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Mario Fetka
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tcl7.3/README
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tcl7.3/README
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Tcl
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by John Ousterhout
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University of California at Berkeley
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ouster@cs.berkeley.edu
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1. Introduction
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---------------
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This directory contains the sources and documentation for Tcl, an
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embeddable tool command language. The information here corresponds
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to release 7.3.
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2. Documentation
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----------------
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The best way to get started with Tcl is to read the draft of my
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upcoming book on Tcl and Tk, which can be retrieved using anonymous
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FTP from the directory "ucb/tcl" on ftp.cs.berkeley.edu. Part I of the
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book provides an introduction to writing Tcl scripts and Part III
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describes how to write C code that uses the Tcl C library procedures.
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The "doc" subdirectory in this release contains a complete set of manual
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entries for Tcl. Files with extension ".1" are for programs (for
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example, tclsh.1); files with extension ".3" are for C library procedures;
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and files with extension ".n" describe Tcl commands. The file "doc/Tcl.n"
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gives a quick summary of the Tcl language syntax. To print any of the man
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pages, cd to the "doc" directory and invoke your favorite variant of
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troff using the normal -man macros, for example
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ditroff -man Tcl.n
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to print Tcl.n. If Tcl has been installed correctly and your "man"
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program supports it, you should be able to access the Tcl manual entries
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using the normal "man" mechanisms, such as
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man Tcl
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3. Compiling and installing Tcl
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-------------------------------
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This release should compile and run "out of the box" on any UNIX-like
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system that approximates POSIX, BSD, or System V. I know that it runs
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on workstations from Sun, DEC, H-P, IBM, and Silicon Graphics, and on
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PC's running SCO UNIX and Xenix. To compile Tcl, do the following:
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(a) Type "./configure" in this directory. This runs a configuration
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script created by GNU autoconf, which configures Tcl for your
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system and creates a Makefile. The configure script allows you
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to customize the Tcl configuration for your site; for details on
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how you can do this, see the file "configure.info".
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(b) Type "make". This will create a library archive called "libtcl.a"
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and an interpreter application called "tclsh" that allows you to type
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Tcl commands interactively or execute script files.
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(c) If the make fails then you'll have to personalize the Makefile
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for your site or possibly modify the distribution in other ways.
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First check the file "porting.notes" to see if there are hints
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for compiling on your system. If you need to modify Makefile,
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there are comments at the beginning of it that describe the things
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you might want to change and how to change them.
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(d) Type "make install" to install Tcl binaries and script files in
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standard places. You'll need write permission on /usr/local to
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do this. See the Makefile for details on where things get
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installed.
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(e) At this point you can play with Tcl by invoking the "tclsh"
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program and typing Tcl commands. However, if you haven't installed
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Tcl then you'll first need to set your TCL_LIBRARY variable to
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hold the full path name of the "library" subdirectory.
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If you have trouble compiling Tcl, I'd suggest looking at the file
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"porting.notes". It contains information that people have sent me about
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changes they had to make to compile Tcl in various environments. I make
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no guarantees that this information is accurate, complete, or up-to-date,
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but you may find it useful. If you get Tcl running on a new configuration,
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I'd be happy to receive new information to add to "porting.notes". I'm
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also interested in hearing how to change the configuration setup so that
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Tcl compiles on additional platforms "out of the box".
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4. Test suite
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-------------
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There is a relatively complete test suite for all of the Tcl core in
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the subdirectory "tests". To use it just type "make test" in this
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directory. You should then see a printout of the test files processed.
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If any errors occur, you'll see a much more substantial printout for
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each error. See the README file in the "tests" directory for more
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information on the test suite.
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5. Summary of changes in recent releases
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----------------------------------------
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Tcl 7.3 is a minor release that includes only one change relative to
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Tcl 7.1 (it fixes a portability problem that prevented tclMain.c from
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compiling on some machines due to a missing R_OK definition). Tcl 7.3
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should be completely compatible with Tcl 7.1 and Tcl 7.0.
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Tcl 7.2 was a mistake; it was withdrawn shortly after it was released.
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Tcl 7.1 is a minor release that consists almost entirely of bug fixes.
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The only feature change is to allow no arguments in invocations of "list"
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and "concat". 7.1 should be completely compatible with 7.0.
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Tcl 7.0 is a major new release that includes several new features
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and a few incompatible changes. For a complete list of all changes
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to Tcl in chronological order, see the file "changes". Those changes
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likely to cause compatibility problems with existing C code or Tcl
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scripts are specially marked. The most important changes are
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summarized below.
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Tcl configuration and installation has improved in several ways:
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1. GNU autoconf is now used for configuring Tcl prior to compilation.
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2. The "tclTest" program no longer exists. It has been replaced by
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"tclsh", which is a true shell-like program based around Tcl (tclTest
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didn't really work very well as a shell). There's a new program
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"tcltest" which is the same as "tclsh" except that it includes a
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few extra Tcl commands for testing purposes.
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3. A new procedure Tcl_AppInit has been added to separate all of the
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application-specific initialization from the Tcl main program. This
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should make it easier to build new Tcl applications that include
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extra packages.
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4. There are now separate manual entries for each of the built-in
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commands. The manual entry "Tcl.n", which used to describe all of
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the built-ins plus many other things, now contains a terse but
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complete description of the Tcl language syntax.
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Here is a list of all incompatibilities that affect Tcl scripts:
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1. There have been several changes to backslash processing:
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- Unknown backslash sequences such as "\*" are now replaced with
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the following character (such as "*"); Tcl used to treat the
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backslash as an ordinary character in these cases, so both the
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backslash and the following character would be passed through.
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- Backslash-newline now eats up any white space after the newline,
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replacing the whole sequence with a single space character. Tcl
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used to just remove the backslash and newline.
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- The obsolete sequences \Cx, \Mx, \CMx, and \e no longer get
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special treatment.
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- The "format" command no longer does backslash processing on
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its input string.
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You can invoke the shell command below to locate backslash uses that
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may potentially behave differently under Tcl 7.0. This command
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will print all of the lines from the script files "*.tcl" that may
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not work correctly under Tcl 7.0:
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egrep '(\\$)|(\\[^][bfnrtv\0-9{}$ ;"])' *.tcl
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In some cases the command may print lines that are actually OK.
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2. The "glob" command now returns only the names of files that
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actually exist, and it only returns names ending in "/" for
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directories.
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3. When Tcl prints floating-point numbers (e.g. in the "expr" command)
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it ensures that the numbers contain a "." or "e" so that they don't
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look like integers.
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4. The "regsub" command now overwrites its result variable in all cases.
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If there is no match, then the source string is copied to the result.
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5. The "exec", "glob", "regexp", and "regsub" commands now include a
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"--" switch; if the first non-switch argument starts with a "-" then
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there must be a "--" switch or the non-switch argument will be treated
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as a switch.
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6. The keyword "UNIX" in the variable "errorCode" has been changed to
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"POSIX".
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7. The "format" and "scan" commands no longer support capitalized
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conversion specifiers such as "%D" that aren't supported by ANSI
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sprintf and sscanf.
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Here is a list of all of the incompatibilities that affect C code that
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uses the Tcl library procedures. If you use an ANSI C compiler then
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any potential problems will be detected when you compile your code: if
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your code compiles cleanly then you don't need to worry about anything.
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1. Tcl_TildeString now takes a dynamic string as an argument, which is
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used to hold the result.
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2. tclHash.h has been eliminated; its contents are now in tcl.h.
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3. The Tcl_History command has been eliminated: the "history" command
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is now automatically part of the interpreter.
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4. The Tcl_Fork and Tcl_WaitPids procedures have been deleted (just
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use fork and waitpid instead).
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5. The "flags" and "termPtr" arguments to Tcl_Eval have been eliminated,
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as has the "noSep" argument to Tcl_AppendElement and the TCL_NO_SPACE
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flag for Tcl_SetVar and Tcl_SetVar2.
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6. The Tcl_CmdBuf structure has been eliminated, along with the procedures
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Tcl_CreateCmdBuf, Tcl_DeleteCmdBuf, and Tcl_AssembleCmd. Use dynamic
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strings instead.
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7. Tcl_UnsetVar and Tcl_UnsetVar2 now return TCL_OK or TCL_ERROR instead
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of 0 or -1.
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8. Tcl_UnixError has been renamed to Tcl_PosixError.
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9. Tcl no longer redefines the library procedures "setenv", "putenv",
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and "unsetenv" by default. You have to set up special configuration
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in the Makefile if you want this.
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Below is a sampler of the most important new features in Tcl 7.0. Refer
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to the "changes" file for a complete list.
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1. The "expr" command supports transcendental and other math functions,
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plus it allows you to type expressions in multiple arguments. Its
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numerics have also been improved in several ways (e.g. support for
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NaN).
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2. The "format" command now supports XPG3 %n$ conversion specifiers.
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3. The "exec" command supports many new kinds of redirection such as
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>> and >&, plus it allows you to leave out the space between operators
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like < and the file name. For processes put into the background,
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"exec" returns a list of process ids.
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4. The "lsearch" command now supports regular expressions and exact
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matching.
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5. The "lsort" command has several new switches to control the
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sorting process (e.g. numerical sort, user-provided sort function,
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reverse sort, etc.).
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6. There's a new command "pid" that can be used to return the current
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process ids or the process ids from an open file that refers to a
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pipeline.
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7. There's a new command "switch" that should now be used instead
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of "case". It supports regular expressions and exact matches, and
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also uses single patterns instead of pattern lists. "Case" is
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now deprecated, although it's been retained for compatibility.
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8. A new dynamic string library has been added to make it easier to
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build up strings and lists of arbitrary length. See the manual entry
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"DString.3".
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9. Variable handling has been improved in several ways: you can
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now use whole-array traces to create variables on demand, you can
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delete variables during traces, you can upvar to array elements,
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and you can retarget an upvar variable to stop through a sequence
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of variables. Also, there's a new library procedure Tcl_LinkVar
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that can be used to associate a C variable with a Tcl variable and
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keep them in sync.
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10. New library procedures Tcl_SetCommandInfo and Tcl_GetCommandInfo
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allow you to set and get the clientData and callback procedure for
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a command.
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11. Added "-errorinfo" and "-errorcode" options to "return" command;
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they allow much better error handling.
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12. Made prompts in tclsh user-settable via "tcl_prompt1" and
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"tcl_prompt2" variables.
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13. Added low-level support that is needed to handle signals: see
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Tcl_AsyncCreate, etc.
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6. Tcl newsgroup
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-----------------
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There is a network news group "comp.lang.tcl" intended for the exchange
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of information about Tcl, Tk, and related applications. Feel free to use
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the newsgroup both for general information questions and for bug reports.
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I read the newsgroup and will attempt to fix bugs and problems reported
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to it.
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7. Tcl contributed archive
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--------------------------
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Many people have created exciting packages and applications based on Tcl
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and made them freely available to the Tcl community. An archive of these
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contributions is kept on the machine harbor.ecn.purdue.edu. You can
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access the archive using anonymous FTP; the Tcl contributed archive is
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in the directory "pub/tcl". The archive also contains an FAQ ("frequently
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asked questions") document that provides solutions to problems that
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are commonly encountered by TCL newcomers.
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8. Support and bug fixes
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------------------------
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I'm very interested in receiving bug reports and suggestions for
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improvements. Bugs usually get fixed quickly (particularly if they
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are serious), but enhancements may take a while and may not happen at
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all unless there is widespread support for them (I'm trying to slow
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the rate at which Tcl turns into a kitchen sink). It's almost impossible
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to make incompatible changes to Tcl at this point.
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The Tcl community is too large for me to provide much individual
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support for users. If you need help I suggest that you post questions
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to comp.lang.tcl. I read the newsgroup and will attempt to answer
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esoteric questions for which no-one else is likely to know the answer.
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In addition, Tcl support and training are available commercially from
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NeoSoft. For more information, send e-mail to "info@neosoft.com".
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9. Tcl release organization
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---------------------------
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Each Tcl release is identified by two numbers separated by a dot, e.g.
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6.7 or 7.0. If a new release contains changes that are likely to break
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existing C code or Tcl scripts then the major release number increments
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and the minor number resets to zero: 6.0, 7.0, etc. If a new release
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contains only bug fixes and compatible changes, then the minor number
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increments without changing the major number, e.g. 7.1, 7.2, etc. If
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you have C code or Tcl scripts that work with release X.Y, then they
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should also work with any release X.Z as long as Z > Y.
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Beta releases have an additional suffix of the form bx. For example,
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Tcl 7.0b1 is the first beta release of Tcl version 7.0, Tcl 7.0b2 is
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the second beta release, and so on. A beta release is an initial
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version of a new release, used to fix bugs and bad features before
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declaring the release stable. Each new release will be preceded by
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one or more beta releases. I hope that lots of people will try out
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the beta releases and report problems back to me. I'll make new beta
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releases to fix the problems, until eventually there is a beta release
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that appears to be stable. Once this occurs I'll remove the beta
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suffix so that the last beta release becomes the official release.
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If a new release contains incompatibilities (e.g. 7.0) then I can't
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promise to maintain compatibility among its beta releases. For example,
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release 7.0b2 may not be backward compatible with 7.0b1. I'll try
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to minimize incompatibilities between beta releases, but if a major
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problem turns up then I'll fix it even if it introduces an
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incompatibility. Once the official release is made then there won't
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be any more incompatibilities until the next release with a new major
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version number.
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10. Compiling on non-UNIX systems
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--------------------------------
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The Tcl features that depend on system calls peculiar to UNIX (stat,
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fork, exec, times, etc.) are now separate from the main body of Tcl,
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which only requires a few generic library procedures such as malloc
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and strcpy. Thus it should be relatively easy to compile Tcl for
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non-UNIX machines such as MACs and DOS PC's, although a number of
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UNIX-specific commands will be absent (e.g. exec, time, and glob).
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See the comments at the top of Makefile for information on how to
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compile without the UNIX features.
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