

 double() converts a number to a floating-point number.

 int() converts a number to an ordinary integer number
(by truncating the decimal part).
 wide() converts a number to a so-called wide integer number
(these numbers have a larger range).
  entier()coerces a number to an integer of appropriate size to
hold it without truncation. This might return the same as int()
or wide() or an integer of arbitrary size (in Tcl 8.5 and above).

The next lesson explains the various types of numbers in more detail.

Example

set X 100
set Y 256
set Z [expr {$Y + $X}]
set Z_LABEL "$Y plus $X is "

puts "$Z_LABEL $Z"

puts "The square root of $Y is [expr { sqrt($Y) }]\n"

puts "Because of the precedence rules \"5 + -3 * 4\" is: [expr {-3 * 4 +
5}]"
puts "Because of the parentheses \"(5 + -3) * 4\" is: [expr {(5 + -3)
* 4}]"

set A 3
set B 4
puts "The hypotenuse of a triangle: [expr {hypot($A,$B)}]"

#
# The trigonometric functions work with radians ...
#
set pi6 [expr {3.1415926/6.0}]
puts "The sine and cosine of pi/6: [expr {sin($pi6)}] [expr {cos($pi6)}]"

#
# Working with arrays
#
set a(1) 10
set a(2) 7
 set a(3) 17
set b 2
puts "Sum: [expr {$a(1)+$a($b)}]"

Computers and numbers

If you are new to programming, then this lesson may contain some
surprising information. But even if you are used to writing programs,
computers can do unexpected things with numbers. The purpose of this
lesson is to shed some light on some of the mysteries and quirks you can
encounter.

These mysteries exist independently of the programming language, though

one programming language may be better at isolating you from them than
another. The problem is that computers can not deal with the
numbers we are used and in the way we are used to.

For instance (*):

# Compute 1 million times 1 million

% puts [expr {1000000*1000000}]
-727379968

To most people's surprise, the result is negative! Instead of

1000000000000, a negative number is returned.

Important note: I used Tcl 8.4.1 for all examples. In Tcl 8.5 the results will
hopefully be more intuitive, as a result of adding so-called big integers.
Nevertheless, the general theme remains the same.

Now consider the following example, it is almost the same, with the
exception of a decimal dot:

# Compute 1 million times 1 million

% puts [expr {1000000*1000000.}]
1e+012

The reason is simple, well if you know more about the background
of computer arithmetic:
  In the first example we multiplied two integer numbers, or
short integers. While we are used to these numbers ranging
from-infinity to +infinity, computers can not deal with that
range (at least not that easily). So, instead, computers deal
with a subset of the actual mathematical integer numbers.
They deal with numbers from -231 to 231-1 (in general) - that
is, with numbers from -2147483648 to 2147483647.

Numbers outside that range can not be dealt with that easily.
This is also true of the results of a computation (or the
intermediate results of a computation, even if the final result
does fit).

 In the second example we multiplied an integer with

a floating-point number, in common parlance: a real number
or real (though there are very significant differences between
the mathematical real numbers and the computer's real
numbers that are at the heart of another group of mysteries
and quirks). Floating-point numbers have a much larger range
and they can be used to deal with such numbers
as 1.2 and 3.1415026.

The typical range for floating-point numbers is roughly: -

1.0e+300 to -1.0e-300, 0.0 and 1.0e-300 to 1.0e+300.
Floating-point numbers have a limited precision: usually about
12 decimals.

What this means in practical terms, is that a floating-point

number can be as a 1 followed by 300 zeros or as small as
0.0000...1 (where "..." stands for 295 zeros).

Because the range is so much bigger, in the second example

the result falls within the limits and we get the answer we
expected.

Tcl's strategy

Tcl uses a simple but efficient strategy to decide what kind of numbers to
use for the computations:
  If you add, subtract, multiply and divide two integer numbers,
then the result is an integer. If the result fits within the range
you have the exact answer. If not, you end up with something
that appears to be completely wrong. (Note: not too long ago,
floating-point computations were much more time-consuming
than integer computations. And most computers do not warn
about integer results outside the range, because that is too
time-consuming too: a computer typically uses lots of such
operations, most of which do fit into the designated range.)
 If you add, subtract, multiply and divide an integer number
and a floating-point number, then the integer number is first
converted to a floating-point number with the same value and
then the computation is done, resulting in a floating-point
number.

Floating-point computations are quite complex, and the

current (IEEE) standard prescribes what should happen in
minute detail. One such detail is that results outside the proper
ranges are reported. Tcl catches these and displays a warning:

# Compute 1.0e+300/1.0-300
% puts [expr {1.0e300/1.0e-300}]
floating-point value too large to represent

What are those mysteries and quirks?

Now some of the mysteries you can find yourself involved in. Run the
following scripts:

#
# Division
#
puts "1/2 is [expr {1/2}]"
puts "-1/2 is [expr {-1/2}]"
puts "1/2 is [expr {1./2}]"
puts "1/3 is [expr {1./3}]"
puts "1/3 is [expr {double(1)/3}]"
The first two computations have the surprising result: 0 and -1. That is
because the result is an integer number and the mathematically exact
results 1/2 and -1/2 are not.

If you interested in the details of how Tcl works, the outcome q is

determined as follows:

a = q * b + r
0 <= |r| < |b|
r has the same sign as q

Here are some examples with floating-point numbers:

set tcl_precision 17 ;# One of Tcl's few magic variables:

;# Show all decimals needed to exactly
;# reproduce a particular number
puts "1/2 is [expr {1./2}]"
puts "1/3 is [expr {1./3}]"

set a [expr {1.0/3.0}]

puts "3*(1/3) is [expr {3.0*$a}]"

set b [expr {10.0/3.0}]

puts "3*(10/3) is [expr {3.0*$b}]"

set c [expr {10.0/3.0}]

set d [expr {2.0/3.0}]
puts "(10.0/3.0) / (2.0/3.0) is [expr {$c/$d}]"

set e [expr {1.0/10.0}]

puts "1.2 / 0.1 is [expr {1.2/$e}]"

While many of the above computations give the result you would expect,
note however the last decimals, the last two do not give exactly 5 and 12!
This is because computers can only deal with numbers with a limited
precision: floating-point numbers are not our mathematical real numbers.
Somewhat unexpectedly, 1/10 also gives problems. 1.2/0.1 results in
11.999999999999998, not 12. That is an example of a very nasty aspect of
most computers and programming languages today: they do not work with
ordinary decimal fractions, but with binary fractions. So, 0.5 can be
represented exactly, but 0.1 can not.

Some practical consequences

The fact that floating-point numbers are not ordinary decimal or real
numbers and the actual way computers deal with floating-point numbers,
has a number of consequences:

 Results obtained on one computer may not exactly match the

results on another computer. Usually the differences are small,
but if you have a lot of computations, they can add up!
 Whenever you convert from floating-point numbers to integer
numbers, for instance when determining the labels for a graph
(the range is 0 to 1.2 and you want a stepsize of 0.1), you
need to be careful:

 #
 # The wrong way
 #
 set number [expr {int(1.2/0.1)}] ;# Force an integer -
 ;# accidentally number = 11

 for { set i 0 } { $i <= $number } { incr i } {
 set x [expr {$i*0.1}]
 ... create label $x
 }


 #
 # A right way - note the limit
 #
 set x 0.0
 set delta 0.1
  while { $x < 1.2+0.5*$delta } {

 ... create label $x

 set x [expr {$x + $delta}]
 }

 If you want to do financial computations, take care: there are

specific standards for doing such computations that
unfortunately depend on the country where they are used -
the US standard is slightly different from the European
standard.
 Transcendental functions, like sin() and exp() are not
standardised at all. The outcome could differ in one or more
decimals from one computer to the next. So, if you want to be
absolutely certain that π (pi) is a specific value, use that value
and do not rely on formulae like these:

 #

 # Two different estimates of "pi" - on Windows 98

 #
 set pi1 [expr {4.0*atan(1.0)}]
 set pi2 [expr {6.0*asin(0.5)}]
 puts [expr {$pi1-$pi2}]
 -4.4408920985006262e-016

Numeric Comparisons 101 – if

Like most languages, Tcl supports an if command. The syntax is:

 if expr1 ?then? body1 elseif expr2 ?then?body2 elseif ... ?else? ?bodyN?

The words then and else are optional, although generally then is left out
and else is used.

The test expression following if should return a value that can be

interpreted as representing "true" or "false":
 False True

a numeric value 0 all others

yes/no no yes

true/false false true

If the test expression returns a string "yes"/"no" or "true"/"false", the case

of the return is not checked. True/FALSE or YeS/nO are legitimate returns.

If the test expression evaluates to True, then body1 will be executed.

If the test expression evaluates to False, then the word after body1 will be
examined. If the next word is elseif, then the next test expression will be
tested as a condition. If the next word is else then the final body will be
evaluated as a command.

The test expression following the word if is evaluated in the same manner
as in the exprcommand.

The test expression following if may be enclosed within quotes, or braces. If

it is enclosed within braces, it will be evaluated within the if command, and
if enclosed within quotes it will be evaluated during the substitution phase,
and then another round of substitutions will be done within the ifcommand.

Note: This extra round can cause unexpected trouble - avoid it.

Example

set x 1

if {$x == 2} {puts "$x is 2"} else {puts "$x is not 2"}

if {$x != 1} {
 puts "$x is != 1"
} else {
puts "$x is 1"
}

if $x==1 {puts "GOT 1"}

#
# Be careful, this is just an example
# Usually you should avoid such constructs,
# it is less than clear what is going on and it can be dangerous
#
set y x
if "$$y != 1" {
puts "$$y is != 1"
} else {
puts "$$y is 1"
}

#
# A dangerous example: due to the extra round of substitution,
# the script stops
#
set y {[exit]}
if "$$y != 1" {
puts "$$y is != 1"
} else {
puts "$$y is 1"
}

Textual Comparison – switch

The switch command allows you to choose one of several options in your
code. It is similar to switch in C, except that it is more flexible, because you
can switch on strings, instead of just integers. The string will be compared to
a set of patterns, and when a pattern matches the string, the code
associated with that pattern will be evaluated.

It's a good idea to use the switch command when you want to match a
variable against several possible values, and don't want to do a long series
of if... elseif ... elseifstatements.

The syntax of the command is:

 switch string pattern1 body1 ?pattern2 body2? ... ?patternN bodyN?

- or -

 switch string { pattern1 body1 ?pattern2 body2?...?patternN bodyN? }

String is the string that you wish to test, and pattern1, pattern2, etc are the
patterns that the string will be compared to. If stringmatches a pattern,
then the code within the body associated with that pattern will be executed.
The return value of the body will be returned as the return value of the switch
statement. Only one pattern will be matched.

If the last pattern argument is the string default, that pattern will match any
string. This guarantees that some set of code will be executed no matter
what the contents of string are.

If there is no default argument, and none of the patterns match string, then
the switchcommand will return an empty string.

If you use the brace version of this command, there will be no substitutions
done on the patterns. The body of the command, however, will be parsed
and evaluated just like any other command, so there will be a pass of
substitutions done on that, just as will be done in the first syntax. The
advantage of the second form is that you can write multiple line commands
more readably with the brackets.

Note that you can use braces to group the body argument when using
the switch or ifcommands. This is because these commands pass
their body argument to the Tcl interpreter for evaluation. This evaluation
includes a pass of substitutions just as it does for code not within a
command bodyargument.
Example

set x "ONE"
set y 1
set z ONE

# This is probably the easiest and cleanest form of the command

# to remember:
switch $x {
"$z" {
set y1 [expr {$y+1}]
puts "MATCH \$z. $y + $z is $y1"
}
ONE {
set y1 [expr {$y+1}]
puts "MATCH ONE. $y + one is $y1"
}
TWO {
set y1 [expr {$y+2}]
puts "MATCH TWO. $y + two is $y1"
}
THREE {
set y1 [expr {$y+3}]
puts "MATCH THREE. $y + three is $y1"
}
default {
puts "$x is NOT A MATCH"
}
}

switch $x "$z" {
set y1 [expr {$y+1}]
puts "MATCH \$z. $y + $z is $y1"
 } ONE {
set y1 [expr {$y+1}]
puts "MATCH ONE. $y + one is $y1"
} TWO {
set y1 [expr {$y+2}]
puts "MATCH TWO. $y + two is $y1"
} THREE {
set y1 [expr {$y+3}]
puts "MATCH THREE. $y + three is $y1"
} default {
puts "$x does not match any of these choices"
}

switch $x "ONE" "puts ONE=1" "TWO" "puts TWO=2" "default" "puts NO_MATCH"

switch $x \
"ONE" "puts ONE=1" \
"TWO" "puts TWO=2" \
"default" "puts NO_MATCH";

Looping 101 - While loop

Tcl includes two commands for looping, the while and for commands. Like
the ifstatement, they evaluate their test the same way that the expr does.
In this lesson we discuss the while command, and in the next lesson,
the for command. In most circumstances where one of these commands can
be used, the other can be used as well.

 while test body

The while command evaluates test as an expression. If test is true, the code
in body is executed. After the code in body has been executed, testis
evaluated again.

A continue statement within body will stop the execution of the code and the
test will be re-evaluated. A break within body will break out of the while loop,
and execution will continue with the next line of code after body

In Tcl everything is a command, and everything goes through the same

substitution phase. For this reason, the testmust be placed within braces.
If test is placed within quotes, the substitution phase will replace any
variables with their current value, and will pass that test to
the whilecommand to evaluate, and since the test has only numbers, it will
always evaluate the same, quite probably leading to an endless loop!

Look at the two loops in the example. If it weren't for the break command in
the second loop, it would loop forever.

Example

set x 1

# This is a normal way to write a Tcl while loop.

while {$x < 5} {

puts "x is $x"
set x [expr {$x + 1}]
}

puts "exited first loop with X equal to $x\n"

# The next example shows the difference between ".." and {...}
# How many times does the following loop run? Why does it not
# print on each pass?

set x 0
while "$x < 5" {
set x [expr {$x + 1}]
 if {$x > 7} break
if "$x > 3" continue
puts "x is $x"
}

puts "exited second loop with X equal to $x"

Looping 102 - For and incr

Tcl supports an iterated loop construct similar to the for loop in C.

The forcommand in Tcl takes four arguments; an initialization, a test, an
increment, and the body of code to evaluate on each pass through the loop.
The syntax for the forcommand is:

 for start test next body

During evaluation of the for command, the start code is evaluated once,
before any other arguments are evaluated. After the start code has been
evaluated, the test is evaluated. If the test evaluates to true, then
the body is evaluated, and finally, the nextargument is evaluated. After
evaluating the next argument, the interpreter loops back to the test, and
repeats the process. If the testevaluates as false, then the loop will exit
immediately.

Start is the initialization portion of the command. It is usually used to

initialize the iteration variable, but can contain any code that you wish to
execute before the loop starts.

The test argument is evaluated as an expression, just as with

the expr while and ifcommands.

Nextis commonly an incrementing command, but may contain any command

which the Tcl interpreter can evaluate.

Body is the body of code to execute.

Since you commonly do not want the Tcl interpreter's substitution phase to
change variables to their current values before passing control to
the for command, it is common to group the arguments with curly braces.
When braces are used for grouping, the newline is not treated as the end of
a Tcl command. This makes it simpler to write multiple line commands.
However, the opening brace must be on the line with the for command, or
the Tcl interpreter will treat the close of the next brace as the end of the
command, and you will get an error. This is different than other languages
like C or Perl, where it doesn't matter where you place your braces.

Within the body code, the commands breakand continue may be used just as
they are used with the while command. When a breakis encountered, the
loop exits immediately. When a continue is encountered, evaluation of
the body ceases, and the test is re-evaluated.

Because incrementing the iteration variable is so common, Tcl has a special

command for this:

 incr varName ?increment?

This command adds the value in the second argument to the variable named
in the first argument. If no value is given for the second argument, it
defaults to 1.

Example

for {set i 0} {$i < 10} {incr i} {

puts "I inside first loop: $i"
}

for {set i 3} {$i < 2} {incr i} {

puts "I inside second loop: $i"
}

puts "Start"
set i 0
while {$i < 10} {
puts "I inside third loop: $i"
incr i
puts "I after incr: $i"
}
 set i 0
incr i
# This is equivalent to:
set i [expr {$i + 1}]

Adding new commands to Tcl – proc

In Tcl there is actually no distinction between commands (often known as

'functions' in other languages) and "syntax". There are no reserved words
(like if and while) as exist in C, Java, Python, Perl, etc... When the Tcl
interpreter starts up there is a list of known commands that the interpreter
uses to parse a line. These commands include while, for, set, puts, and so
on. They are, however, still just regular Tcl commands that obey the same
syntax rules as all Tcl commands, both built-in, and those that you create
yourself with the proc command.

The proc command creates a new command. The syntax for

the proc command is:

 proc name args body

When proc is evaluated, it creates a new command with name name that
takes arguments args. When the procedure name is called, it then runs the
code contained in body.

Argsis a list of arguments which will be passed to name. When name is

invoked, local variables with these names will be created, and the values to
be passed to name will be copied to the local variables.

The value that the body of a proc returns can be defined with
the return command. The return command will return its argument to the
calling program. If there is no return, then body will return to the caller when
the last of its commands has been executed. The return value of the last
command becomes the return value of the procedure.
Example

proc sum {arg1 arg2} {

set x [expr {$arg1 + $arg2}];
return $x
}

puts " The sum of 2 + 3 is: [sum 2 3]\n\n"

proc for {a b c} {
puts "The for command has been replaced by a puts";
puts "The arguments were: $a\n$b\n$c\n"
}

for {set i 1} {$i < 10} {incr i}

Variations in proc arguments and return values

A proc can be defined with a set number of required arguments (as was
done with sum in the previous lesson, or it can have a variable number of
arguments. An argument can also be defined to have a default value.

Variables can be defined with a default value by placing the variable name
and the default within braces within args. For example:

proc justdoit {a {b 1} {c -1}} {

Since there are default arguments for the band c variables, you could call the
procedure one of three ways: justdoit 10, which would set a to 10, and
leave b set to its default 1, and c at -1. justdoit 10 20 would likewise set b to
20, and leave C to its default. Or call it with all three parameters set to avoid
any defaults.
A proc will accept a variable number of arguments if the last declared
argument is the word args. If the last argument to a proc argument list
is args, then any arguments that aren't already assigned to previous
variables will be assigned to args.

The example procedure below is defined with three arguments. At least one
argument *must* be present when example is called. The second argument
can be left out, and in that case it will default to an empty string. By
declaring args as the last argument, examplecan take a variable number of
arguments.

Note that if there is a variable other than argsafter a variable with a default,
then the default will never be used. For example, if you declare a proc such
as:proc function { a {b 1} c} {...}, you will always have to call it with 3
arguments.

Tcl assigns values to a proc's variables in the order that they are listed in the
command. If you provide 2 arguments when you call function they will be
assigned to a and b, and Tcl will generate an error because c is undefined.

You can, however, declare other arguments that may not have values as
coming after an argument with a default value. For example, this is valid:

proc example {required {default1 a} {default2 b} args} {...}

In this case, example requires one argument, which will be assigned to the
variable required. If there are two arguments, the second arg will be
assigned to default1. If there are 3 arguments, the first will be assigned
to required, the second to default1, and the third to default2. If example is
called with more than 3 arguments, all the arguments after the third will be
assigned to args.

Example

proc example {first {second ""} args} {

if {$second eq ""} {
puts "There is only one argument and it is: $first"
return 1
} else {
if {$args eq ""} {
puts "There are two arguments - $first and $second"
 return 2
} else {
puts "There are many arguments - $first and $second and $args"
return "many"
}
}
}

set count1 [example ONE]

set count2 [example ONE TWO]
set count3 [example ONE TWO THREE ]
set count4 [example ONE TWO THREE FOUR]

puts "The example was called with $count1, $count2, $count3, and $count4
Arguments"

Variable scope - global and upvar

Tcl evaluates variables within a scopedelineated by procs, namespaces

(see Building reusable libraries - packages and namespaces), and at the
topmost level, the global scope.

The scope in which a variable will be evaluated can be changed with

the globaland upvar commands.

The global command will cause a variable in a local scope (inside a

procedure) to refer to the global variable of that name.

The upvar command is similar. It "ties" the name of a variable in the current
scope to a variable in a different scope. This is commonly used to simulate
pass-by-reference to procs.

You might also encounter the variablecommand in others' Tcl code. It is part
of the namespace system and is discussed in detail in that chapter.
Normally, Tcl uses a type of "garbage collection" called reference counting in
order to automatically clean up variables when they are not used anymore,
such as when they go "out of scope" at the end of a procedure, so that you
don't have to keep track of them yourself. It is also possible to explicitly
unset them with the aptly named unset command.

The syntax for upvar is:

 upvar ?level? otherVar1 myVar1 ?otherVar2myVar2? ... ?otherVarN myVarN?

The upvar command causes myVar1 to become a reference to otherVar1,

and myVar2to become a reference to otherVar2, etc. The otherVar variable is
declared to be at levelrelative to the current procedure. By default level is
1, the next level up.

If a number is used for the level, then level references that many levels up
the stack from the current level.

If the level number is preceded by a #symbol, then it references that many

levels down from the global scope. If level is #0, then the reference is to a
variable at the global level.

If you are using upvar with anything except #0 or 1, you are most likely
asking for trouble, unless you really know what you're doing.

You should avoid using global variables if possible. If you have a lot of
globals, you should reconsider the design of your program.

Note that since there is only one global space it is surprisingly easy to have
name conflicts if you are importing other peoples code and aren't careful. It
is recommended that you start global variables with an identifiable prefix to
help avoid unexpected conflicts.

Example

proc SetPositive {variable value } {

upvar $variable myvar
if {$value < 0} {
set myvar [expr {-$value}]
} else {
set myvar $value
 }
return $myvar
}

SetPositive x 5
SetPositive y -5

puts "X : $x Y: $y\n"

proc two {y} {

upvar 1 $y z ;# tie the calling value to variable z
upvar 2 x a ;# Tie variable x two levels up to a
puts "two: Z: $z A: $a" ;# Output the values, just to confirm
set z 1 ;# Set z, the passed variable to 1;
set a 2 ;# Set x, two layers up to 2;
}

proc one {y} {

upvar $y z ;# This ties the calling value to
variable z
puts "one: Z: $z" ;# Output that value, to check it is 5
two z ;# call proc two, which will change the
value
}

one y ;# Call one, and output X and Y after

the call.
puts "\nX: $x Y: $y"

proc existence {variable} {

upvar $variable testVar
if { [info exists testVar] } {
puts "$variable Exists"
} else {
puts "$variable Does Not Exist"
 }
}

set x 1
set y 2
for {set i 0} {$i < 5} {incr i} {
set a($i) $i;
}

puts "\ntesting unsetting a simple variable"

# Confirm that x exists.
existence x
# Unset x
unset x
puts "x has been unset"
# Confirm that x no longer exists.
existence x

Tcl Data Structures 101 - The list

The list is the basic Tcl data structure. A list is simply an ordered collection
of stuff; numbers, words, strings, or other lists. Even commands in Tcl are
just lists in which the first list entry is the name of a proc, and subsequent
members of the list are the arguments to the proc.

Lists can be created in several ways:

by setting a variable to be a list of values

set lst {{item 1} {item 2} {item 3}}
with the split command
set lst [split "item 1.item 2.item 3" "."]
with the list command.
 set lst [list "item 1" "item 2" "item 3"]

An individual list member can be accessed with the lindex command.

The brief description of these commands is:

list ?arg1? ?arg2? ... ?argN?

makes a list of the arguments

split string ?splitChars?

Splits the string into a list of items wherever

the splitChars occur in the code. SplitChars defaults to being
whitespace. Note that if there are two or more splitChars then
each one will be used individually to split the string. In other
words: split "1234567" "36" would return the following list: {12
45 7}.
lindex list index

Returns the index'th item from the list. Note: lists start from 0,
not 1, so the first item is at index 0, the second item is at
index 1, and so on.
llength list

Returns the number of elements in a list.

The items in list can be iterated through using the foreach command:

foreach varname list body

The foreach command will execute the body code one time for
each list item in list. On each pass, varname will contain the
value of the next list item.

In reality, the above form of foreach is the simple form, but the command is
quite powerful. It will allow you to take more than one variable at a time
from the list:foreach {a b} $listofpairs { ... }. You can even take a variable
at a time from multiple lists! For
example:foreach a $listOfA b $listOfB { ... }
Examples

set x "a b c"

puts "Item at index 2 of the list {$x} is: [lindex $x 2]\n"

set y [split 7/4/1776 "/"]

puts "We celebrate on the [lindex $y 1]'th day of the [lindex $y 0]'th
month\n"

set z [list puts "arg 2 is $y" ]

puts "A command resembles: $z\n"

set i 0
foreach j $x {
puts "$j is item number $i in list x"
incr i
}

Adding & Deleting members of a list

The commands for adding and deleting list members are:

concat ?arg1 arg2 ... argn?

Concatenates the args into a single list. It also eliminates

leading and trailing spaces in the args and adds a single
separator space between args. The args to concatmay be either
individual elements, or lists. If an arg is already a list, the
contents of that list is concatenated with the other args.
lappend listName ?arg1 arg2 ... argn?

Appends the args to the list listNametreating each arg as a list

element.
linsert listName index arg1 ?arg2 ... argn?

Returns a new list with the new list elements inserted just
before the index th element of listName. Each element argument
will become a separate element of the new list. If index is less
than or equal to zero, then the new elements are inserted at
the beginning of the list. If index has the value end , or if it is
greater than or equal to the number of elements in the list,
then the new elements are appended to the list.
lreplace listName first last ?arg1 ... argn?

Returns a new list with N elements of listName replaced by

the args. If first is less than or equal to 0, lreplace starts
replacing from the first element of the list. If first is greater
than the end of the list, or the word end, then lreplace
behaves like lappend. If there are fewer args than the number
of positions between first and last, then the positions for
which there are no args are deleted.
lset varName index newValue

The lset command can be used to set elements of a list

directly, instead of using lreplace.

Lists in Tcl are the right data structure to use when you have an arbitrary
number of things, and you'd like to access them according to their order in
the list. In C, you would use an array. In Tcl, arrays are associated arrays -
hash tables, as you'll see in the coming sections. If you want to have a
collection of things, and refer to the Nth thing (give me the 10th element in
this group of numbers), or go through them in order via foreach.

Take a look at the example code, and pay special attention to the way that
sets of characters are grouped into single list elements.

Example

set b [list a b {c d e} {f {g h}}]

puts "Treated as a list: $b\n"
 set b [split "a b {c d e} {f {g h}}"]
puts "Transformed by split: $b\n"

set a [concat a b {c d e} {f {g h}}]

puts "Concated: $a\n"

lappend a {ij K lm} ;# Note: {ij K lm} is a single

element
puts "After lappending: $a\n"

set b [linsert $a 3 "1 2 3"] ;# "1 2 3" is a single element

puts "After linsert at position 3: $b\n"

set b [lreplace $b 3 5 "AA" "BB"]

puts "After lreplacing 3 positions with 2 values at position 3: $b\n"

More list commands - lsearch, lsort, lrange

Lists can be searched with the lsearchcommand, sorted with

the lsort command, and a range of list entries can be extracted with
the lrange command.

lsearch list pattern

Searches list for an entry that matches pattern, and returns the
index for the first match, or a -1 if there is no match. By
default, lsearch uses "glob" patterns for matching. See the
section on globbing.
lsort list

Sorts list and returns a new list in the sorted order. By

default, it sorts the list into alphabetic order. Note that this
command returns the sorted list as a result, instead of sorting
 the list in place. If you have a list in a variable, the way to sort
it is like so:set lst [lsort $lst]
lrange list first last

Returns a list composed of the firstthrough last entries in the

list. If first is less than or equal to 0, it is treated as the first
list element. If last is end or a value greater than the number
of elements in the list, it is treated as the end. If first is
greater than last then an empty list is returned.

Example

set list [list {Washington 1789} {Adams 1797} {Jefferson 1801} \

{Madison 1809} {Monroe 1817} {Adams 1825} ]

set x [lsearch $list Washington*]

set y [lsearch $list Madison*]
incr x
incr y -1 ;# Set range to be not-inclusive

set subsetlist [lrange $list $x $y]

puts "The following presidents served between Washington and Madison"

foreach item $subsetlist {
puts "Starting in [lindex $item 1]: President [lindex $item 0] "
}

set x [lsearch $list Madison*]

set srtlist [lsort $list]

set y [lsearch $srtlist Madison*]

puts "\n$x Presidents came before Madison chronologically"

puts "$y Presidents came before Madison alphabetically"
 Simple pattern matching - "globbing"

By default, lsearch uses the "globbing" method of finding a match. Globbing

is the wildcarding technique that most Unix shells use.

globbing wildcards are:

*
Matches any quantity of any character
?
Matches one occurrence of any character
\X
The backslash escapes a special character in globbing just the
way it does in Tcl substitutions. Using the backslash lets you
use glob to match a * or ?.
[...]
Matches one occurrence of any character within the brackets.
A range of characters can be matched by using a range
between the brackets. For example, [a-z] will match any lower
case letter.

There is also a glob command that you will see in later sections that uses
glob pattern matching in directories, and returns a list of the matching files.

Example

# Matches
string match f* foo

# Matches
 string match f?? foo

# Doesn't match
string match f foo

# Returns a big list of files on my Debian system.

set bins [glob /usr/bin/*]

String Subcommands - length index range

Tcl commands often have "subcommands". The string command is an

example of one of these. The string command treats its first argument as a
subcommand. Utilizing subcommands is a good way to make one command
do multiple things without using cryptic names. For instance, Tcl has string
length instead of, say, slength.

This lesson covers these string subcommands:

string length string

Returns the length of string.

string index string index

Returns the indexth character from string.

string range string first last

Returns a string composed of the characters from first to last.

Example

set string "this is my test string"

puts "There are [string length $string] characters in \"$string\""

puts "[string index $string 1] is the second character in \"$string\""

 puts "\"[string range $string 5 10]\" are characters between the 5'th and
10'th"

String comparisons - compare match first last wordend

There are 6 string subcommands that do pattern and string matching. These
are relatively fast operations, certainly faster than regular expressions, albeit
less powerful.

string compare string1 string2

Compares string1 to string2 and returns:

 -1 ..... If string1 is less than string2

 0 ........ If string1 is equal to string2
 1 ........ If string1 is greater than string2

These comparisons are done alphabetically, not numerically -

in other words "a" is less than "b", and "10" is less than "2".
string first string1 string2

Returns the index of the character in string1 that starts the first
match tostring2, or -1 if there is no match.
string last string1 string2

Returns the index of the character in string1 that starts the last
match to string2, or -1 if there is no match.
string wordend string index

Returns the index of the character just after the last one in the
word which contains the index'th character of string. A word is
any contiguous set of letters, numbers or underscore
characters, or a single other character.
string wordstart string index

Returns the index of the first character in the word that

contains the index'th character of string. A word is any
contiguous set of letters, numbers or underscore characters, or
a single other character.
string match pattern string

Returns 1 if the pattern matches string. The pattern is

a glob style pattern.

Example

set fullpath "/usr/home/clif/TCL_STUFF/TclTutor/Lsn.17"

set relativepath "CVS/Entries"
set directorypath "/usr/bin/"

set paths [list $fullpath $relativepath $directorypath]

foreach path $paths {

set first [string first "/" $path]
set last [string last "/" $path]

# Report whether path is absolute or relative

if {$first != 0} {
puts "$path is a relative path"
} else {
puts "$path is an absolute path"
}

# If "/" is not the last character in $path, report the last word.
# else, remove the last "/", and find the next to last "/", and
# report the last word.

incr last
 if {$last != [string length $path]} {
set name [string range $path $last end]
puts "The file referenced in $path is $name"
} else {
incr last -2;
set tmp [string range $path 0 $last]
set last [string last "/" $tmp]
incr last;
set name [string range $tmp $last end]
puts "The final directory in $path is $name"
}

# CVS is a directory created by the CVS source code control system.

#

if {[string match "*CVS*" $path]} {

puts "$path is part of the source code control tree"
}

# Compare to "a" to determine whether the first char is upper or lower

case
set comparison [string compare $name "a"]
if {$comparison >= 0} {
puts "$name starts with a lowercase letter\n"
} else {
puts "$name starts with an uppercase letter\n"
}
}

Modifying Strings - tolower, toupper, trim, format

These are the commands which modify a string. Note that none of these
modify the string in place. In all cases a new string is returned.
string tolower string

Returns string with all the letters converted from upper to

lower case.
string toupper string

Returns string with all the letters converted from lower to

upper case.
string trim string ?trimChars?

Returns string with all occurrences of trimChars removed from

both ends. By default trimChars are whitespace (spaces, tabs,
newlines). Note that the characters are not treated as a
"block" of characters - in other words, string trim "davidw"
dwwould return the string avi and not davi.

string trimleft string ?trimChars?

Returns string with all occurrences of trimChars removed from

the left. By default trimChars are whitespace (spaces, tabs,
newlines)
string trimright string ?trimChars?

Returns string with all occurrences of trimChars removed from

the right. By default trimChars are whitespace (spaces, tabs,
newlines)
format formatString ?arg1 arg2 ... argN?

Returns a string formatted in the same manner as the

ANSI sprintf procedure. FormatString is a description of the
formatting to use. The full definition of this protocol is in
the format man page. A useful subset of the definition is
that formatString consists of literal words, backslash sequences,
and % fields. The % fields are strings which start with a % and
end with one of:

 s... Data is a string

 d... Data is a decimal integer
  x... Data is a hexadecimal integer
 o... Data is an octal integer
 f... Data is a floating point number

The % may be followed by:

 -... Left justify the data in this field

 +... Right justify the data in this field

The justification value may be followed by a number giving the

minimum number of spaces to use for the data.

Example

set upper "THIS IS A STRING IN UPPER CASE LETTERS"

set lower "this is a string in lower case letters"
set trailer "This string has trailing dots ...."
set leader "....This string has leading dots"
set both "((this string is nested in parens )))"

puts "tolower converts this: $upper"

puts " to this: [string tolower $upper]\n"
puts "toupper converts this: $lower"
puts " to this: [string toupper $lower]\n"
puts "trimright converts this: $trailer"
puts " to this: [string trimright $trailer .]\n"
puts "trimleft converts this: $leader"
puts " to this: [string trimleft $leader .]\n"
puts "trim converts this: $both"
puts " to this: [string trim $both "()"]\n"

set labels [format "%-20s %+10s " "Item" "Cost"]

set price1 [format "%-20s %10d Cents Each" "Tomatoes" "30"]
set price2 [format "%-20s %10d Cents Each" "Peppers" "20"]
set price3 [format "%-20s %10d Cents Each" "Onions" "10"]
set price4 [format "%-20s %10.2f per Lb." "Steak" "3.59997"]
 puts "\n Example of format:\n"
puts "$labels"
puts "$price1"
puts "$price2"
puts "$price3"
puts "$price4"

Regular Expressions 101

Tcl also supports string operations known as regular expressions Several

commands can access these methods with a -regexp argument, see the man
pages for which commands support regular expressions.

There are also two explicit commands for parsing regular expressions.

regexp ?switches? exp string ?matchVar? ?subMatch1 ... subMatchN?

Searches string for the regular expression exp. If a

parameter matchVar is given, then the substring that matches
the regular expression is copied to matchVar. If subMatchN variables
exist, then the parenthetical parts of the matching string are
copied to the subMatch variables, working from left to right.
regsub ?switches? exp string subSpecvarName

Searches string for substrings that match the regular

expression exp and replaces them with subSpec. The resulting
string is copied into varName.

Regular expressions can be expressed in just a few rules.

^
Matches the beginning of a string
$
 Matches the end of a string
.
Matches any single character
*
Matches any count (0-n) of the previous character
+
Matches any count, but at least 1 of the previous character
[...]
Matches any character of a set of characters
[^...]
Matches any character *NOT* a member of the set of
characters following the ^.
(...)
Groups a set of characters into a subSpec.

Regular expressions are similar to the globbing that was discussed in lessons
16 and 18. The main difference is in the way that sets of matched characters
are handled. In globbing the only way to select sets of unknown text is
the * symbol. This matches to any quantity of any character.

In regular expression parsing, the * symbol matches zero or more

occurrences of the character immediately proceeding the *. For
example a* would match a, aaaaa, or a blank string. If the character directly
before the * is a set of characters within square brackets, then the * will
match any quantity of all of these characters. For example, [a-c]* would
match aa, abc, aabcabc, or again, an empty string.

The + symbol behaves roughly the same as the *, except that it requires at
least one character to match. For example, [a-c]+would match a, abc, or
aabcabc, but not an empty string.

Regular expression parsing is more powerful than globbing. With globbing

you can use square brackets to enclose a set of characters any of which will
be a match. Regular expression parsing also includes a method of selecting
any character not in a set. If the first character after the [ is a caret (^),
then the regular expression parser will match any character not in the set of
characters between the square brackets. A caret can be included in the set
of characters to match (or not) by placing it in any position other than the
first.

The regexp command is similar to the string match command in that it

matches an expagainst a string. It is different in that it can match a portion
of a string, instead of the entire string, and will place the characters
matched into the matchVar variable.

If a match is found to the portion of a regular expression enclosed within

parentheses, regexp will copy the subset of matching characters is to
the subSpec argument. This can be used to parse simple strings.

Regsub will copy the contents of the string to a new variable, substituting the
characters that match exp with the characters insubSpec. If subSpec contains
a & or \0, then those characters will be replaced by the characters that
matched exp. If the number following a backslash is 1-9, then that backslash
sequence will be replaced by the appropriate portion of exp that is enclosed
within parentheses.

Note that the exp argument to regexp or regsub is processed by the Tcl
substitution pass. Therefore quite often the expression is enclosed in braces
to prevent any special processing by Tcl.

Example

set sample "Where there is a will, There is a way."

#
# Match the first substring with lowercase letters only
#
set result [regexp {[a-z]+} $sample match]
puts "Result: $result match: $match"

#
# Match the first two words, the first one allows uppercase
set result [regexp {([A-Za-z]+) +([a-z]+)} $sample match sub1 sub2 ]
 puts "Result: $result Match: $match 1: $sub1 2: $sub2"

#
# Replace a word
#
regsub "way" $sample "lawsuit" sample2
puts "New: $sample2"

#
# Use the -all option to count the number of "words"
#
puts "Number of words: [regexp -all {[^ ]+} $sample]"

More Examples Of Regular Expressions

Regular expressions provide a very powerful method of defining a

pattern, but they are a bit awkward to understand and to use
properly. So let us examine some more examples in detail.

We start with a simple yet non-trivial example: finding floating-point

numbers in a line of text. Do not worry: we will keep the problem simpler
than it is in its full generality. We only consider numbers like 1.0 and
not1.00e+01.

How do we design our regular expression for this problem? By examining

typical examples of the strings we want to match:

 Valid numbers are:

 1.0, .02, +0., 1, +1, -0.0120

 Invalid numbers (that is, strings we do not want to recognise

as numbers but superficially look like them):

 -, +., 0.0.1, 0..2, ++1

  Questionable numbers are:

 +0000 and 0001

We will accept them - because they normally are accepted and

because excluding them makes our pattern more complicated.

A pattern is beginning to emerge:

 A number can start with a sign (- or +) or with a digit. This

can be captured with the expression [-+]?, which matches a
single "-", a single "+" or nothing.
 A number can have zero or more digits in front of a single
period (.) and it can have zero or more digits following the
period. Perhaps: [0-9]*\.[0-9]* will do ...
 A number may not contain a period at all. So, revise the
previous expression to: [0-9]*\.?[0-9]*

The total expression is:

[-+]?[0-9]*\.?[0-9]*

At this point we can do three things:

1. Try the expression with a bunch of examples like the ones

above and see if the proper ones match and the others do not.
2. Try to make it look nicer, before we start off testing it. For
instance the class of characters "[0-9]" is so common that it
has a shortcut, "\d". So, we could settle for:
3. [-+]?\d*\.?\d*

instead. Or we could decide that we want to capture the digits

before and after the period for special processing:

[-+]?([0-9])*\.?([0-9]*)

4. Or, and that may be a good strategy in general!, we can

carefully examine the pattern before we start actually using it.
You see, there is a problem with the above pattern: all the parts are
optional, that is, each part can match a null string - no sign, no digits before
the period, no period, no digits after the period. In other words: Our pattern
can match an empty string!

Our questionable numbers, like "+000" will be perfectly acceptable and we

(grudgingly) agree. But more surprisingly, the strings "--1" and "A1B2" will
be accepted too! Why? Because the pattern can start anywhere in the string,
so it would match the substrings "-1" and "1" respectively!

We need to reconsider our pattern - it is too simple, too permissive:

 The character before a minus or a plus, if there is any, can not

be another digit, a period or a minus or plus. Let us make it a
space or a tab or the beginning of the string: ^|[ \t]

This may look a bit strange, but what it says is:

either the beginning of the string (^ outside the

square brackets)

or (the vertical bar)

a space or tab (remember: the string "\t" represents

the tab character).

 Any sequence of digits before the period (if there is one) is

allowed: [0-9]+\.?
 There may be zero digits in front of the period, but then there
must be at least one digit behind it: \.[0-9]+
 And of course digits in front and behind the period: [0-9]+\.[0-
9]+
 The character after the string (if any) can not be a "+","-" or
"." as that would get us into the unacceptable number-like
strings:$|[^+-.] (The dollar sign signifies the end of the string)

Before trying to write down the complete regular expression, let us

see what different forms we have:

 No period: [-+]?[0-9]+
 A period without digits before it: [-+]?\.[0-9]+
  Digits before a period, and possibly digits after it: [-+]?[0-
9]+\.[0-9]*

Now the synthesis:

(^|[ \t])([-+]?([0-9]+|\.[0-9]+|[0-9]+\.[0-9]*))($|[^+-.])

Or:

(^|[ \t])([-+]?(\d+|\.\d+|\d+\.\d*))($|[^+-.])

The parentheses are needed to distinguish the alternatives

introduced by the vertical bar and to capture the substring we want
to have. Each set of parentheses also defines a substring and this
can be put into a separate variable:

regexp {.....} $line whole char_before number nosign char_after

#
# Or simply only the recognised number (x's as placeholders, the
# last can be left out
#
regexp {.....} $line x x number

Tip: To identify these substrings: just count the opening parentheses from
left to right.

If we put it to the test:

set pattern {(^|[ \t])([-+]?(\d+|\.\d+|\d+\.\d*))($|[^+-.])}

set examples {"1.0" " .02" " +0."
"1" "+1" " -0.0120"
"+0000" " - " "+."
"0001" "0..2" "++1"
"A1.0B" "A1"}
foreach e $examples {
if { [regexp $pattern $e whole \
char_before number digits_before_period] } {
 puts ">>$e<<: $number ($whole)"
} else {
puts ">>$e<<: Does not contain a valid number"
}
}

the result is:

>>1.0<<: 1.0 (1.0)

>> .02<<: .02 ( .02)
>> +0.<<: +0. ( +0.)
>>1<<: 1 (1)
>>+1<<: +1 (+1)
>> -0.0120<<: -0.0120 ( -0.0120)
>>+0000<<: +0000 (+0000)
>> - <<: Does not contain a valid number
>>+.<<: Does not contain a valid number
>>0001<<: 0001 (0001)
>>0..2<<: Does not contain a valid number
>>++1<<: Does not contain a valid number
>>A1.0B<<: Does not contain a valid number
>>A1<<: Does not contain a valid number

So our pattern correctly accepts the strings we intended to be

recognised as numbers and rejects the others.

Let us turn to some other patterns now:

 Text enclosed in a string: This is "quoted text". If we know the

enclosing character in advance (double quotes, " in this case),
then "([^"])*" will capture the text inside the double quotes.

Suppose we do not know the enclosing character (it can be "

or '). Then:

regexp {(["'])[^"']*\1} $string enclosed_string

 will do it; the \1 is a so-called back-reference to the first
captured substring.

 You can use this technique to see if a word occurs twice in the
same line of text:

 set string "Again and again and again ..."

 if { [regexp {(\y\w+\y).+\1} $string => word] } {

 puts "The word $word occurs at least twice"

 }

(The pattern \y matches the beginning or the end of a word

and \w+ indicates we want at least one character).

 Suppose you need to check the parentheses in some

mathematical expression: (1+a)/(1-b*x) for instance. A simple
check is counting the open and close parentheses:

 #

 # Use the return value of [regexp] to count the number of

 # parentheses ...
 #
 if { [regexp -all {(} $string] != [regexp -all {)} $string] } {
 puts "Parentheses unbalanced!"
 }

Of course, this is just a rough check. A better one is to see if

at any point while scanning the string there are more close
parentheses than open parentheses. We can easily extract the
parentheses and put them in a list (the -inline option does
that):

set parens [regexp -inline -all {[()]} $string]

set balance 0
set change("(") 1 ;# This technique saves an if-block :)
set change(")") -1
 foreach p $parens {
incr balance $change($p)

if { $balance < 0 } {
puts "Parentheses unbalanced!"
}
}
if { $balance != 0 } {
puts "Parentheses unbalanced!"
}

Regular expressions are very powerful, but they have certain

Finally:
theoretical limitations. One of these limitations is that they are not
suitable for parsing arbitrarily nested text.
You can experiment with regular expressions using
the VisualRegexp or Visual REGEXPapplications.
More on the theoretical background and practical use of regular
expressions (there is lots to cover!) can be found in the
bookMastering Regular Expressions by J. Friedl.

More Quoting Hell - Regular Expressions 102

regexp ?switches? exp string ?matchVar? ?subMatch1 ... subMatchN?

Searches string for the regular expression exp. If a

parameter matchVar is given, then the substring that matches
the regular expression is copied to matchVar. If subMatchN variables
exist, then the parenthetical parts of the matching string are
copied to the subMatch variables, working from left to right.
regsub ?switches? exp string subSpec varName

Searches string for substrings that match the regular

expression exp and replaces them with subSpec. The resulting
string is copied into varName.
The regular expression (exp) in the two regular expression parsing
commands is evaluated by the Tcl parser during the Tcl substitution phase.
This can provide a great deal of power, and also requires a great deal of
care.

These examples show some of the trickier aspects of regular expression

evaluation. The fields in each example are discussed in painful detail in the
most verbose level.

The points to remember as you read the examples are:

 A left square bracket ([) has meaning to the substitution

phase, and to the regular expression parser.
 A set of parentheses, a plus sign, and a star have meaning to
the regular expression parser, but not the Tcl substitution
phase.
 A backslash sequence (\n, \t, etc) has meaning to the Tcl
substitution phase, but not to the regular expression parser.
 A backslash escaped character (\[) has no special meaning to
either the Tcl substitution phase or the regular expression
parser.

The phase at which a character has meaning affects how many escapes are
necessary to match the character you wish to match. An escape can be
either enclosing the phrase in braces, or placing a backslash before the
escaped character.

To pass a left bracket to the regular expression parser to evaluate as a

range of characters takes 1 escape. To have the regular expression parser
match a literal left bracket takes 2 escapes (one to escape the bracket in the
Tcl substitution phase, and one to escape the bracket in the regular
expression parsing.). If you have the string placed within quotes, then a
backslash that you wish passed to the regular expression parser must also
be escaped with a backslash.

Note: You can copy the code and run it in tclsh or wish to see the effects.

Example

#
# Examine an overview of UNIX/Linux disks
#
set list1 [list \
{/dev/wd0a 17086 10958 5272 68% /}\
{/dev/wd0f 179824 127798 48428 73% /news}\
{/dev/wd0h 1249244 967818 218962 82% /usr}\
{/dev/wd0g 98190 32836 60444 35% /var}]

foreach line $list1 {

regexp {[^ ]* *([0-9]+)[^/]*(/[a-z]*)} $line match size mounted;
puts "$mounted is $size blocks"
}

#
# Extracting a hexadecimal value ...
#
set line {Interrupt Vector? [32(0x20)]}
regexp "\[^\t]+\t\\\[\[0-9]+\\(0x(\[0-9a-fA-F]+)\\)]" $line match hexval
puts "Hex Default is: 0x$hexval"

#
# Matching the special characters as if they were ordinary
#
set str2 "abc^def"
regexp "\[^a-f]*def" $str2 match
puts "using \[^a-f] the match is: $match"

regexp "\[a-f^]*def" $str2 match

puts "using \[a-f^] the match is: $match"

regsub {\^} $str2 " is followed by: " str3

puts "$str2 with the ^ substituted is: \"$str3\""

regsub "(\[a-f]+)\\^(\[a-f]+)" $str2 "\\2 follows \\1" str3

 puts "$str2 is converted to \"$str3\""

Associative Arrays.

Languages like C, BASIC, FORTRAN and Java support arrays in which the
index value is an integer. Tcl, like most scripting languages (Perl, Python,
PHP, etc...) supports associative arrays (also known as "hash tables") in
which the index value is a string.

The syntax for an associative array is to put the index within parentheses:

set name(first) "Mary"

set name(last) "Poppins"

puts "Full name: $name(first) $name(last)"

There are several array commands aside from simply accessing and creating
arrays which will be discussed in this and the next lesson.

array exists arrayName

Returns 1 if arrayName is an array variable. Returns 0

if arrayName is a scalar variable, proc, or does not exist.
array names arrayName ?pattern

Returns a list of the indices for the associative array arrayName.

If pattern is supplied, only those indices that match pattern are
returned. The match is done using the globbing technique
from string match.
array size arrayName

Returns the number of elements in array arrayName.

array get arrayName

 Returns a list in which each odd member of the list (1, 3, 5,
etc) is an index into the associative array. The list element
following a name is the value of that array member.
array set arrayName dataList

Converts a list into an associative array. DataList is a list in the

format of that returned by array get. Each odd member of the
list (1, 3, 5, etc) is an index into the associative array, and the
list element following that is the value of that array member.
array unset arrayName ?pattern?

Unsets all of the elements in the array. If pattern exists, only

the elements that match pattern are unset.

When an associative array name is given as the argument to

the global command, all the elements of the associative array become
available to that proc. For this reason, Brent Welch recommends (in Practical
Programming in Tcl and Tk) using an associative array for the state structure
in a package.

This method makes it simpler to share data between many procs that are
working together, and doesn't pollute the global namespace as badly as
using separate globals for all shared data items.

Another common use for arrays is to store tables of data. In the example
below we use an array to store a simple database of names.

Example

proc addname {first last} {

global name

# Create a new ID (stored in the name array too for easy access)

incr name(ID)
set id $name(ID)

set name($id,first) $first ;# The index is simply a string!

 set name($id,last) $last ;# So we can use both fixed and
;# varying parts
}

#
# Initialise the array and add a few names
#
global name
set name(ID) 0

addname Mary Poppins

addname Uriah Heep
addname Rene Descartes
addname Leonardo "da Vinci"

#
# Check the contents of our database
# The parray command is a quick way to
# print it
#
parray name

#
# Some array commands
#
array set array1 [list {123} {Abigail Aardvark} \
{234} {Bob Baboon} \
{345} {Cathy Coyote} \
{456} {Daniel Dog} ]

puts "Array1 has [array size array1] entries\n"

puts "Array1 has the following entries: \n [array names array1] \n"

puts "ID Number 123 belongs to $array1(123)\n"

if {[array exist array1]} {
puts "array1 is an array"
} else {
puts "array1 is not an array"
}

if {[array exist array2]} {

puts "array2 is an array"
} else {
puts "array2 is not an array"
}

proc existence {variable} {

upvar $variable testVar
if { [info exists testVar] } {
puts "$variable Exists"
} else {
puts "$variable Does Not Exist"
}
}

# Create an array
for {set i 0} {$i < 5} {incr i} { set a($i) test }

puts "\ntesting unsetting a member of an array"

existence a(0)
puts "a0 has been unset"
unset a(0)
existence a(0)

puts "\ntesting unsetting several members of an array, with an error"

existence a(3)
existence a(4)
catch {unset a(3) a(0) a(4)}
 puts "\nAfter attempting to delete a(3), a(0) and a(4)"
existence a(3)
existence a(4)

puts "\nUnset all the array's elements"

existence a
array unset a *

puts "\ntesting unsetting an array"

existence a
puts "a has been unset"
unset a
existence a

More Array Commands - Iterating and use in procedures

Often you will want to loop through the contents of an associative

array - without having to specify the elements explicitly. For this
the array names and array getcommands are very useful. With both you
can give a (glob-style) pattern to select what elements you need:

foreach name [array names mydata] {

puts "Data on \"$name\": $mydata($name)"
}

#
# Get names and values directly
#
foreach {name value} [array get mydata] {
puts "Data on \"$name\": $value"
}

Note, however, that the elements will not be returned in any

predictable order: this has to do with the underlying "hash table". If
you want a particular ordering (alphabetical for instance), use code
like:

foreach name [lsort [array names mydata]] {

puts "Data on \"$name\": $mydata($name)"
}

While arrays are great as a storage facility for some purposes, they
are a bit tricky when you pass them to a procedure: they are
actually collections of variables. This will not work:

proc print12 {a} {

puts "$a(1), $a(2)"
}

set array(1) "A"

set array(2) "B"

print12 $array

The reason is very simple: an array does not have a value. Instead
the above code should be:

proc print12 {array} {

upvar $array a
puts "$a(1), $a(2)"
}

set array(1) "A"

set array(2) "B"

print12 array

So, instead of passing a "value" for the array, you pass the name.
This gets aliased (via the upvar command) to a local variable (that
behaves the as original array). You can make changes to the
original array in this way too.
Example

#
# The example of the previous lesson revisited - to get a
# more general "database"
#

proc addname {db first last} {

upvar $db name

# Create a new ID (stored in the name array too for easy access)

incr name(ID)
set id $name(ID)

set name($id,first) $first ;# The index is simply a string!

set name($id,last) $last ;# So we can use both fixed and
;# varying parts
}

proc report {db} {

upvar $db name

# Loop over the last names: make a map from last name to ID

foreach n [array names name "*,last"] {

#
# Split the name to get the ID - the first part of the name!
#
regexp {^[^,]+} $n id

#
# Store in a temporary array:
# an "inverse" map of last name to ID)
 #
set last $name($n)
set tmp($last) $id
}

#
# Now we can easily print the names in the order we want!
#
foreach last [lsort [array names tmp]] {
set id $tmp($last)
puts " $name($id,first) $name($id,last)"
}
}

#
# Initialise the array and add a few names
#
set fictional_name(ID) 0
set historical_name(ID) 0

addname fictional_name Mary Poppins

addname fictional_name Uriah Heep
addname fictional_name Frodo Baggins

addname historical_name Rene Descartes

addname historical_name Richard Lionheart
addname historical_name Leonardo "da Vinci"
addname historical_name Charles Baudelaire
addname historical_name Julius Caesar

#
# Some simple reporting
#
puts "Fictional characters:"
report fictional_name
 puts "Historical characters:"
report historical_name

Dictionaries as alternative to arrays

Tcl arrays are collections of variables, rather than values. This has
advantages in some situations (e.g., you can use variable traces on them),
but also has a number of drawbacks:

 They cannot be passed directly to a procedure as a value.

Instead you have to use the array get and array setcommands to
convert them to a value and back again, or else use
the upvar command to create an alias of the array.
 Multidimensional arrays (that is, arrays whose index consists
of two or more parts) have to be emulated with constructions
like:

 set array(foo,2) 10
 set array(bar,3) 11

The comma used here is not a special piece of syntax, but

instead just part of the string key. In other words, we are
using a one-dimensional array, with keys like "foo,2" and
"bar,3". This is quite possible, but it can become very clumsy
(there can be no intervening spaces for instance).

 Arrays cannot be included in other data structures, such as

lists, or sent over a communications channel, without first
packing and unpacking them into a string value.

In Tcl 8.5 the dict command has been introduced. This provides efficient
access to key-value pairs, just like arrays, but dictionaries are pure values.
This means that you can pass them to a procedure just as a list or a string,
without the need for dict. Tcl dictionaries are therefore much more like Tcl
lists, except that they represent a mapping from keys to values, rather than
an ordered sequence.

Unlike arrays, you can nest dictionaries, so that the value for a particular
key consists of another dictionary. That way you can elegantly build
complicated data structures, such as hierarchical databases. You can also
combine dictionaries with other Tcl data structures. For instance, you can
build a list of dictionaries that themselves contain lists.

Here is an example (adapted from the man page):

#
# Create a dictionary:
# Two clients, known by their client number,
# with forenames, surname
#
dict set clients 1 forenames Joe
dict set clients 1 surname Schmoe
dict set clients 2 forenames Anne
dict set clients 2 surname Other

#
# Print a table
#
puts "Number of clients: [dict size $clients]"
dict for {id info} $clients {
puts "Client $id:"
dict with info {
puts " Name: $forenames $surname"
}
}

What happens in this example is:

 We fill a dictionary, called clients, with the information we

have on two clients. The dictionary has two keys, "1" and "2"
and the value for each of these keys is itself a (nested)
dictionary — again with two keys: "forenames" and "surname".
 The dict setcommand accepts a list of key names which act as
a path through the dictionary. The last argument to the
command is the value that we want to set. You can supply as
many key arguments to the dict setcommand as you want,
leading to arbitrarily complicated nested data structures. Be
careful though! Flat data structure designs are usually better
than nested for most problems.
 The dict for command then loops through each key and value
pair in the dictionary (at the outer-most level only). dict for is
essentially a version of foreach that is specialised for
dictionaries. We could also have written this line as:

foreach {id info} $clients { ... }

This takes advantage of the fact that, in Tcl, every dictionary is

also a valid Tcl list, consisting of a sequence of name and
value pairs representing the contents of the dictionary.
The dict for command is preferred when working with
dictionaries, however, as it is both more efficient, and makes it
clear to readers of the code that we are dealing with a
dictionary and not just a list.

 To get at the actual values in the dictionary that is stored with

the client IDs we use the dict with command. This command
takes the dictionary and unpacks it into a set of local variables
in the current scope. For instance, in our example, the "info"
variable on each iteration of the outer loop will contain a
dictionary with two keys: "forenames" and "surname". The dict
withcommand unpacks these keys into local variables with the
same name as the key and with the associated value from the
dictionary. This allows us to use a more convenient syntax
when accessing the values, instead of having to use dict
geteverywhere. A related command is the dict update command,
that allows you to specify exactly which keys you want to
convert into variables. Be aware that any changes you make to
these variables will be copied back into the dictionary when
the dict with command finishes.
The order in which elements of a dictionary are returned during a dict
for loop is defined to be the chronological order in which keys were added to
the dictionary. If you need to access the keys in some other order, then it is
advisable to explicitly sort the keys first. For example, to retrieve all
elements of a dictionary in alphabetical order, based on the key, we can use
the lsort command:

foreach name [lsort [dict keys $mydata]] {

puts "Data on \"$name\": [dict get $mydata $name]"
}

Example

In this example, we convert the simple database of the previous lessons to

work with dictionaries instead of arrays.

#
# The example of the previous lesson revisited - using dicts.
#

proc addname {dbVar first last} {

upvar 1 $dbVar db

# Create a new ID (stored in the name array too for easy access)
dict incr db ID
set id [dict get $db ID]

# Create the new record

dict set db $id first $first
dict set db $id last $last
}

proc report {db} {

# Loop over the last names: make a map from last name to ID
 dict for {id name} $db {
# Create a temporary dictionary mapping from
# last name to ID, for reverse lookup
if {$id eq "ID"} { continue }
set last [dict get $name last]
dict set tmp $last $id
}

#
# Now we can easily print the names in the order we want!
#
foreach last [lsort [dict keys $tmp]] {
set id [dict get $tmp $last]
puts " [dict get $db $id first] $last"
}
}

#
# Initialise the array and add a few names
#
dict set fictional_name ID 0
dict set historical_name ID 0

addname fictional_name Mary Poppins

addname fictional_name Uriah Heep
addname fictional_name Frodo Baggins

addname historical_name Rene Descartes

addname historical_name Richard Lionheart
addname historical_name Leonardo "da Vinci"
addname historical_name Charles Baudelaire
addname historical_name Julius Caesar

#
# Some simple reporting
 #
puts "Fictional characters:"
report $fictional_name
puts "Historical characters:"
report $historical_name

Note that in this example we use dictionaries in two different ways. In

the addnameprocedure, we pass the dictionary variable by name and
use upvar to make a link to it, as we did previously for arrays. We do this so
that changes to the database are reflected in the calling scope, without
having to return a new dictionary value. (Try changing the code to avoid
using upvar). In the reportprocedure, however, we pass the dictionary as a
value and use it directly. Compare the dictionary and array versions of this
example (from the previous lesson) to see the differences between the two
data structures and how they are used.

File Access 101

Tcl provides several methods to read from and write to files on disk. The
simplest methods to access a file are via gets and puts. When there is a lot of
data to be read, however, it is sometimes more efficient to use
the read command to load an entire file, and then parse the file into lines
with the split command.

These methods can also be used for communicating over sockets and pipes.
It is even possible, via the so-called virtual file system to use files stored in
memory rather than on disk. Tcl provides an almost uniform interface to
these very different resources, so that in general you do not need to concern
yourself with the details.

open fileName ?access? ?permission?

Opens a file and returns a token to be used when accessing

the file via gets, puts, close, etc.

 FileName is the name of the file to open.

 access is the file access mode
o r......Open the file for reading. The file must already
exist.
o r+...Open the file for reading and writing. The file
must already exist.
 o w.....Open the file for writing. Create the file if it
doesn't exist, or set the length to zero if it does
exist.
o w+..Open the file for reading and writing. Create the
file if it doesn't exist, or set the length to zero if it
does exist.
o a......Open the file for writing. The file must already
exist. Set the current location to the end of the file.
o a+...Open the file for writing. The file does not exist,
create it. Set the current location to the end of the
file.
 permission is an integer to use to set the file access
permissions. The default isrw-rw-rw- (0666). You can use it
to set the permissions for the file's owner, the group
he/she belongs to and for all the other users. For many
applications, the default is fine.

close fileID
Closes a file previously opened with open, and flushes any
remaining output.
gets fileID ?varName?

Reads a line of input from FileID, and discards the terminating

newline.

If there is a varName argument, gets returns the number of

characters read (or -1 if an EOF occurs), and places the line of
input in varName.

If varName is not specified, gets returns the line of input. An

empty string will be returned if:

 There is a blank line in the file.

 The current location is at the end of the file. (An EOF
occurs.)

puts ?-nonewline? ?fileID? string

Writes the characters in string to the stream referenced
by fileID, where fileIDis one of:
  The value returned by a previous call to open with write
access.
 stdout
 stderr

read ?-nonewline? fileID

Reads all the remaining bytes from fileID, and returns that
string. If -nonewline is set, then the last character will be
discarded if it is a newline. Any existing end of file condition is
cleared before the readcommand is executed.
read fileID numBytes

Reads up to numBytes from fileID, and returns the input as a Tcl

string. Any existing end of file condition is cleared before
the read command is executed.
seek fileID offset ?origin?

Change the current position within the file referenced by fileID.

Note that if the file was opened with "a" access that the current
position can not be set before the end of the file for writing,
but can be set to the beginning of the file for reading.

 fileID is one of:

o a File identifier returned by open
o stdin
o stdout
o stderr
 offset is the offset in bytes at which the current position is
to be set. The position from which the offset is measured
defaults to the start of the file, but can be from the
current location, or the end by
setting origin appropriately.
 origin is the position to measure offsetfrom. It defaults to
the start of the file. Origin must be one of:
o start.........Offset is measured from the start of the
file.
o current...Offset is measured from the current position
in the file.
 o end...........Offset is measured from the end of the
file.

tell fileID
Returns the position of the access pointer in fileID as a decimal
string.
flush fileID

Flushes any output that has been buffered for fileID.

eof fileID

returns 1 if an End Of File condition exists, otherwise returns

0.

Points to remember about Tcl file access:

 The file I/O is buffered. The output may not be sent out when
you expect it to be sent. Files will all be closed and flushed
when your program exits normally, but may only be closed
(not flushed) if the program is terminated in an unexpected
manner.
 There are a finite number of open file slots available. If you
expect the program to run in a manner that will cause it to
open several files, remember to close the files when you are
done with them.
 An empty line is indistinguishable from an EOF with the
command:
set string [gets filename]

Use the eof command to determine if the file is at the end or

use the other form of gets (see the example).

 You can't overwrite any data in a file that was opened

with a (append) access. You can, however seek to the beginning
of the file for gets commands.
 Opening a file with the w+ access will allow you to overwrite
data, but will delete all existing data in the file.
  Opening a file with the r+ access will allow you to overwrite
data, while saving the existing data in the file.
 By default the commands assume that strings represent
"readable" text. If you want to read "binary" data, you will
have to use the fconfigure command.
 Often, especially if you deal with configuration data for your
programs, you can use the source command instead of the
relatively low-level commands presented here. Just make sure
your data can be interpreted as Tcl commands and "source"
the file.

Example

#
# Count the number of lines in a text file
#
set infile [open "myfile.txt" r]
set number 0

#
# gets with two arguments returns the length of the line,
# -1 if the end of the file is found
#
while { [gets $infile line] >= 0 } {
incr number
}
close $infile

puts "Number of lines: $number"

#
# Also report it in an external file
#
set outfile [open "report.out" w]
puts $outfile "Number of lines: $number"
 close $outfile

Information about Files - file, glob

There are two commands that provide information about the file
system, glob and file.

globprovides the access to the names of files in a directory. It uses a name

matching mechanism similar to the UNIX ls command or the Windows
(DOS) dir command, to return a list of names that match a pattern.

file provides three sets of functionality:

 String manipulation appropriate to parsing file names

o dirname ........ Returns directory portion of path
o extension ........ Returns file name extension
o join ........ Join directories and the file name to one string
o nativename ....... Returns the native name of the
file/directory
o rootname ....... Returns file name without extension
o split ........ Split the string into directory and file names
o tail .................... Returns filename without directory
 Information about an entry in a directory:
o atime ................ Returns time of last access
o executable ..... Returns 1 if file is executable by user
o exists ................ Returns 1 if file exists
o isdirectory ...... Returns 1 if entry is a directory
o isfile .................. Returns 1 if entry is a regular file
o lstat ................... Returns array of file status
information
o mtime ............... Returns time of last data modification
o owned ................ Returns 1 if file is owned by user
o readable ............ Returns 1 if file is readable by user
o readlink ............. Returns name of file pointed to by a
symbolic link
o size ..................... Returns file size in bytes
o stat ..................... Returns array of file status
information
 o .................... Returns type of file
type
o writable ............ Returns 1 if file is writeable by user
 Manipulating the files and directories themselves:
o copy ................ Copy a file or a directory
o delete ................ Delete a file or a directory
o mkdir ................ Create a new directory
o rename ................ Rename or move a file or directory

Between these two commands, a program can obtain most of the

information that it may need and manipulate the files and directories.

While retrieving information about what files are present and what
properties they have is usually a highly platform-dependent matter, Tcl
provides an interface that hides almost all details that are specific to the
platform (but are irrelevant to the programmer).

To take advantage of this feature, always manipulate file names via

the file join, filesplit commands and the others in the first category.

For instance to refer to a file in a directory upwards of the current one:

set upfile [file join ".." "myfile.out"]

# upfile will have the value "../myfile.out"

(The ".." indicates the "parent directory")

Because external commands may not always deal gracefully with

the uniform representation that Tcl employs (with forward slashes
as directory separators), Tcl also provides a command to turn the
string into one that is native to the platform:

#
# On Windows the name becomes "..\myfile.out"
#
set newname [file nativename [file join ".." "myfile.out"]]

Retrieving all the files with extension ".tcl" in the current directory:

set tclfiles [glob *.tcl]

puts "Name - date of last modification"
 foreach f $tclfiles {
puts "$f - [clock format [file mtime $f] -format %x]"
}

(The clock command turns the number of seconds returned by

the file mtimecommand into a simple date string, like "12/22/04")
glob ?switches? pattern ?patternN?

returns a list of file names that match pattern or patternN

switchesmay be one of the following (there are more switches

available):
-nocomplain

Allows glob to return an empty list without causing an error.

Without this flag, an error would be generated when the empty
list was returned.
-types typeList

Selects which type of files/directory the command should

return. The typeListmay consist of type letters, like a "d" for
directories and "f" for ordinary files as well as letters and
keywords indicating the user's permissions ("r" for
files/directories that can be read for instance).
--

Marks the end of switches. This allows the use of "-" in a

pattern without confusing the glob parser.

patternfollows the same matching rules as the string match

globbing rules with these exceptions:

 {a,b,...} Matches any of the strings a,b, etc.

 A "." at the beginning of a filename must match a "." in
the filename. The "." is only a wildcard if it is not the first
character in a name.
 All "/" must match exactly.
  If the first two characters in pattern are ~/, then the ~ is
replaced by the value of the HOME environment variable.
 If the first character in pattern is a ~, followed by a login
id, then the ~loginid is replaced by the path of loginid's
home directory.

Note that the filenames that match patternare returned in an

arbitrary order (that is, do not expect them to be sorted in
alphabetical order, for instance).

file atime name

Returns the number of seconds since some system-dependent

start date, also known as the "epoch" (frequently 1/1/1970)
when the file name was last accessed. Generates an error if the
file doesn't exist, or the access time cannot be queried.
file copy ?-force? name target

Copy the file/directory name to a new filetarget (or to an existing

directory with that name)
The switch -force allows you to overwrite existing files.
file delete ?-force? name

Delete the file/directory name.

The switch -force allows you to delete non-empty directories.
file dirname name

Returns the directory portion of a path/filename string.

If name contains no slashes, file dirname returns a ".". If the last
"/" in name is also the first character, it returns a "/".
file executable name

Returns 1 if file name is executable by the current user,

otherwise returns 0.
file exists name
 Returns 1 if the file name exists, and the user has search access
in all the directories leading to the file. Otherwise, 0 is
returned.
file extension name

Returns the file extension.

file isdirectory name

Returns 1 if file name is a directory, otherwise returns 0.

file isfile name

Returns 1 if file name is a regular file, otherwise returns 0.

file lstat name varName

This returns the same information returned by the system

call lstat. The results are placed in the associative
array varName. The indexes in varName are:

 atime.......time of last access

 ctime.......time of last file status change
 dev...........inode's device
 gid............group ID of the file's group
 ino............inode's number
 mode.......inode protection mode
 mtime.....time of last data modification
 nlink........number of hard links
 size...........file size, in bytes
 type..........Type of File
 uid.............user ID of the file's owner

Because this calls lstat, if name is a symbolic link, the values

in varName will refer to the link, not the file that is linked to. (See
also the stat subcommand)
file mkdir name

Create a new directory name.

file mtime name

 Returns the time of the last modification in seconds since Jan
1, 1970 or whatever start date the system uses.
file owned name

Returns 1 if the file is owned by the current user, otherwise

returns 0.
file readable name

Returns 1 if the file is readable by the current user, otherwise

returns 0.
file readlink name

Returns the name of the file a symlink is pointing to.

If name isn't a symlink, or can't be read, an error is generated.
file rename ?-force? name target

Rename file/directory name to the new name target (or to an

existing directory with that name)
The switch -force allows you to overwrite existing files.
file rootname name

Returns all the characters in name up to but not including the

last ".". Returns $name if name doesn't include a ".".
file size name

Returns the size of name in bytes.

file stat name varName

This returns the same information returned by the system

call stat. The results are placed in the associative array varName.
The indexes in varName are:

 atime.......time of last access

 ctime.......time of last file status change
 dev...........inode's device
 gid............group ID of the file's group
 ino............inode's number
  mode.......inode protection mode
 mtime.....time of last data modification
 nlink........number of hard links
 size...........file size in bytes
 type..........Type of file
 uid.............user ID of the file's owner

file tail name

Returns all of the characters in name after the last slash.
Returns the name if namecontains no slashes.
file type name

Returns a string giving the type of file name, which will be one
of:

 file...................................Normal file
 directory........................Directory
 characterSpecial.......Character oriented device
 blockSpecial.............. Block oriented device
 fifo...................................Named pipe
 link..................................Symbolic link
 socket...........................Named socket

file writable name

Returns 1 if file name is writable by the current user,
otherwise returns 0.

Note: The overview given above does not cover all the details of the various
subcommands, nor does it list all subcommands. Please check the man
pages for these.

Example

#
# Report all the files and subdirectories in the current directory
# For files: show the size
# For directories: show that they _are_ directories
#
 set dirs [glob -nocomplain -type d *]
if { [llength $dirs] > 0 } {
puts "Directories:"
foreach d [lsort $dirs] {
puts " $d"
}
} else {
puts "(no subdirectories)"
}

set files [glob -nocomplain -type f *]

if { [llength $files] > 0 } {
puts "Files:"
foreach f [lsort $files] {
puts " [file size $f] - $f"
}
} else {
puts "(no files)"
}

Running other programs from Tcl - exec, open

So far the lessons have dealt with programming within the Tcl
interpreter. However, Tcl is also useful as a scripting language to tie
other packages or programs together. To accomplish this function,
Tcl has two ways to start another program:

 open ...... run a new program with I/O connected to a file

descriptor
 exec ...... run a new program as a subprocess

The open call is the same call that is used to open a file. If the first character
in the file name argument is a "pipe" symbol (|), then open will treat the rest
of the argument as a program name, and will run that program with
the standard input or output connected to a file descriptor. This "pipe"
connection can be used to read the output from that other program or to
write fresh input data to it or both.

If the "pipe" is opened for both reading and writing you must be aware that
the pipes are buffered. The output from a puts command will be saved in an
I/O buffer until the buffer is full, or until you execute a flush command to
force it to be transmitted to the other program. The output of this other
program will not be available to a read or gets until its output buffer is filled
up or flushed explicitly.

(Note: as this is internal to this other program, there is no way that your Tcl
script can influence that. The other program simply must cooperate. Well,
that is not entirely true: the expect extension actually works around this
limitation by exploiting deep system features.)

The exec call is similar to invoking a program (or a set of programs piped
together) from the prompt in an interactive shell or a DOS-box or in a
UNIX/Linux shell script. It supports several styles of output redirection, or it
can return the output of the other program(s) as the return value of
the execcall.

open |progName ?access?

Returns a file descriptor for the pipe. The progName argument

must start with the pipe symbol. If progName is enclosed in
quotes or braces, it can include arguments to the subprocess.
exec ?switches? arg1 ?arg2? ... ?argN?

exectreats its arguments as the names and arguments for a set

of programs to run. If the first args start with a "-", then they
are treated as switches to the exec command, instead of being
invoked as subprocesses or subprocess options.

switches are:
-keepnewline

Retains a trailing newline in the pipeline's output. Normally a

trailing newline will be deleted.
--
Marks the end of the switches. The next string will be treated
as arg1, even if it starts with a "-"
arg1 ... argN can be one of:

 the name of a program to execute

 a command line argument for the subprocess
 an I/O redirection instruction.
 an instruction to put the new program in the background:
 exec myprog &

will start the program myprog in the background, and

return immediately. There is no connection between that
program and the Tcl script, both can run on
independently.
The & must be the last argument - you can use all other
types of arguments in front of it.

[NOTE: add information on how to wait for the program

to finish?]

There are many I/O redirection commands. The main subset of

these commands is:
|

Pipes the standard output of the command preceding the pipe

symbol into the standard input of the command following the
pipe symbol.
< fileName

The first program in the pipe will read input from fileName.

<@ fileID

The first program in the pipe will read input from the Tcl
descriptor fileID.fileID is the value returned from
an open... "r" command.
<< value

The first program in the pipe will read value as its input.
 > fileName

The output of the last program in the pipe will be sent

to fileName. Any previous contents of fileName will be lost.
>> fileName

The output of the last program in the pipe will be appended

to fileName.
2> fileName

The standard error from all the programs in the pipe will be
sent to fileName. Any previous contents of fileName will be lost.
2>> fileName

The standard error from all the programs in the pipe will be
appended to fileName.
>@ fileID

The output from the last program in the pipe will be written
to fileID. fileID is the value returned from
an open ... "w"command.

If you are familiar with shell programming, there are a few differences to be
aware of when you are writing Tcl scripts that use the exec and open calls.

 You don't need the quotes that you would put around
arguments to escape them from the shell expanding them. In
the example, the argument to the sed command is not put in
quotes. If it were put in quotes, the quotes would be passed
to sed, instead of being stripped off (as the shell does),
and sed would report an error.
 If you use the open |cmd "r+" construct, you must follow each
puts with a flush to force Tcl to send the command from its
buffer to the program. The output from the program itself may
be buffered in its output buffer.

You can sometimes force the output from the external

program to flush by sending an exit command to the process.

You can also use the fconfigure command to make a connection

(channel) unbuffered.
 As already mentioned, expect extension to Tcl provides a much
better interface to other programs, which in particular handles
the buffering problem.
[NOTE: add good reference to expect]

 If one of the commands in an open |cmdfails the open does not

return an error. However, attempting to read input from the
file descriptor with gets $file will return an empty string. Using
the gets $file inputconstruct will return a character count of -1.
 Tcl does not expand file names like the UNIX/Linux shells do.
So:

 exec ls *.tcl

will fail - there is most probably no file with the literal name
"*.tcl".

If you need such an expansion, you should use

the glob command:

eval exec ls [glob *.tcl]

or, from Tcl 8.5 onwards:

exec ls {*}[glob *.tcl]

where the {*} prefix is used to force the list to become

individual arguments.

 If one of the commands in an exec call fails to execute,

the exec will return an error, and the error output will include
the last line describing the error.

The exec treats any output to standard error to be an indication

that the external program failed. This is simply a conservative
assumption: many programs behave that way and they are
sloppy in setting return codes.
Some programs however write to standard error without
intending this as an indication of an error. You can guard
against this from upsetting your script by using
the catchcommand:

if { [catch { exec ls *.tcl } msg] } {

puts "Something seems to have gone wrong but we will ignore it"
}

To inspect the return code from a program and the possible

reason for failure, you can use the global errorInfo variable:

if { [catch { exec ls *.tcl } msg] } {

puts "Something seems to have gone wrong:"
puts "Information about it: $::errorInfo"
}

Example

#
# Write a Tcl script to get a platform-independent program:
#
# Create a unique (mostly) file name for a Tcl program
set TMPDIR "/tmp"
if { [info exists ::env(TMP)] } {
set TMPDIR $::env(TMP)
}
set tempFileName "$TMPDIR/invert_[pid].tcl"

# Open the output file, and

# write the program to it

set outfl [open $tempFileName w]

puts $outfl {
 set len [gets stdin line]
if {$len < 5} {exit -1}

for {set i [expr {$len-1}]} {$i >= 0} {incr i -1} {

append l2 [string range $line $i $i]
}
puts $l2
exit 0
}

# Flush and close the file

flush $outfl
close $outfl

#
# Run the new Tcl script:
#
# Open a pipe to the program (for both reading and writing: r+)
#
set io [open "|[info nameofexecutable] $tempFileName" r+]

#
# send a string to the new program
# *MUST FLUSH*
puts $io "This will come back backwards."
flush $io

# Get the reply, and display it.

set len [gets $io line]

puts "To reverse: 'This will come back backwards.'"

puts "Reversed is: $line"
puts "The line is $len characters long"

# Run the program with input defined in an exec call

 set invert [exec [info nameofexecutable] $tempFileName << \
"ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA"]

# display the results

puts "The inversion of 'ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA' is \n $invert"

# Clean up
file delete $tempFileName

Learning the existence of commands and variables ? -

info
Tcl provides a number of commands for introspection - commands that tell
what is going on in your program, what the implementation is of your
procedures, which variables have been set and so on.

The info command allows a Tcl program to obtain information from the Tcl
interpreter. The next three lessons cover aspects of the info command.
(Other commands allowing introspection involve: traces, namespaces,
commands scheduled for later execution via the after command and so on.)

This lesson covers the info subcommands that return information about
which procs, variables, or commands are currently in existence in this
instance of the interpreter. By using these subcommands you can determine
if a variable or proc exists before you try to access it.

The code below shows how to use the infoexists command to make an incr
that will never return a no such variable error, since it checks to be certain
that the variable exists before incrementing it:

proc safeIncr {val {amount 1}} {

upvar $val v
if { [info exists v] } {
incr v $amount
} else {
set v $amount
 }
}

Info commands that return lists of visible commands and

variables.

Almost all these commands take a pattern that follow the string match rules.
If patternis not provided, a list of all items is returned (as if the pattern was
"*").

info commands ?pattern?

Returns a list of the commands, both internal commands and

procedures, whose names match pattern.
info exists varName

Returns 1 if varName exists as a variable (or an array element) in

the current context, otherwise returns 0.
info functions ?pattern?

Returns a list of the mathematical functions available via

the expr command that match pattern.
info globals ?pattern?

Returns a list of the global variables that match pattern.

info locals ?pattern?

Returns a list of the local variables that match pattern.

info procs ?pattern?

Returns a list of the Tcl procedures that match pattern.

info vars ?pattern?

Returns a list of the local and global variables that

match pattern.
Example

if {[info procs safeIncr] eq "safeIncr"} {

safeIncr a
}

puts "After calling SafeIncr with a non existent variable: $a"

set a 100
safeIncr a
puts "After calling SafeIncr with a variable with a value of 100: $a"

safeIncr b -3
puts "After calling safeIncr with a non existent variable by -3: $b"

set b 100
safeIncr b -3
puts "After calling safeIncr with a variable whose value is 100 by -3: $b"

puts "\nThese variables have been defined: [lsort [info vars]]"

puts "\nThese globals have been defined: [lsort [info globals]]"

set exist [info procs localproc]

if {$exist == ""} {
puts "\nlocalproc does not exist at point 1"
}

proc localproc {} {
global argv

set loc1 1
set loc2 2
puts "\nLocal variables accessible in this proc are: [lsort [info
locals]]"
puts "\nVariables accessible from this proc are: [lsort [info
vars]]"
 puts "\nGlobal variables visible from this proc are: [lsort [info
globals]]"
}

set exist [info procs localproc]

if {$exist != ""} {
puts "localproc does exist at point 2"
}

localproc

State of the interpreter – info

There are a number of subcommands to the info command that provide

information about the current state of the interpreter. These commands
provide access to information like the current version and patchlevel, what
script is currently being executed, how many commands have been
executed, or how far down in the call tree the current proc is executing.

The info tclversion and info patchlevel can be used to find out if the revision
level of the interpreter running your code has the support for features you
are using. If you know that certain features are not available in certain
revisions of the interpreter, you can define your own procs to handle this, or
just exit the program with an error message.

The info cmdcount and info level can be used while optimizing a Tcl script to
find out how many levels and commands were necessary to accomplish a
function.

Note that the pid command is not part of the info command, but a command
in its own right.

Subcommands that return information about the current state of the

interpreter

(Note: There are several other subcommands that can be useful at times)

info cmdcount
 Returns the total number of commands that have been
executed by this interpreter.
info level ?number?

Returns the stack level at which the compiler is currently

evaluating code. 0 is the top level, 1 is a proc called from top,
2 is a proc called from a proc, etc.

If number is a positive value, info levelreturns a the name and

arguments of the proc at that level on the stack. Number is that
same value that info level would return if it were called in the
proc being referenced.

If number number is a negative value, it refers to the current

level plus number. Thus,info level returns a the name and
arguments of the proc at that level on the stack.

info patchlevel

Returns the value of the global variable tcl_patchlevel. This is

a three-levels version number identifying the Tcl version, like:
"8.4.6"
info script

Returns the name of the file currently being evaluated, if one

is being evaluated. If there is no file being evaluated, returns
an empty string.

This can be used for instance to determine the directory

holding other scripts or files of interest (they often live in the
same directory or in a related directory), without having to
hardcode the paths.

info tclversion

Returns the value of the global variable tcl_version. This is the

revision number of this interpreter, like: "8.4".
pid

Returns the process id of the current process.

Example

puts "This is how many commands have been executed: [info cmdcount]"
puts "Now *THIS* many commands have been executed: [info cmdcount]"

puts "\nThis interpreter is revision level: [info tclversion]"

puts "This interpreter is at patch level: [info patchlevel]"

puts "The process id for this program is [pid]"

proc factorial {val} {

puts "Current level: [info level] - val: $val"
set lvl [info level]
if {$lvl == $val} {
return $val
}
return [expr {($val-$lvl) * [factorial $val]}]
}

set count1 [info cmdcount]

set fact [factorial 3]
set count2 [info cmdcount]
puts "The factorial of 3 is $fact"
puts "Before calling the factorial proc, $count1 commands had been
executed"
puts "After calling the factorial proc, $count2 commands had been executed"
puts "It took [expr $count2-$count1] commands to calculate this factorial"

#
# Use [info script] to determine where the other files of interest
# reside
#
set sysdir [file dirname [info script]]
source [file join $sysdir "utils.tcl"]
 Information about procs – info

The info command includes a set of subcommands that will provide

all the info you could want about a proc. These subcommands will
return the body of a proc, the arguments to the proc, and the value
of any default arguments.

These subcommands can be used to:

 Access the contents of a proc in a debugger.

 Generate custom procs from a template.
 Report default values while prompting for input.

Info commands that return information about a proc

info args procname

Returns a list of the names of the arguments to the

procedure procname.
info body procname

Returns the body of the procedure procname.

info default procname arg varName

Returns 1 if the argument arg in procedure procName has a

default, and sets varName to the default. Otherwise, returns 0.

Example

proc demo {argument1 {default "DefaultValue"} } {

puts "This is a demo proc. It is being called with $argument1 and
$default"
#
# We can use [info level] to find out if a value was given for
# the optional argument "default" ...
#
 puts "Actual call: [info level [info level]]"
}

puts "The args for demo are: [info args demo]\n"

puts "The body for demo is: [info body demo]\n"

set arglist [info args demo]

foreach arg $arglist {

if {[info default demo $arg defaultval]} {
puts "$arg has a default value of $defaultval"
} else {
puts "$arg has no default"
}
}

Modularization - source
The source command will load a file and execute it. This allows a program to
be broken up into multiple files, with each file defining procedures and
variables for a particular area of functionality. For instance, you might have
a file called database.tcl that contains all the procedures for dealing with a
database, or a file called gui.tcl that handles creating a graphical user
interface with Tk. The main script can then simply include each file using
the source command. More powerful techniques for program modularization
are discussed in the next lesson on packages.

This command can be used to:

 separate a program into multiple files.

 make a library file that contains all the procs for a particular
set of functions.
 configure programs.
 load data files.

source fileName
 Reads the script in fileName and executes it. If the script
executes successfully, source returns the value of the last
statement in the script.
If there is an error in the script, source will return that error.
If there is a return (other than within a procdefinition)
then source will return immediately, without executing the
remainder of the script.
If fileName starts with a tilde (~) then$env(HOME) will substituted
for the tilde, as is done in the file command.

Example

sourcedata.tcl:

# Example data file to be sourced

set scr [info script]
proc testproc {} {
global scr
puts "testproc source file: $scr"
}
set abc 1
return
set aaaa 1

sourcemain.tcl:

set filename "sourcedata.tcl"

puts "Global variables visible before sourcing $filename:"
puts "[lsort [info globals]]\n"

if {[info procs testproc] eq ""} {

puts "testproc does not exist. sourcing $filename"
source $filename
}
 puts "\nNow executing testproc"
testproc

puts "Global variables visible after sourcing $filename:"

puts "[lsort [info globals]]\n"

Building reusable libraries - packages and namespaces

The previous lesson showed how the sourcecommand can be used to,,.
,separate a program into multiple files, each responsible for a different area
of functionality. This is a simple and useful technique for achieving
modularity. However, there are a number of drawbacks to using
the source command directly. Tcl provides a more powerful mechanism for
handling reusable units of code called packages. A package is simply a
bundle of files implementing some functionality, along with a name that
identifies the package, and a version numberthat allows multiple versions of
the same package to be present. A package can be a collection of Tcl scripts,
or a binary library, or a combination of both. Binary libraries are not
discussed in this tutorial.

Using packages

The package command provides the ability to use a package, compare

package versions, and to register your own packages with an interpreter. A
package is loaded by using the package require command and providing the
package name and optionally a versionnumber. The first time a script requires
a package Tcl builds up a database of available packages and versions. It
does this by searching for package index files in all of the directories listed in
the tcl_pkgPath and auto_path global variables, as well as any subdirectories
of those directories. Each package provides a file called pkgIndex.tclthat tells
Tcl the names and versions of any packages in that directory, and how to
load them if they are needed.

It is good style to start every script you create with a set of package
require statements to load any packages required. This serves two purposes:
making sure that any missing requirements are identified as soon as
possible; and, clearly documenting the dependencies that your code has. Tcl
and Tk are both made available as packages and it is a good idea to
explicitly require them in your scripts even if they are already loaded as this
makes your scripts more portable and documents the version requirements
of your script.

Creating a package

There are three steps involved in creating a package:

 Adding a package provide statement to your script.

 Creating a pkgIndex.tcl file.
 Installing the package where it can be found by Tcl.

The first step is to add a package providestatement to your script. It is good

style to place this statement at the top of your script. The package
provide command tells Tcl the name of your package and the version being
provided.

The next step is to create a pkgIndex.tcl file. This file tells Tcl how to load
your package. In essence the index file is simply a Tcl file which is loaded
into the interpreter when Tcl searches for packages. It should use
the package ifneeded command register a script which will load the package
when it is required. The pkgIndex.tcl file is evaluated globally in the
interpreter when Tcl first searches for any package. For this reason it is very
bad style for an index script to do anything other than tell Tcl how to load a
package; index scripts should not define procs, require packages, or perform
any other action which may affect the state of the interpreter.

The simplest way to create a pkgIndex.tclscript is to use

the pkg_mkIndex command. The pkg_mkIndex command scans files which match
a given pattern in a directory looking for package provide commands. From
this information it generates an appropriate pkgIndex.tcl file in the directory.

Once a package index has been created, the next step is to move the
package to somewhere that Tcl can find it.
The tcl_pkgPath and auto_path global variables contain a list of directories
that Tcl searches for packages. The package index and all the files that
implement the package should be installed into a subdirectory of one of
these directories. Alternatively, the auto_pathvariable can be extended at
run-time to tell Tcl of new places to look for packages.

package require ?-exact? name ?version?

Loads the package identified by name. If the-exact switch is given

along with a versionnumber then only that exact package
 version will be accepted. If a versionnumber is given, without
the -exact switch then any version equal to or greater than that
version (but with the same major version number) will be
accepted. If no version is specified then any version will be
loaded. If a matching package can be found then it is loaded
and the command returns the actual version number;
otherwise it generates an error.
package provide name ?version?

If a version is given this command tells Tcl that this version of

the package indicated by name is loaded. If a different version of
the same package has already been loaded then an error is
generated. If the versionargument is omitted, then the
command returns the version number that is currently loaded,
or the empty string if the package has not been loaded.
pkg_mkIndex ?-direct? ?-lazy? ?-loadpkgPat? ?-verbose? dir ?pattern pattern
...?

Creates a pkgIndex.tcl file for a package or set of packages. The

command works by loading the files matching the patterns in
the directory, dir and seeing what new packages and
commands appear. The command is able to handle both Tcl
script files and binary libraries (not discussed here).
Namespaces

One problem that can occur when using packages, and particularly when
using code written by others is that of name collision. This happens when
two pieces of code try to define a procedure or variable with the same name.
In Tcl when this occurs the old procedure or variable is simply overwritten.
This is sometimes a useful feature, but more often it is the cause of bugs if
the two definitions are not compatible. To solve this problem, Tcl provides
a namespace command to allow commands and variables to be partitioned into
separate areas, called namespaces. Each namespace can contain commands
and variables which are local to that namespace and cannot be overwritten
by commands or variables in other namespaces. When a command in a
namespace is invoked it can see all the other commands and variables in its
namespace, as well as those in the global namespace. Namespaces can also
contain other namespaces. This allows a hierarchy of namespaces to be
created in a similar way to a file system hierarchy, or the Tk widget
hierarchy. Each namespace itself has a name which is visible in its parent
namespace. Items in a namespace can be accessed by creating a path to the
item. This is done by joining the names of the items with ::. For instance, to
access the variable bar in the namespace foo, you could use the
path foo::bar. This kind of path is called a relative path because Tcl will try
to follow the pathrelative to the current namespace. If that fails, and the
path represents a command, then Tcl will also look relative to the global
namespace. You can make a path fully-qualified by describing its exact
position in the hierachy from the global namespace, which is named ::. For
instance, if our foonamespace was a child of the global namespace, then the
fully-qualified name of bar would be ::foo::bar. It is usually a good idea to
use fully-qualified names when referring to any item outside of the current
namespace to avoid surprises.

A namespace can export some or all of the command names it contains.

These commands can then be imported into another namespace. This in
effect creates a local command in the new namespace which when invoked
calls the original command in the original namespace. This is a useful
technique for creating short-cuts to frequently used commands from other
namespaces. In general, a namespace should be careful about exporting
commands with the same name as any built-in Tcl command or with a
commonly used name.

Some of the most important commands to use when dealing with

namespaces are:

namespace eval path script

This command evaluates the script in the namespace specified

by path. If the namespace doesn't exist then it is created. The
namespace becomes the current namespace while the script is
executing, and any unqualified names will be resolved relative
to that namespace. Returns the result of the last command
in script.
namespace delete ?namespace namespace ...?

Deletes each namespace specified, along with all variables,

commands and child namespaces it contains.
namespace current

Returns the fully qualified path of the current namespace.

namespace export ?-clear? ?pattern pattern ...?

Adds any commands matching one of the patterns to the list of

commands exported by the current namespace. If the -
clearswitch is given then the export list is cleared before
adding any new commands. If no arguments are given, returns
the currently exported command names. Each pattern is a
glob-style pattern such as *, [a-z]*, or *foo*.
namespace import ?-force? ?pattern pattern ...?

Imports all commands matching any of the patterns into the

current namespace. Each pattern is a glob-style pattern such
as foo::*, or foo::bar.
Using namespace with packages

William Duquette has an excellent guide to using namespaces and packages

athttp://www.wjduquette.com/tcl/namespaces.html. In general, a package
should provide a namespace as a child of the global namespace and put all
of its commands and variables inside that namespace. A package shouldn't
put commands or variables into the global namespace by default. It is also
good style to give your package and the namespace it provides the same
name, to avoid confusion.

Example

This example creates a package which provides a stack data structure.

# Register the package

package provide tutstack 1.0
package require Tcl 8.5

# Create the namespace

namespace eval ::tutstack {
# Export commands
namespace export create destroy push pop peek empty

# Set up state
 variable stack
variable id 0
}

# Create a new stack

proc ::tutstack::create {} {
variable stack
variable id

set token "stack[incr id]"

set stack($token) [list]
return $token
}

# Destroy a stack
proc ::tutstack::destroy {token} {
variable stack

unset stack($token)
}

# Push an element onto a stack

proc ::tutstack::push {token elem} {
variable stack

lappend stack($token) $elem

}

# Check if stack is empty

proc ::tutstack::empty {token} {
variable stack

set num [llength $stack($token)]

return [expr {$num == 0}]
}
 # See what is on top of the stack without removing it
proc ::tutstack::peek {token} {
variable stack

if {[empty $token]} {
error "stack empty"
}

return [lindex $stack($token) end]

}

# Remove an element from the top of the stack

proc ::tutstack::pop {token} {
variable stack

set ret [peek $token]

set stack($token) [lrange $stack($token) 0 end-1]
return $ret
}

And some code which uses it:

package require tutstack 1.0

set stack [tutstack::create]

foreach num {1 2 3 4 5} { tutstack::push $stack $num }

while { ![tutstack::empty $stack] } {

puts "[tutstack::pop $stack]"
}

tutstack::destroy $stack
Ensembles

A common way of structuring related commands is to group them together

into a single command with sub-commands. This type of command is called
an ensemblecommand, and there are many examples in the Tcl standard
library. For instance, the string command is an ensemble whose sub-
commands are length, index, match etc. Tcl 8.5 introduced a handy way of
converting a namespace into an ensemble with the namespace
ensemble command. This command is very flexible, with many options to
specify exactly how sub-commands are mapped to commands within the
namespace. The most basic usage is very straightforward, however, and
simply creates an ensemble command with the same name as the
namespace and with all exported procedures registered as sub-commands.
To illustrate this, we will convert our stack data structure into an ensemble:

package require tutstack 1.0

package require Tcl 8.5

namespace eval ::tutstack {

# Create the ensemble command
namespace ensemble create
}

# Now we can use our stack through the ensemble command

set stack [tutstack create]
foreach num {1 2 3 4 5} { tutstack push $stack $num }

while { ![tutstack empty $stack] } {

puts "[tutstack pop $stack]"
}

tutstack destroy $stack

As well as providing a nicer syntax for accessing functionality in a

namespace, ensemble commands also help to clearly distinguish the public
interface of a package from the private implementation details, as only
exported commands will be registered as sub-commands and the ensemble
will enforce this distinction. Readers who are familiar with object-
oriented programming (OOP) will realise that the namespace and ensemble
mechanisms provide many of the same encapsulation advantages. Indeed,
many OO extensions for Tcl build on top of the powerful namespace
mechanism.

Creating Commands – eval

One difference between Tcl and most other compilers is that Tcl will
allow an executing program to create new commands and execute
them while running.

A tcl command is defined as a list of strings in which the first string is a

command or proc. Any string or list which meets this criteria can be
evaluated and executed.

The eval command will evaluate a list of strings as though they were
commands typed at the % prompt or sourced from a file.
The eval command normally returns the final value of the commands being
evaluated. If the commands being evaluated throw an error (for example, if
there is a syntax error in one of the strings), then eval will will throw an
error.

Note that either concat or list may be used to create the command string,
but that these two commands will create slightly different command strings.

eval arg1 ??arg2?? ... ??argn??

Evaluates arg1 - argn as one or more Tcl commands.
The args are concatenated into a string, and passed
to tcl_Eval to evaluate and execute.

Eval returns the result (or error code) of that evaluation.

Example

set cmd {puts "Evaluating a puts"}

puts "CMD IS: $cmd"
eval $cmd
if {[string match [info procs newProcA] ""] } {
puts "\nDefining newProcA for this invocation"
set num 0;
set cmd "proc newProcA "
set cmd [concat $cmd "{} {\n"]
set cmd [concat $cmd "global num;\n"]
set cmd [concat $cmd "incr num;\n"]
set cmd [concat $cmd " return \"/tmp/TMP.[pid].\$num\";\n"]
set cmd [concat $cmd "}"]
eval $cmd
}

puts "\nThe body of newProcA is: \n[info body newProcA]\n"

puts "newProcA returns: [newProcA]"

puts "newProcA returns: [newProcA]"

#
# Define a proc using lists
#

if {[string match [info procs newProcB] ""] } {

puts "\nDefining newProcB for this invocation"
set cmd "proc newProcB "
lappend cmd {}
lappend cmd {global num; incr num; return $num;}

eval $cmd
}

puts "\nThe body of newProcB is: \n[info body newProcB]\n"

puts "newProcB returns: [newProcB]"
 More command construction - format, list

There may be some unexpected results when you try to compose

command strings for eval.

For instance

eval puts OK

would print the string OK. However,

eval puts Not OK

will generate an error.

The reason that the second command generates an error is that

the eval usesconcat to merge its arguments into a command string. This
causes the two words Not OK to be treated as two arguments to puts. If
there is more than one argument to puts, the first argument must be a file
pointer.

Correct ways to write the second command include these:

eval [list puts {Not OK}]

eval [list puts "Not OK"]
set cmd "puts" ; lappend cmd {Not OK}; eval $cmd

As long as you keep track of how the arguments you present to eval will be
grouped, you can use many methods of creating the strings for eval,
including the string commands and format.

The recommended methods of constructing commands for eval is to use

the list and lappend commands. These commands become difficult to use,
however if you need to put braces in the command, as was done in the
previous lesson.

The example from the previous lesson is re-implemented in the example

code using lappend.
The completeness of a command can be checked with info complete. Info
completecan also be used in an interactive program to determine if the line
being typed in is a complete command, or the user just entered a newline to
format the command better.

info complete string

If string has no unmatched brackets, braces or parentheses,
then a value of 1 is returned, else 0 is returned.

Example

set cmd "OK"

eval puts $cmd

set cmd "puts" ; lappend cmd {Also OK}; eval $cmd

set cmd "NOT OK"

eval puts $cmd

eval [format {%s "%s"} puts "Even This Works"]

set cmd "And even this can be made to work"

eval [format {%s "%s"} puts $cmd ]

set tmpFileNum 0;

set cmd {proc tempFileName }

lappend cmd ""
lappend cmd "global num; incr num; return \"/tmp/TMP.[pid].\$num\""
eval $cmd

puts "\nThis is the body of the proc definition:"

puts "[info body tempFileName]\n"
 set cmd {puts "This is Cool!}

if {[info complete $cmd]} {

eval $cmd
} else {
puts "INCOMPLETE COMMAND: $cmd"
}

More command construction - format, list

There may be some unexpected results when you try to compose

command strings for eval.

For instance

eval puts OK

would print the string OK. However,

eval puts Not OK

will generate an error.

The reason that the second command generates an error is that

the eval usesconcat to merge its arguments into a command string. This
causes the two words Not OK to be treated as two arguments to puts. If
there is more than one argument to puts, the first argument must be a file
pointer.

Correct ways to write the second command include these:

eval [list puts {Not OK}]

eval [list puts "Not OK"]
set cmd "puts" ; lappend cmd {Not OK}; eval $cmd
As long as you keep track of how the arguments you present to eval will be
grouped, you can use many methods of creating the strings for eval,
including the string commands and format.

The recommended methods of constructing commands for eval is to use

the list and lappend commands. These commands become difficult to use,
however if you need to put braces in the command, as was done in the
previous lesson.

The example from the previous lesson is re-implemented in the example

code using lappend.

The completeness of a command can be checked with info complete. Info

completecan also be used in an interactive program to determine if the line
being typed in is a complete command, or the user just entered a newline to
format the command better.

info complete string

If string has no unmatched brackets, braces or parentheses,
then a value of 1 is returned, else 0 is returned.

Example

set cmd "OK"

eval puts $cmd

set cmd "puts" ; lappend cmd {Also OK}; eval $cmd

set cmd "NOT OK"

eval puts $cmd

eval [format {%s "%s"} puts "Even This Works"]

set cmd "And even this can be made to work"

eval [format {%s "%s"} puts $cmd ]

set tmpFileNum 0;
 set cmd {proc tempFileName }
lappend cmd ""
lappend cmd "global num; incr num; return \"/tmp/TMP.[pid].\$num\""
eval $cmd

puts "\nThis is the body of the proc definition:"

puts "[info body tempFileName]\n"

set cmd {puts "This is Cool!}

if {[info complete $cmd]} {

eval $cmd
} else {
puts "INCOMPLETE COMMAND: $cmd"
}

Substitution without evaluation - format, subst

The Tcl interpreter does only one substitution pass during command
evaluation. Some situations, such as placing the name of a variable
in a variable, require two passes through the substitution phase. In
this case, the subst command is useful.

Subst performs a substitution pass without performing any execution of

commands except those required for the substitution to occur, ie: commands
within [] will be executed, and the results placed in the return string.

In the example code:

puts "[subst $$c]\n"

shows an example of placing a variable name in a variable, and

evaluating through the indirection.
The format command can also be used to force some levels of substitution
to occur.

subst ?-nobackslashes? ?-nocommands? ?-

novariables? string
Passes string through the Tcl substitution phase, and returns
the original string with the backslash sequences, commands
and variables replaced by their equivalents.

If any of the -no... arguments are present, then that set of

substitutions will not be done.

NOTE: subst does not honor braces or quotes.

Example

set a "alpha"
set b a

puts {a and b with no substitution: $a $$b}

puts "a and b with one pass of substitution: $a $$b"
puts "a and b with subst in braces: [subst {$a $$b}]"
puts "a and b with subst in quotes: [subst "$a $$b"]\n"

puts "format with no subst [format {$%s} $b]"

puts "format with subst: [subst [format {$%s} $b]]"
eval "puts \"eval after format: [format {$%s} $b]\""

set num 0;
set cmd "proc tempFileName {} "
set cmd [format "%s {global num; incr num;" $cmd]
set cmd [format {%s return "/tmp/TMP.%s.$num"} $cmd [pid] ]
set cmd [format "%s }" $cmd ]
eval $cmd

puts "[info body tempFileName]"

 set a arrayname
set b index
set c newvalue
eval [format "set %s(%s) %s" $a $b $c]

puts "Index: $b of $a was set to: $arrayname(index)"

Changing Working Directory - cd, pwd

Tcl also supports commands to change and display the current

working directory.

These are:

cd ?dirName?
Changes the current directory to dirName(if dirName is given,
or to the $HOMEdirectory if dirName is not given. If dirNameis
a tilde (~, cd changes the working directory to the users home
directory. If dirName starts with a tilde, then the rest of the
characters are treated as a login id, andcd changes the working
directory to that user's $HOME.
pwd
Returns the current directory.

Example

set dirs [list TEMPDIR]

puts "[format "%-15s %-20s " "FILE" "DIRECTORY"]"

 foreach dir $dirs {
catch {cd $dir}
set c_files [glob -nocomplain c*]

foreach name $c_files {

puts "[format "%-15s %-20s " $name [pwd]]"
}
}

Debugging and Errors - errorInfo errorCode catch error

return
In previous lessons we discussed how the return command could be used to
return a value from a proc. In Tcl, a proc may return a value, but it always
returns a status.

When a Tcl command or procedure encounters an error during its execution,

the global variable errorInfo is set, and an error condition is generated. If
you have proc a that called proc b that called c that called d , if dgenerates
an error, the "call stack" will unwind. Since d generates an error, c will not
complete execution cleanly, and will have to pass the error up to b , and in
turn on to a. Each procedure adds some information about the problem to
the report. For instance:

proc a {} {
b
}
proc b {} {
c
}
proc c {} {
d
}
proc d {} {
some_command
}
 a

Produces the following output:

invalid command name "some_command"

while executing
"some_command"
(procedure "d" line 2)
invoked from within
"d"
(procedure "c" line 2)
invoked from within
"c"
(procedure "b" line 2)
invoked from within
"b"
(procedure "a" line 2)
invoked from within
"a"
(file "errors.tcl" line 16)

This actually occurs when any exception condition occurs,

including break and continue. The break and continue commands normally
occur within a loop of some sort, and the loop command catches the
exception and processes it properly, meaning that it either stops executing
the loop, or continues on to the next instance of the loop without executing
the rest of the loop body.

It is possible to "catch" errors and exceptions with the catch command,

which runs some code, and catches any errors that code happens to
generate. The programmer can then decide what to do about those errors
and act accordingly, instead of having the whole application come to a halt.

For example, if an open call returns an error, the user could be prompted to
provide another file name.
A Tcl proc can also generate an error status condition. This can be done by
specifying an error return with an option to the returncommand, or by using
the error command. In either case, a message will be placed in errorInfo,
and the proc will generate an error.

error message ?info? ?code?

Generates an error condition and forces the Tcl call stack to

unwind, with error information being added at each step.

If info or code are provided, the errorInfo and errorCode

variables are initialized with these values.

catch script ?varName?

Evaluates and executes script. The return value of catch is the

status return of the Tcl interpreter after it executes script If
there are no errors in script, this value is 0. Otherwise it is 1.

If varName is supplied, the value returned by script is placed

in varName if the script successfully executes. If not, the error is
placed in varName.

return ?-code code? ?-errorinfo info? ?-errorcode errorcode? ?value?

Generates a return exception condition. The possible

arguments are:
-code code

The next value specifies the return status. code must be one of:

 ok - Normal status return

 error - Proc returns error status
 return - Normal return
 break - Proc returns break status
 continue - Proc returns continue status

These allow you to write procedures that behave like the built
in commands break, error, and continue.
-errorinfo info
 info will be the first string in the errorInfo variable.
-errorcode errorcode

The proc will set errorCode to errorcode.

value

The string value will be the value returned by this proc.

errorInfo

is a global variable that contains the error information

errorInfo
from commands that have failed.
errorCode

errorCodeis a global variable that contains the error code from

command that failed. This is meant to be in a format that is
easy to parse with a script, so that Tcl scripts can examine the
contents of this variable, and decide what to do accordingly.

Example

proc errorproc {x} {

if {$x > 0} {
error "Error generated by error" "Info String for error" $x
}
}

catch errorproc
puts "after bad proc call: ErrorCode: $errorCode"
puts "ERRORINFO:\n$errorInfo\n"

set errorInfo "";

catch {errorproc 0}
puts "after proc call with no error: ErrorCode: $errorCode"
puts "ERRORINFO:\n$errorInfo\n"

catch {errorproc 2}
puts "after error generated in proc: ErrorCode: $errorCode"
 puts "ERRORINFO:\n$errorInfo\n"

proc returnErr { x } {
return -code error -errorinfo "Return Generates This" -errorcode "-999"
}

catch {returnErr 2}
puts "after proc that uses return to generate an error: ErrorCode:
$errorCode"
puts "ERRORINFO:\n$errorInfo\n"

proc withError {x} {

set x $a
}

catch {withError 2}
puts "after proc with an error: ErrorCode: $errorCode"
puts "ERRORINFO:\n$errorInfo\n"

catch {open [file join no_such_directory no_such_file] r}

puts "after an error call to a nonexistent file:"
puts "ErrorCode: $errorCode"
puts "ERRORINFO:\n$errorInfo\n"

More Debugging - trace

When you are debugging Tcl code, sometimes it's useful to be able to trace
either the execution of the code, or simply inspect the state of a variable
when various things happen to it. The trace command provides these
facilities. It is a very powerful command that can be used in many
interesting ways. It also risks being abused, and can lead to very difficult to
understand code if it is used improperly (for instance, variables seemingly
changing magically), so use it with care.
There are three principle operations that may be performed with the trace
command:

 add, which has the general form: trace addtype ops ?args?
 info, which has the general form: traceinfo type name
 remove, which has the general
form: traceremove type name opList command

Which are for adding traces, retrieving information about traces, and
removing traces, respectively. Traces can be added to three kinds of
"things":

 variable - Traces added to variables are called when some

event occurs to the variable, such as being written to or read.
 command - Traces added to commands are executed whenever
the named command is renamed or deleted.
 execution - Traces on "execution" are called whenever the
named command is run.

Traces on variables are invoked on four separate conditions - when a

variable is accessed or modified via the arraycommand, when the variable is
read or written, or when it's unset. For instance, to set a trace on a variable
so that when it's written to, the value doesn't change, you could do this:

proc vartrace {oldval varname element op} {

upvar $varname localvar
set localvar $oldval
}

set tracedvar 1
trace add variable tracedvar write [list vartrace $tracedvar]

set tracedvar 2
puts "tracedvar is $tracedvar"

In the above example, we create a proc that takes four arguments. We

supply the first, the old value of the variable, because write traces are
triggered after the variable's value has already been changed, so we need
to preserve the original value ourselves. The other three arguments are the
variable's name, the element name if the variable is an array (which it isn't
in our example), and the operation to trace - in this case, write. When the
trace is called, we simply set the variable's value back to its old value. We
could also do something like generate an error, thus warning people that this
variable shouldn't be written to. Infact, this would probably be better. If
someone else is attempting to understand your program, they could become
quite confused when they find that a simple set command no longer
functions!

The command and execution traces are intended for expert users - perhaps
those writing debuggers for Tcl in Tcl itself - and are therefore not covered in
this tutorial, see the trace man page for further information.

Example

proc traceproc {variableName arrayElement operation} {

set op(write) Write
set op(unset) Unset
set op(read) Read

set level [info level]

incr level -1
if {$level > 0} {
set procid [info level $level]
} else {
set procid "main"
}

if {![string match $arrayElement ""]} {

puts "TRACE: $op($operation) $variableName($arrayElement) in $procid"
} else {
puts "TRACE: $op($operation) $variableName in $procid"
}
}

proc testProc {input1 input2} {

upvar $input1 i
upvar $input2 j
 set i 2
set k $j
}

trace add variable i1 write traceproc

trace add variable i2 read traceproc
trace add variable i2 write traceproc

set i2 "testvalue"

puts "\ncall testProc"

testProc i1 i2

puts "\nTraces on i1: [trace info variable i1]"

puts "Traces on i2: [trace info variable i2]\n"

trace remove variable i2 read traceproc

puts "Traces on i2 after vdelete: [trace info variable i2]"

puts "\ncall testProc again"

testProc i1 i2

Command line arguments and environment strings

Scripts are much more useful if they can be called with different values in
the command line.

For instance, a script that extracts a particular value from a file could be
written so that it prompts for a file name, reads the file name, and then
extracts the data. Or, it could be written to loop through as many files as are
in the command line, and extract the data from each file, and print the file
name and data.
The second method of writing the program can easily be used from other
scripts. This makes it more useful.

The number of command line arguments to a Tcl script is passed as the

global variable argc . The name of a Tcl script is passed to the script as the
global variable argv0 , and the rest of the command line arguments are
passed as a list in argv. The name of the executable that runs the script,
such as tclshis given by the command info nameofexecutable

Another method of passing information to a script is with environment

variables. For instance, suppose you are writing a program in which a user
provides some sort of comment to go into a record. It would be friendly to
allow the user to edit their comments in their favorite editor. If the user has
defined an EDITOR environment variable, then you can invoke that editor for
them to use.

Environment variables are available to Tcl scripts in a global associative

array env . The index into env is the name of the environment variable. The
command puts "$env(PATH)"would print the contents of the PATHenvironment
variable.

Example

puts "There are $argc arguments to this script"

puts "The name of this script is $argv0"
if {$argc > 0} {puts "The other arguments are: $argv" }

puts "You have these environment variables set:"

foreach index [array names env] {
puts "$index: $env($index)"
}

Timing scripts
The simplest method of making a script run faster is to buy a faster
processor. Unfortunately, this isn't always an option. You may need to
optimize your script to run faster. This is difficult if you can't measure the
time it takes to run the portion of the script that you are trying to optimize.
The time command is the solution to this problem. time will measure the
length of time that it takes to execute a script. You can then modify the
script, rerun time and see how much you improved it.

After you've run the example, play with the size of the loop counters
in timetst1 and timetst2. If you make the inner loop counter 5 or less, it may
take longer to execute timetst2 than it takes for timetst1. This is because it
takes time to calculate and assign the variable k, and if the inner loop is too
small, then the gain in not doing the multiply inside the loop is lost in the
time it takes to do the outside the loop calculation.

time script ?count?

Returns the number of milliseconds it took to execute script.

If count is specified, it will run the script count times, and
average the result. The time is elapsed time, not CPU time.

Example

proc timetst1 {lst} {

set x [lsearch $lst "5000"]
return $x
}

proc timetst2 {array} {

upvar $array a
return $a(5000);
}

# Make a long list and a large array.

for {set i 0} {$i < 5001} {incr i} {
set array($i) $i
lappend list $i
}

puts "Time for list search: [ time {timetst1 $list} 10]"

puts "Time for array index: [ time {timetst2 array} 10]"
 Channel I/O: socket, fileevent, vwait
Tcl I/O is based on a the concept of channels. A channel is conceptually
similar to a FILE * in C, or a stream in shell programming. The difference is
that a channel may be a either a stream device like a file, or a connection
oriented construct like a socket.

A stream based channel is created with the open command, as discussed in

lesson 26. A socket based channel is created with a socket command. A
socket can be opened as either as a client, or as a server.

If a socket channel is opened as a server, then the tcl program will 'listen' on
that channel for another task to attempt to connect with it. When this
happens, a new channel is created for that link (server-> new client), and
the tcl program continues to listen for connections on the original port
number. In this way, a single Tcl server could be talking to several clients
simultaneously.

When a channel exists, a handler can be defined that will be invoked when
the channel is available for reading or writing. This handler is defined with
the fileeventcommand. When a tcl procedure does a getsor puts to a
blocking device, and the device isn't ready for I/O, the program will block
until the device is ready. This may be a long while if the other end of the I/O
channel has gone off line. Using the fileevent command, the program only
accesses an I/O channel when it is ready to move data.

Finally, there is a command to wait until an event happens.

The vwait command will wait until a variable is set. This can be used to
create a semaphore style functionality for the interaction between client and
server, and let a controlling procedure know that an event has occurred.

Look at the example, and you'll see the socket command being used as both
client and server, and the fileevent and vwaitcommands being used to
control the I/O between the client and server.

Note in particular the flush commands being used. Just as a channel that is
opened as a pipe to a command doesn't send data until either a flush is
invoked, or a buffer is filled, the socket based channels don't automatically
send data.

socket -server command ?options? port

 The socket command with the -server flag starts a server socket
listing on port port. When a connection occurs on port, the
proc command is called with the arguments:

 channel - The channel for the new client

 address - The IP Address of this client
 port The port that is assigned to this client

socket ?options? host port

The socket command without the -serveroption opens a client
connection to the system with IP Address host and port
address port. The IP Address may be given as a numeric string,
or as a fully qualified domain address.
To connect to the local host, use the address 127.0.0.1 (the
loopback address).
fileevent channelID readable ?script?

fileevent channelID writeable ?script?

The fileevent command defines a handler to be invoked when a

condition occurs. The conditions are readable, which
invokes script when data is ready to be read onchannelID,
and writeable, when channelIDis ready to receive data. Note that
end-of-file must be checked for by the script.
vwait varName

The vwait command pauses the execution of a script until some

background action sets the value of varName. A background
action can be a proc invoked by a fileevent, or a socket
connection, or an event from a tk widget.

Examples

proc serverOpen {channel addr port} {

global connected
set connected 1
fileevent $channel readable "readLine Server $channel"
 puts "OPENED"
}

proc readLine {who channel} {

global didRead
if { [gets $channel line] < 0} {
fileevent $channel readable {}
after idle "close $channel;set out 1"
} else {
puts "READ LINE: $line"
puts $channel "This is a return"
flush $channel;
set didRead 1
}
}

set connected 0
# catch {socket -server serverOpen 33000} server
set server [socket -server serverOpen 33000]

after 100 update

set sock [socket -async 127.0.0.1 33000]

vwait connected

puts $sock "A Test Line"

flush $sock
vwait didRead
set len [gets $sock line]
puts "Return line: $len -- $line"

catch {close $sock}

vwait out
close $serverL
 Time and Date – clock

The clock command provides access to the time and date functions
in Tcl. Depending on the subcommands invoked, it can acquire the
current time, or convert between different representations of time
and date.

The clock command is a platform independent method of getting the display

functionality of the unix date command, and provides access to the values
returned by a unix gettime() call.

clock seconds
The clock seconds command returns the time in seconds
since the epoch. The date of the epoch varies for different
operating systems, thus this value is useful for comparison
purposes, or as an input to theclock format command.
clock format clockValue ?-gmt boolean? ?-format string?
The format subcommand formats a clockvalue (as returned
by clock secondsinto a human readable string.

The -gmt switch takes a boolean as the second argument. If

the boolean is 1 or True, then the time will be formatted as
Greenwich Mean Time, otherwise, it will be formatted as local
time.

The -format option controls what format the return will be in.
The contents of the string argument to format has similar
contents as the format statement (as discussed in lesson 19,
33 and 34). In addition, there are several more %*descriptors
that can be used to describe the output.

These include:

 %a . . . . Abbreviated weekday name (Mon, Tue, etc.)

 %A . . . . Full weekday name (Monday, Tuesday, etc.)
  %b . . . . Abbreviated month name (Jan, Feb, etc.)
 %B . . . . Full month name (January, February, etc.)
 %d. . . . . Day of month
 %j . . . . . Julian day of year
 %m . . . . Month number (01-12)
 %y. . . . . Year in century
 %Y . . . . Year with 4 digits
 %H . . . . Hour (00-23)
 %I . . . . . Hour (00-12)
 %M . . . . Minutes (00-59)
 %S . . . . . Seconds(00-59)
 %p . . . . . PM or AM
 %D . . . . Date as %m/%d/%y
 %r. . . . . Time as %I:%M:%S %p
 %R . . . . Time as %H:%M
 %T . . . . Time as %H:%M:%S
 %Z . . . . Time Zone Name

clock scan dateString -option value...?

The scan subcommand converts a human readable string to a
system clock value, as would be returned by clock seconds

The -format option is used to describe the format of

the dateString

If -format is not used, the command tries to guess the format

of dateString, sometimes with surprising results. It's best to
use -format. The following forms will probably return
expected results:

time
A time of day in one of the formats shown below. Meridian
may be AM, or PM, or a capitalization variant. If it is not
specified, then the hour (hh) is interpreted as a 24 hour clock.
Zone may be a three letter description of a time zone, EST,
PDT, etc.

 hh:mm:ss ?meridian? ?zone?

 hhmm ?meridian? ?zone?
 date
A date in one of the formats shown below.

 mm/dd/yy
 mm/dd
 monthname dd, yy
 monthname dd
 dd monthname yy
 dd monthname
 day, dd monthname yy

Example

set systemTime [clock seconds]

puts "The time is: [clock format $systemTime -format %H:%M:%S]"

puts "The date is: [clock format $systemTime -format %D]"
puts [clock format $systemTime -format {Today is: %A, the %d of %B, %Y}]
puts "\n the default format for the time is: [clock format $systemTime]\n"

set halBirthBook "Jan 12, 1997"

set halBirthMovie "Jan 12, 1992"
set bookSeconds [clock scan $halBirthBook -format {%b %d, %Y}]
set movieSeconds [set movieSeconds [clock scan $halBirthMovie -format {%b
%d, %Y}]]

puts "The book and movie versions of '2001, A Space Oddysey' had a"
puts "discrepancy of [expr {$bookSeconds - $movieSeconds}] seconds in how"
puts "soon we would have sentient computers like the HAL 9000"
 More channel I/O - fblocked & fconfigure

The previous lessons have shown how to use channels with files and
blocking sockets. Tcl also supports non-blocking reads and writes,
and allows you to configure the sizes of the I/O buffers, and how
lines are terminated.

A non-blocking read or write means that instead of a gets call waiting until
data is available, it will return immediately. If there was data available, it
will be read, and if no data is available, the gets call will return a 0 length.

If you have several channels that must be checked for input, you can use
the fileeventcommand to trigger reads on the channels, and then use
the fblocked command to determine when all the data is read.

The fblocked and fconfigure commands provide more control over the
behavior of a channel.

The fblocked command checks whether a channel has returned all available
input. It is useful when you are working with a channel that has been set to
non-blocking mode and you need to determine if there should be data
available, or if the channel has been closed from the other end.

The fconfigure command has many options that allow you to query or fine
tune the behavior of a channel including whether the channel is blocking or
non-blocking, the buffer size, the end of line character, etc.

fconfigure channel ?param1? ?value1? ?param2? ?value2?

Configures the behavior of a channel. If no param values are
provided, a list of the valid configuration parameters and their
values is returned.

If a single parameter is given on the command line, the value

of that parameter is returned.

If one or more pairs of param/value pairs are provided, those

parameters are set to the requested value.
 Parameters that can be set include:

 -blocking . . . Determines whether or not the task will

block when data cannot be moved on a channel. (i.e. If
no data is available on a read, or the buffer is full on a
write).
 -buffersize . . . The number of bytes that will be
buffered before data is sent, or can be buffered before
being read when data is received. The value must be an
integer between 10 and 1000000.
 -translation . . . Sets how Tcl will terminate a line when
it is output. By default, the lines are terminated with the
newline, carriage return, or newline/carriage return that
is appropriate to the system on which the interpreter is
running.

This can be configured to be:

o auto . . . Translates newline, carriage return, or

newline/carriage return as an end of line marker.
Outputs the correct line termination for the current
platform.
o binary . . Treats newlines as end of line markers.
Does not add any line termination to lines being
output.
o cr . . . . Treats carriage returns as the end of line
marker (and translates them to newline internally).
Output lines are terminated with a carriage return.
This is the Macintosh standard.
o crlf . . . Treats cr/lf pairs as the end of line marker,
and terminates output lines with a carriage
return/linefeed combination. This is the Windows
standard, and should also be used for all line-
oriented network protocols.
o lf . . . . Treats linefeeds as the end of line marker,
and terminates output lines with a linefeed. This is
the Unix standard.

The example is similar to the lesson 40 example with a client and server
socket in the same script. It shows a server channel being configured to be
non-blocking, and using the default buffering style - data is not made
availalble to the script until a newline is present, or the buffer has filled.

When the first write:

puts -nonewline $sock "A Test Line"

is done, the fileevent triggers the read, but the gets can't read
characters because there is no newline. The gets returns a -1,
and fblocked returns a 1. When a bare newline is sent, the data in
the input buffer will become available, and the gets returns 18,
and fblocked returns 0.

Example

proc serverOpen {channel addr port} {

puts "channel: $channel - from Address: $addr Port: $port"
puts "The default state for blocking is: [fconfigure $channel -
blocking]"
puts "The default buffer size is: [fconfigure $channel -buffersize ]"

# Set this channel to be non-blocking.

fconfigure $channel -blocking 0
set bl [fconfigure $channel -blocking]
puts "After fconfigure the state for blocking is: $bl"

# Change the buffer size to be smaller

fconfigure $channel -buffersize 12
puts "After Fconfigure buffer size is: [fconfigure $channel -buffersize
]\n"

# When input is available, read it.

fileevent $channel readable "readLine Server $channel"
}

proc readLine {who channel} {

global didRead
global blocked
 puts "There is input for $who on $channel"

set len [gets $channel line]

set blocked [fblocked $channel]
puts "Characters Read: $len Fblocked: $blocked"

if {$len < 0} {
if {$blocked} {
puts "Input is blocked"
} else {
puts "The socket was closed - closing my end"
close $channel;
}
} else {
puts "Read $len characters: $line"
puts $channel "This is a return"
flush $channel;
}
incr didRead;
}

set server [socket -server serverOpen 33000]

after 120 update; # This kicks MS-Windows machines for this application

set sock [socket 127.0.0.1 33000]

set bl [fconfigure $sock -blocking]

set bu [fconfigure $sock -buffersize]
puts "Original setting for sock: Sock blocking: $bl buffersize: $bu"

fconfigure $sock -blocking No

fconfigure $sock -buffersize 8;
 set bl [fconfigure $sock -blocking]
set bu [fconfigure $sock -buffersize]
puts "Modified setting for sock: Sock blocking: $bl buffersize: $bu\n"

# Send a line to the server -- NOTE flush

set didRead 0
puts -nonewline $sock "A Test Line"
flush $sock;

# Loop until two reads have been done.

while {$didRead < 2} {

# Wait for didRead to be set
vwait didRead
if {$blocked} {
puts $sock "Newline"
flush $sock
puts "SEND NEWLINE"
}
}

set len [gets $sock line]

puts "Return line: $len -- $line"
close $sock
vwait didRead
catch {close $server}

Child interpreters
For most applications, a single interpreter and subroutines are quite
sufficient. However, if you are building a client-server system (for example)
you may need to have several interpreters talking to different clients, and
maintaining their state. You can do this with state variables, naming
conventions, or swapping state to and from disk, but that gets messy.
The interp command creates new child interpreters within an existing
interpreter. The child interpreters can have their own sets of variables,
commands and open files, or they can be given access to items in the parent
interpreter.

If the child is created with the -safe option, it will not be able to access the
file system, or otherwise damage your system. This feature allows a script to
evaluate code from an unknown (and untrusted) source.

The names of child interpreters are a hierarchical list. If interpreter foo is a

child of interpreter bar, then it can be accessed from the toplevel interpreter
as {bar foo}.

The primary interpreter (what you get when you type tclsh) is the empty
list {}.

The interp command has several subcommands and options. A critical

subset is:

interp create -safe name

Creates a new interpreter and returns the name. If the -

safe option is used, the new interpreter will be unable to access
certain dangerous system facilities.
interp delete name

Deletes the named child interpreter.

interp eval args

This is similar to the regular eval command, except that it

evaluates the script in the child interpreter instead of the
primary interpreter. The interp eval command concatenates the
args into a string, and ships that line to the child interpreter to
evaluate.
interp alias srcPath srcCmd targetPath targetCmd arg arg

The interp alias command allows a script to share procedures

between child interpreters or between a child and the primary
interpreter.
Note that slave interpreters have a separate state and namespace, but
do not have separate event loops. These are not threads, and they will not
execute independently. If one slave interpreter gets stopped by a blocking
I/O request, for instance, no other interpreters will be processed until it has
unblocked.

The example below shows two child interpreters being created under the
primary interpreter {}. Each of these interpreters is given a
variable name which contains the name of the interpreter.

Note that the alias command causes the procedure to be evaluated in the
interpreter in which the procedure was defined, not the interpreter in which
it was evaluated. If you need a procedure to exist within an interpreter, you
must interp eval a proc command within that interpreter. If you want an
interpreter to be able to call back to the primary interpreter (or other
interpreter) you can use the interp alias command.

Example

set i1 [interp create firstChild]

set i2 [interp create secondChild]

puts "first child interp: $i1"

puts "second child interp: $i2\n"

# Set a variable "name" in each child interp, and

# create a procedure within each interp
# to return that value
foreach int [list $i1 $i2] {
interp eval $int [list set name $int]
interp eval $int {proc nameis {} {global name; return "nameis: $name";}
}
}

foreach int [list $i1 $i2] {

interp eval $int "puts \"EVAL IN $int: name is \$name\""
puts "Return from 'nameis' is: [interp eval $int nameis]"
}
#
# A short program to return the value of "name"
#
proc rtnName {} {
global name
return "rtnName is: $name"
}

#
# Alias that procedure to a proc in $i1
interp alias $i1 rtnName {} rtnName

puts ""

# This is an error. The alias causes the evaluation

# to happen in the {} interpreter, where name is
# not defined.
puts "firstChild reports [interp eval $i1 rtnName]"