6 Jim Tcl v0.77 - reference manual for the Jim Tcl scripting language
16 jimsh -e '<immediate-script>'
21 * <<CommandIndex,Command Reference>>
22 * <<OperatorPrecedence,Operator Precedence>>
23 * <<BuiltinVariables, Builtin Variables>>
24 * <<BackslashSequences, Backslash Sequences>>
28 Jim Tcl is a small footprint reimplementation of the Tcl scripting language.
29 The core language engine is compatible with Tcl 8.5+, while implementing
30 a significant subset of the Tcl 8.6 command set, plus additional features
31 available only in Jim Tcl.
33 Some notable differences with Tcl 8.5/8.6 are:
35 1. Object-based I/O (aio), but with a Tcl-compatibility layer
36 2. I/O: Support for sockets and pipes including udp, unix domain sockets and IPv6
38 4. Support for references (`ref`/`getref`/`setref`) and garbage collection
39 5. Builtin dictionary type (`dict`) with some limitations compared to Tcl 8.6
40 6. `env` command to access environment variables
41 7. Operating system features: `os.fork`, `os.wait`, `os.uptime`, `signal`, `alarm`, `sleep`
42 8. Much better error reporting. `info stacktrace` as a replacement for '$errorInfo', '$errorCode'
43 9. Support for "static" variables in procedures
44 10. Threads and coroutines are not supported
45 11. Command and variable traces are not supported
46 12. Built-in command line editing
47 13. Expression shorthand syntax: +$(...)+
48 14. Modular build allows many features to be omitted or built as dynamic, loadable modules
49 15. Highly suitable for use in an embedded environment
50 16. Support for UDP, IPv6, Unix-Domain sockets in addition to TCP sockets
54 Changes between 0.76 and 0.77
55 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
56 1. Add support for `aio sync`
57 2. Add SSL and TLS support in aio
59 4. Added support for boolean constants in `expr`
60 5. `string is` now supports 'boolean' class
61 6. Add support for `aio lock` and `aio unlock`
62 7. Add new `interp` command
64 Changes between 0.75 and 0.76
65 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
66 1. `glob` now supports the +-tails+ option
67 2. Add support for `string cat`
68 3. Allow `info source` to add source info
70 Changes between 0.74 and 0.75
71 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
72 1. `binary`, `pack` and `unpack` now support floating point
73 2. `file copy` +-force+ handles source and target as the same file
74 3. `format` now supports +%b+ for binary conversion
75 4. `lsort` now supports +-unique+ and +-real+
76 5. Add support for half-close with `aio close` +?r|w?+
77 6. Add `socket pair` for a bidirectional pipe
78 7. Add '--random-hash' to randomise hash tables for greater security
79 8. `dict` now supports 'for', 'values', 'incr', 'append', 'lappend', 'update', 'info' and 'replace'
80 9. `file stat` no longer requires the variable name
81 10. Add support for `file link`
83 Changes between 0.73 and 0.74
84 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
85 1. Numbers with leading zeros are treated as decimal, not octal
87 3. Add LFS (64 bit) support for `aio seek`, `aio tell`, `aio copyto`, `file copy`
88 4. `string compare` and `string equal` now support '-length'
89 5. `glob` now supports '-directory'
91 Changes between 0.72 and 0.73
92 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
93 1. Built-in regexp now support non-capturing parentheses: (?:...)
94 2. Add `string replace`
95 3. Add `string totitle`
97 5. Add +build-jim-ext+ for easy separate building of loadable modules (extensions)
98 6. `local` now works with any command, not just procs
99 7. Add `info alias` to access the target of an alias
100 8. UTF-8 encoding past the basic multilingual plane (BMP) is supported
103 11. Most extensions are now enabled by default
104 12. Add support for namespaces and the `namespace` command
107 Changes between 0.71 and 0.72
108 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
109 1. procs now allow 'args' and optional parameters in any position
110 2. Add Tcl-compatible expr functions, `rand()`, `srand()` and `pow()`
111 3. Add support for the '-force' option to `file delete`
112 4. Better diagnostics when `source` fails to load a script with a missing quote or bracket
113 5. New +tcl_platform(pathSeparator)+
114 6. Add support settings the modification time with `file mtime`
115 7. `exec` is now fully supported on win32 (mingw32)
116 8. `file join`, `pwd`, `glob` etc. now work for mingw32
117 9. Line editing is now supported for the win32 console (mingw32)
118 10. Add `aio listen` command
120 Changes between 0.70 and 0.71
121 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
122 1. Allow 'args' to be renamed in procs
123 2. Add +$(...)+ shorthand syntax for expressions
124 3. Add automatic reference variables in procs with +&var+ syntax
125 4. Support +jimsh --version+
126 5. Additional variables in +tcl_platform()+
127 6. `local` procs now push existing commands and `upcall` can call them
128 7. Add `loop` command (TclX compatible)
129 8. Add `aio buffering` command
130 9. `info complete` can now return the missing character
131 10. `binary format` and `binary scan` are now (optionally) supported
132 11. Add `string byterange`
133 12. Built-in regexp now support non-greedy repetition (*?, +?, ??)
137 Tcl stands for 'tool command language' and is pronounced
138 'http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/tickle[tickle]'.
139 It is actually two things: a language and a library.
141 First, Tcl is a simple textual language, intended primarily for
142 issuing commands to interactive programs such as text editors,
143 debuggers, illustrators, and shells. It has a simple syntax and is also
144 programmable, so Tcl users can write command procedures to provide more
145 powerful commands than those in the built-in set.
147 Second, Tcl is a library package that can be embedded in application
148 programs. The Tcl library consists of a parser for the Tcl language,
149 routines to implement the Tcl built-in commands, and procedures that
150 allow each application to extend Tcl with additional commands specific
151 to that application. The application program generates Tcl commands and
152 passes them to the Tcl parser for execution. Commands may be generated
153 by reading characters from an input source, or by associating command
154 strings with elements of the application's user interface, such as menu
155 entries, buttons, or keystrokes.
157 When the Tcl library receives commands it parses them into component
158 fields and executes built-in commands directly. For commands implemented
159 by the application, Tcl calls back to the application to execute the
160 commands. In many cases commands will invoke recursive invocations of the
161 Tcl interpreter by passing in additional strings to execute (procedures,
162 looping commands, and conditional commands all work in this way).
164 An application program gains three advantages by using Tcl for its command
165 language. First, Tcl provides a standard syntax: once users know Tcl,
166 they will be able to issue commands easily to any Tcl-based application.
167 Second, Tcl provides programmability. All a Tcl application needs
168 to do is to implement a few application-specific low-level commands.
169 Tcl provides many utility commands plus a general programming interface
170 for building up complex command procedures. By using Tcl, applications
171 need not re-implement these features.
173 Third, Tcl can be used as a common language for communicating between
174 applications. Inter-application communication is not built into the
175 Tcl core described here, but various add-on libraries, such as the Tk
176 toolkit, allow applications to issue commands to each other. This makes
177 it possible for applications to work together in much more powerful ways
178 than was previously possible.
180 Fourth, Jim Tcl includes a command processor, +jimsh+, which can be
181 used to run standalone Tcl scripts, or to run Tcl commands interactively.
183 This manual page focuses primarily on the Tcl language. It describes
184 the language syntax and the built-in commands that will be available
185 in any application based on Tcl. The individual library procedures are
186 described in more detail in separate manual pages, one per procedure.
188 JIMSH COMMAND INTERPRETER
189 -------------------------
190 A simple, but powerful command processor, +jimsh+, is part of Jim Tcl.
191 It may be invoked in interactive mode as:
195 or to process the Tcl script in a file with:
199 It may also be invoked to execute an immediate script with:
205 Interactive mode reads Tcl commands from standard input, evaluates
206 those commands and prints the results.
209 Welcome to Jim version 0.73, Copyright (c) 2005-8 Salvatore Sanfilippo
212 . lsort [info commands p*]
213 package parray pid popen proc puts pwd
214 . foreach i {a b c} {
221 invalid command name "bad"
225 If +jimsh+ is configured with line editing (it is by default) and a VT-100-compatible
226 terminal is detected, Emacs-style line editing commands are available, including:
227 arrow keys, +\^W+ to erase a word, +\^U+ to erase the line, +^R+ for reverse incremental search
228 in history. Additionally, the +h+ command may be used to display the command history.
230 Command line history is automatically saved and loaded from +~/.jim_history+
232 In interactive mode, +jimsh+ automatically runs the script +~/.jimrc+ at startup
237 The central data structure in Tcl is an interpreter (C type 'Jim_Interp').
238 An interpreter consists of a set of command bindings, a set of variable
239 values, and a few other miscellaneous pieces of state. Each Tcl command
240 is interpreted in the context of a particular interpreter.
242 Some Tcl-based applications will maintain multiple interpreters
243 simultaneously, each associated with a different widget or portion of
244 the application. Interpreters are relatively lightweight structures.
245 They can be created and deleted quickly, so application programmers should
246 feel free to use multiple interpreters if that simplifies the application.
250 Tcl supports only one type of data: strings. All commands, all arguments
251 to commands, all command results, and all variable values are strings.
253 Where commands require numeric arguments or return numeric results,
254 the arguments and results are passed as strings. Many commands expect
255 their string arguments to have certain formats, but this interpretation
256 is up to the individual commands. For example, arguments often contain
257 Tcl command strings, which may get executed as part of the commands.
258 The easiest way to understand the Tcl interpreter is to remember that
259 everything is just an operation on a string. In many cases Tcl constructs
260 will look similar to more structured constructs from other languages.
261 However, the Tcl constructs are not structured at all; they are just
262 strings of characters, and this gives them a different behaviour than
263 the structures they may look like.
265 Although the exact interpretation of a Tcl string depends on who is doing
266 the interpretation, there are three common forms that strings take:
267 commands, expressions, and lists. The major sections below discuss
268 these three forms in more detail.
272 The Tcl language has syntactic similarities to both the Unix shells
273 and Lisp. However, the interpretation of commands is different
274 in Tcl than in either of those other two systems.
275 A Tcl command string consists of one or more commands separated
276 by newline characters or semi-colons.
277 Each command consists of a collection of fields separated by
278 white space (spaces or tabs).
279 The first field must be the name of a command, and the
280 additional fields, if any, are arguments that will be passed to
281 that command. For example, the command:
285 has three fields: the first, `set`, is the name of a Tcl command, and
286 the last two, 'a' and '22', will be passed as arguments to
287 the `set` command. The command name may refer either to a built-in
288 Tcl command, an application-specific command bound in with the library
289 procedure 'Jim_CreateCommand', or a command procedure defined with the
290 `proc` built-in command.
292 Arguments are passed literally as text strings. Individual commands may
293 interpret those strings in any fashion they wish. The `set` command,
294 for example, will treat its first argument as the name of a variable
295 and its second argument as a string value to assign to that variable.
296 For other commands arguments may be interpreted as integers, lists,
297 file names, or Tcl commands.
299 Command names should normally be typed completely (e.g. no abbreviations).
300 However, if the Tcl interpreter cannot locate a command it invokes a
301 special command named `unknown` which attempts to find or create the
304 For example, at many sites `unknown` will search through library
305 directories for the desired command and create it as a Tcl procedure if
306 it is found. The `unknown` command often provides automatic completion
307 of abbreviated commands, but usually only for commands that were typed
310 It's probably a bad idea to use abbreviations in command scripts and
311 other forms that will be re-used over time: changes to the command set
312 may cause abbreviations to become ambiguous, resulting in scripts that
317 If the first non-blank character in a command is +\#+, then everything
318 from the +#+ up through the next newline character is treated as
319 a comment and ignored. When comments are embedded inside nested
320 commands (e.g. fields enclosed in braces) they must have properly-matched
321 braces (this is necessary because when Tcl parses the top-level command
322 it doesn't yet know that the nested field will be used as a command so
323 it cannot process the nested comment character as a comment).
325 GROUPING ARGUMENTS WITH DOUBLE-QUOTES
326 -------------------------------------
327 Normally each argument field ends at the next white space, but
328 double-quotes may be used to create arguments with embedded space.
330 If an argument field begins with a double-quote, then the argument isn't
331 terminated by white space (including newlines) or a semi-colon (see below
332 for information on semi-colons); instead it ends at the next double-quote
333 character. The double-quotes are not included in the resulting argument.
334 For example, the command
336 set a "This is a single argument"
338 will pass two arguments to `set`: 'a' and 'This is a single argument'.
340 Within double-quotes, command substitutions, variable substitutions,
341 and backslash substitutions still occur, as described below. If the
342 first character of a command field is not a quote, then quotes receive
343 no special interpretation in the parsing of that field.
345 GROUPING ARGUMENTS WITH BRACES
346 ------------------------------
347 Curly braces may also be used for grouping arguments. They are similar
348 to quotes except for two differences. First, they nest; this makes them
349 easier to use for complicated arguments like nested Tcl command strings.
350 Second, the substitutions described below for commands, variables, and
351 backslashes do *not* occur in arguments enclosed in braces, so braces
352 can be used to prevent substitutions where they are undesirable.
354 If an argument field begins with a left brace, then the argument ends
355 at the matching right brace. Tcl will strip off the outermost layer
356 of braces and pass the information between the braces to the command
357 without any further modification. For example, in the command
359 set a {xyz a {b c d}}
361 the `set` command will receive two arguments: 'a'
364 When braces or quotes are in effect, the matching brace or quote need
365 not be on the same line as the starting quote or brace; in this case
366 the newline will be included in the argument field along with any other
367 characters up to the matching brace or quote. For example, the `eval`
368 command takes one argument, which is a command string; `eval` invokes
369 the Tcl interpreter to execute the command string. The command
376 will assign the value '22' to 'a' and '33' to 'b'.
378 If the first character of a command field is not a left
379 brace, then neither left nor right
380 braces in the field will be treated specially (except as part of
381 variable substitution; see below).
383 COMMAND SUBSTITUTION WITH BRACKETS
384 ----------------------------------
385 If an open bracket occurs in a field of a command, then command
386 substitution occurs (except for fields enclosed in braces). All of the
387 text up to the matching close bracket is treated as a Tcl command and
388 executed immediately. Then the result of that command is substituted
389 for the bracketed text. For example, consider the command
393 When the `set` command has only a single argument, it is the name of a
394 variable and `set` returns the contents of that variable. In this case,
395 if variable 'b' has the value 'foo', then the command above is equivalent
400 Brackets can be used in more complex ways. For example, if the variable
401 'b' has the value 'foo' and the variable 'c' has the value 'gorp',
404 set a xyz[set b].[set c]
406 is equivalent to the command
411 A bracketed command may contain multiple commands separated by newlines
412 or semi-colons in the usual fashion. In this case the value of the last
413 command is used for substitution. For example, the command
418 is equivalent to the command
423 If a field is enclosed in braces then the brackets and the characters
424 between them are not interpreted specially; they are passed through to
425 the argument verbatim.
427 VARIABLE SUBSTITUTION WITH $
428 ----------------------------
429 The dollar sign (+$+) may be used as a special shorthand form for
430 substituting variable values. If +$+ appears in an argument that isn't
431 enclosed in braces then variable substitution will occur. The characters
432 after the +$+, up to the first character that isn't a number, letter,
433 or underscore, are taken as a variable name and the string value of that
434 variable is substituted for the name.
436 For example, if variable 'foo' has the value 'test', then the command
440 is equivalent to the command
444 There are two special forms for variable substitution. If the next
445 character after the name of the variable is an open parenthesis, then
446 the variable is assumed to be an array name, and all of the characters
447 between the open parenthesis and the next close parenthesis are taken as
448 an index into the array. Command substitutions and variable substitutions
449 are performed on the information between the parentheses before it is
452 For example, if the variable 'x' is an array with one element named
453 'first' and value '87' and another element named '14' and value 'more',
456 set a xyz$x(first)zyx
458 is equivalent to the command
462 If the variable 'index' has the value '14', then the command
464 set a xyz$x($index)zyx
466 is equivalent to the command
470 For more information on arrays, see VARIABLES AND ARRAYS below.
472 The second special form for variables occurs when the dollar sign is
473 followed by an open curly brace. In this case the variable name consists
474 of all the characters up to the next curly brace.
476 Array references are not possible in this form: the name between braces
477 is assumed to refer to a scalar variable. For example, if variable
478 'foo' has the value 'test', then the command
482 is equivalent to the command
487 Variable substitution does not occur in arguments that are enclosed in
488 braces: the dollar sign and variable name are passed through to the
491 The dollar sign abbreviation is simply a shorthand form. +$a+ is
492 completely equivalent to +[set a]+; it is provided as a convenience
495 SEPARATING COMMANDS WITH SEMI-COLONS
496 ------------------------------------
497 Normally, each command occupies one line (the command is terminated by a
498 newline character). However, semi-colon (+;+) is treated as a command
499 separator character; multiple commands may be placed on one line by
500 separating them with a semi-colon. Semi-colons are not treated as
501 command separators if they appear within curly braces or double-quotes.
503 BACKSLASH SUBSTITUTION
504 ----------------------
505 Backslashes may be used to insert non-printing characters into command
506 fields and also to insert special characters like braces and brackets
507 into fields without them being interpreted specially as described above.
509 The backslash sequences understood by the Tcl interpreter are
510 listed below. In each case, the backslash
511 sequence is replaced by the given character:
512 [[BackslashSequences]]
523 Carriage-return (0xd).
546 +{backslash}<space>+::
547 Space ( ): doesn't terminate argument.
550 Semi-colon: doesn't terminate command.
555 +{backslash}<newline>+::
556 Nothing: this joins two lines together
557 into a single line. This backslash feature is unique in that
558 it will be applied even when the sequence occurs within braces.
560 +{backslash}{backslash}+::
561 Backslash ('{backslash}').
564 The digits +'ddd'+ (one, two, or three of them) give the octal value of
565 the character. Note that Jim supports null characters in strings.
568 +{backslash}u\{nnn\}+::
569 +{backslash}Unnnnnnnn+::
570 The UTF-8 encoding of the unicode codepoint represented by the hex digits, +'nnnn'+, is inserted.
571 The 'u' form allows for one to four hex digits.
572 The 'U' form allows for one to eight hex digits.
573 The 'u\{nnn\}' form allows for one to eight hex digits, but makes it easier to insert
574 characters UTF-8 characters which are followed by a hex digit.
576 For example, in the command
580 the second argument to `set` will be +{x[ yza+.
582 If a backslash is followed by something other than one of the options
583 described above, then the backslash is transmitted to the argument
584 field without any special processing, and the Tcl scanner continues
585 normal processing with the next character. For example, in the
590 The first argument to `set` will be +{backslash}*a+ and the second
591 argument will be +{backslash}{foo+.
593 If an argument is enclosed in braces, then backslash sequences inside
594 the argument are parsed but no substitution occurs (except for
595 backslash-newline): the backslash
596 sequence is passed through to the argument as is, without making
597 any special interpretation of the characters in the backslash sequence.
598 In particular, backslashed braces are not counted in locating the
599 matching right brace that terminates the argument.
605 the second argument to `set` will be +{backslash}{abc+.
607 This backslash mechanism is not sufficient to generate absolutely
608 any argument structure; it only covers the
609 most common cases. To produce particularly complicated arguments
610 it is probably easiest to use the `format` command along with
611 command substitution.
613 STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS
614 ------------------------------------
616 Many string and list commands take one or more 'index' parameters which
617 specify a position in the string relative to the start or end of the string/list.
619 The index may be one of the following forms:
622 A simple integer, where '0' refers to the first element of the string
625 +integer+integer+ or::
627 The sum or difference of the two integers. e.g. +2+3+ refers to the 5th element.
628 This is useful when used with (e.g.) +$i+1+ rather than the more verbose
632 The last element of the string or list.
635 The 'nth-from-last' element of the string or list.
639 1. A command is just a string.
640 2. Within a string commands are separated by newlines or semi-colons
641 (unless the newline or semi-colon is within braces or brackets
643 3. A command consists of fields. The first field is the name of the command.
644 The other fields are strings that are passed to that command as arguments.
645 4. Fields are normally separated by white space.
646 5. Double-quotes allow white space and semi-colons to appear within
648 Command substitution, variable substitution, and backslash substitution
649 still occur inside quotes.
650 6. Braces defer interpretation of special characters.
651 If a field begins with a left brace, then it consists of everything
652 between the left brace and the matching right brace. The
653 braces themselves are not included in the argument.
654 No further processing is done on the information between the braces
655 except that backslash-newline sequences are eliminated.
656 7. If a field doesn't begin with a brace then backslash,
657 variable, and command substitution are done on the field. Only a
658 single level of processing is done: the results of one substitution
659 are not scanned again for further substitutions or any other
660 special treatment. Substitution can
661 occur on any field of a command, including the command name
662 as well as the arguments.
663 8. If the first non-blank character of a command is a +\#+, everything
664 from the +#+ up through the next newline is treated as a comment
669 The second major interpretation applied to strings in Tcl is
670 as expressions. Several commands, such as `expr`, `for`,
671 and `if`, treat one or more of their arguments as expressions
672 and call the Tcl expression processors ('Jim_ExprLong',
673 'Jim_ExprBoolean', etc.) to evaluate them.
675 The operators permitted in Tcl expressions are a subset of
676 the operators permitted in C expressions, and they have the
677 same meaning and precedence as the corresponding C operators.
678 Expressions almost always yield numeric results
679 (integer or floating-point values).
680 For example, the expression
686 Tcl expressions differ from C expressions in the way that
687 operands are specified, and in that Tcl expressions support
688 non-numeric operands and string comparisons.
690 A Tcl expression consists of a combination of operands, operators,
693 White space may be used between the operands and operators and
694 parentheses; it is ignored by the expression processor.
695 Where possible, operands are interpreted as integer values.
697 Integer values may be specified in decimal (the normal case) or in
698 hexadecimal (if the first two characters of the operand are '0x').
699 Note that Jim Tcl does *not* treat numbers with leading zeros as octal.
701 If an operand does not have one of the integer formats given
702 above, then it is treated as a floating-point number if that is
703 possible. Floating-point numbers may be specified in any of the
704 ways accepted by an ANSI-compliant C compiler (except that the
705 'f', 'F', 'l', and 'L' suffixes will not be permitted in
706 most installations). For example, all of the
707 following are valid floating-point numbers: 2.1, 3., 6e4, 7.91e+16.
709 If no numeric interpretation is possible, then an operand is left
710 as a string (and only a limited set of operators may be applied to
713 String constants representing boolean constants
714 (+'0'+, +'1'+, +'false'+, +'off'+, +'no'+, +'true'+, +'on'+, +'yes'+)
715 are also recognized and can be used in logical operations.
717 1. Operands may be specified in any of the following ways:
719 2. As a numeric value, either integer or floating-point.
721 3. As one of valid boolean constants
723 4. As a Tcl variable, using standard '$' notation.
724 The variable's value will be used as the operand.
726 5. As a string enclosed in double-quotes.
727 The expression parser will perform backslash, variable, and
728 command substitutions on the information between the quotes,
729 and use the resulting value as the operand
731 6. As a string enclosed in braces.
732 The characters between the open brace and matching close brace
733 will be used as the operand without any substitutions.
735 7. As a Tcl command enclosed in brackets.
736 The command will be executed and its result will be used as
739 Where substitutions occur above (e.g. inside quoted strings), they
740 are performed by the expression processor.
741 However, an additional layer of substitution may already have
742 been performed by the command parser before the expression
743 processor was called.
745 As discussed below, it is usually best to enclose expressions
746 in braces to prevent the command parser from performing substitutions
749 For some examples of simple expressions, suppose the variable 'a' has
750 the value 3 and the variable 'b' has the value 6. Then the expression
751 on the left side of each of the lines below will evaluate to the value
752 on the right side of the line:
757 {word one} < "word $a" 0
759 The valid operators are listed below, grouped in decreasing order
761 [[OperatorPrecedence]]
762 +int() double() round() abs(), rand(), srand()+::
763 Unary functions (except rand() which takes no arguments)
764 * +'int()'+ converts the numeric argument to an integer by truncating down.
765 * +'double()'+ converts the numeric argument to floating point.
766 * +'round()'+ converts the numeric argument to the closest integer value.
767 * +'abs()'+ takes the absolute value of the numeric argument.
768 * +'rand()'+ returns a pseudo-random floating-point value in the range (0,1).
769 * +'srand()'+ takes an integer argument to (re)seed the random number generator. Returns the first random number from that seed.
771 +sin() cos() tan() asin() acos() atan() sinh() cosh() tanh() ceil() floor() exp() log() log10() sqrt()+::
772 Unary math functions.
773 If Jim is compiled with math support, these functions are available.
776 Unary minus, unary plus, bit-wise NOT, logical NOT. None of these operands
777 may be applied to string operands, and bit-wise NOT may be
778 applied only to integers.
781 Power. e.g. 'x^y^'. If Jim is compiled with math support, supports doubles and
782 integers. Otherwise supports integers only. (Note that the math-function form
783 has the same highest precedence)
786 Multiply, divide, remainder. None of these operands may be
787 applied to string operands, and remainder may be applied only
791 Add and subtract. Valid for any numeric operands.
794 Left and right shift, left and right rotate. Valid for integer operands only.
797 Boolean less, greater, less than or equal, and greater than or equal.
798 Each operator produces 1 if the condition is true, 0 otherwise.
799 These operators may be applied to strings as well as numeric operands,
800 in which case string comparison is used.
803 Boolean equal and not equal. Each operator produces a zero/one result.
804 Valid for all operand types. *Note* that values will be converted to integers
805 if possible, then floating point types, and finally strings will be compared.
806 It is recommended that 'eq' and 'ne' should be used for string comparison.
809 String equal and not equal. Uses the string value directly without
810 attempting to convert to a number first.
813 String in list and not in list. For 'in', result is 1 if the left operand (as a string)
814 is contained in the right operand (as a list), or 0 otherwise. The result for
815 +{$a ni $list}+ is equivalent to +{!($a in $list)}+.
818 Bit-wise AND. Valid for integer operands only.
821 Bit-wise OR. Valid for integer operands only.
824 Bit-wise exclusive OR. Valid for integer operands only.
827 Logical AND. Produces a 1 result if both operands are non-zero, 0 otherwise.
828 Valid for numeric operands only (integers or floating-point).
831 Logical OR. Produces a 0 result if both operands are zero, 1 otherwise.
832 Valid for numeric operands only (integers or floating-point).
835 If-then-else, as in C. If +'x'+
836 evaluates to non-zero, then the result is the value of +'y'+.
837 Otherwise the result is the value of +'z'+.
838 The +'x'+ operand must have a numeric value, while +'y'+ and +'z'+ can
841 See the C manual for more details on the results
842 produced by each operator.
843 All of the binary operators group left-to-right within the same
844 precedence level. For example, the expression
850 The +&&+, +||+, and +?:+ operators have 'lazy evaluation', just as
851 in C, which means that operands are not evaluated if they are not
852 needed to determine the outcome. For example, in
856 only one of +[a]+ or +[b]+ will actually be evaluated,
857 depending on the value of +$v+.
859 All internal computations involving integers are done with the C
860 type 'long long' if available, or 'long' otherwise, and all internal
861 computations involving floating-point are done with the C type
864 When converting a string to floating-point, exponent overflow is
865 detected and results in a Tcl error.
866 For conversion to integer from string, detection of overflow depends
867 on the behaviour of some routines in the local C library, so it should
868 be regarded as unreliable.
869 In any case, overflow and underflow are generally not detected
870 reliably for intermediate results.
872 Conversion among internal representations for integer, floating-point,
873 string operands is done automatically as needed.
874 For arithmetic computations, integers are used until some
875 floating-point number is introduced, after which floating-point is used.
880 yields the result 1, while
883 5 / ( [string length "abcd"] + 0.0 )
885 both yield the result 1.25.
887 String values may be used as operands of the comparison operators,
888 although the expression evaluator tries to do comparisons as integer
889 or floating-point when it can.
890 If one of the operands of a comparison is a string and the other
891 has a numeric value, the numeric operand is converted back to
892 a string using the C 'sprintf' format specifier
893 '%d' for integers and '%g' for floating-point values.
894 For example, the expressions
899 both evaluate to 1. The first comparison is done using integer
900 comparison, and the second is done using string comparison after
901 the second operand is converted to the string '18'.
903 In general it is safest to enclose an expression in braces when
904 entering it in a command: otherwise, if the expression contains
905 any white space then the Tcl interpreter will split it
906 among several arguments. For example, the command
910 results in three arguments being passed to `expr`: +$a+,
911 \+, and +$b+. In addition, if the expression isn't in braces
912 then the Tcl interpreter will perform variable and command substitution
913 immediately (it will happen in the command parser rather than in
914 the expression parser). In many cases the expression is being
915 passed to a command that will evaluate the expression later (or
916 even many times if, for example, the expression is to be used to
917 decide when to exit a loop). Usually the desired goal is to re-do
918 the variable or command substitutions each time the expression is
919 evaluated, rather than once and for all at the beginning. For example,
922 for {set i 1} $i<=10 {incr i} {...} ** WRONG **
924 is probably intended to iterate over all values of +i+ from 1 to 10.
925 After each iteration of the body of the loop, `for` will pass
926 its second argument to the expression evaluator to see whether or not
927 to continue processing. Unfortunately, in this case the value of +i+
928 in the second argument will be substituted once and for all when the
929 `for` command is parsed. If +i+ was 0 before the `for`
930 command was invoked then the second argument of `for` will be +0\<=10+
931 which will always evaluate to 1, even though +i+ eventually
932 becomes greater than 10. In the above case the loop will never
933 terminate. Instead, the expression should be placed in braces:
935 for {set i 1} {$i<=10} {incr i} {...} ** RIGHT **
937 This causes the substitution of 'i'
938 to be delayed; it will be re-done each time the expression is
939 evaluated, which is the desired result.
943 The third major way that strings are interpreted in Tcl is as lists.
944 A list is just a string with a list-like structure
945 consisting of fields separated by white space. For example, the
950 is a list with four elements or fields.
951 Lists have the same basic structure as command strings, except
952 that a newline character in a list is treated as a field separator
953 just like space or tab. Conventions for braces and quotes
954 and backslashes are the same for lists as for commands. For example,
959 is a list with three elements: +a+, +b c+, and +d e {f g h}+.
961 Whenever an element is extracted from a list, the same rules about
962 braces and quotes and backslashes are applied as for commands. Thus in
963 the example above when the third element is extracted from the list,
968 (when the field was extracted, all that happened was to strip off
969 the outermost layer of braces). Command substitution and
970 variable substitution are never
971 made on a list (at least, not by the list-processing commands; the
972 list can always be passed to the Tcl interpreter for evaluation).
974 The Tcl commands `concat`, `foreach`, `lappend`, `lindex`, `linsert`,
975 `list`, `llength`, `lrange`, `lreplace`, `lsearch`, and `lsort` allow
976 you to build lists, extract elements from them, search them, and perform
977 other list-related functions.
979 Advanced list commands include `lrepeat`, `lreverse`, `lmap`, `lassign`, `lset`.
984 A new addition to Tcl 8.5 is the ability to expand a list into separate
985 arguments. Support for this feature is also available in Jim.
987 Consider the following attempt to exec a list:
992 This will attempt to exec a command named "ls -l", which will clearly not
993 work. Typically eval and concat are required to solve this problem, however
994 it can be solved much more easily with +\{*\}+.
998 This will expand the following argument into individual elements and then evaluate
999 the resulting command.
1001 Note that the official Tcl syntax is +\{*\}+, however +\{expand\}+ is retained
1002 for backward compatibility with experimental versions of this feature.
1006 Tcl provides two commands that support string matching using regular
1007 expressions, `regexp` and `regsub`, as well as `switch -regexp` and
1010 Regular expressions may be implemented one of two ways. Either using the system's C library
1011 POSIX regular expression support, or using the built-in regular expression engine.
1012 The differences between these are described below.
1014 *NOTE* Tcl 7.x and 8.x use perl-style Advanced Regular Expressions (+ARE+).
1016 POSIX Regular Expressions
1017 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1018 If the system supports POSIX regular expressions, and UTF-8 support is not enabled,
1019 this support will be used by default. The type of regular expressions supported are
1020 Extended Regular Expressions (+ERE+) rather than Basic Regular Expressions (+BRE+).
1021 See REG_EXTENDED in the documentation.
1023 Using the system-supported POSIX regular expressions will typically
1024 make for the smallest code size, but some features such as UTF-8
1025 and +{backslash}w+, +{backslash}d+, +{backslash}s+ are not supported, and null characters
1026 in strings are not supported.
1028 See regex(3) and regex(7) for full details.
1030 Jim built-in Regular Expressions
1031 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1032 The Jim built-in regular expression engine may be selected with +./configure --with-jim-regexp+
1033 or it will be selected automatically if UTF-8 support is enabled.
1035 This engine supports UTF-8 as well as some +ARE+ features. The differences with both Tcl 7.x/8.x
1036 and POSIX are highlighted below.
1038 1. UTF-8 strings and patterns are both supported
1039 2. All Tcl character classes are supported (e.g. +[:alnum:]+, +[:digit:]+, +[:space:]+), but...
1040 3. Character classes apply to ASCII characters only
1041 4. Supported shorthand character classes: +{backslash}w+ = +[:alnum:]+, +{backslash}W+ = +^[:alnum:]+, +{backslash}d+ = +[:digit:],+ +{backslash}D+ = +^[:digit:],+ +{backslash}s+ = +[:space:]+, + +{backslash}S+ = +^[:space:]+
1042 5. Supported constraint escapes: +{backslash}m+ = +{backslash}<+ = start of word, +{backslash}M+ = +{backslash}>+ = end of word
1043 6. Backslash escapes may be used within regular expressions, such as +{backslash}n+ = newline, +{backslash}uNNNN+ = unicode
1044 7. Partially supported constraint escapes: +{backslash}A+ = start of string, +{backslash}Z+ = end of string
1045 8. Support for the +?+ non-greedy quantifier. e.g. +*?+
1046 9. Support for non-capturing parentheses +(?:...)+
1047 10. Jim Tcl considers that both patterns and strings end at a null character (+\x00+)
1051 Each command produces two results: a code and a string. The
1052 code indicates whether the command completed successfully or not,
1053 and the string gives additional information. The valid codes are
1054 defined in jim.h, and are:
1057 This is the normal return code, and indicates that the command completed
1058 successfully. The string gives the command's return value.
1061 Indicates that an error occurred; the string gives a message describing
1065 Indicates that the `return` command has been invoked, and that the
1066 current procedure (or top-level command or `source` command)
1067 should return immediately. The
1068 string gives the return value for the procedure or command.
1071 Indicates that the `break` command has been invoked, so the
1072 innermost loop should abort immediately. The string should always
1076 Indicates that the `continue` command has been invoked, so the
1077 innermost loop should go on to the next iteration. The string
1078 should always be empty.
1081 Indicates that a signal was caught while executing a commands.
1082 The string contains the name of the signal caught.
1083 See the `signal` and `catch` commands.
1086 Indicates that the command called the `exit` command.
1087 The string contains the exit code.
1089 Tcl programmers do not normally need to think about return codes,
1090 since +JIM_OK+ is almost always returned. If anything else is returned
1091 by a command, then the Tcl interpreter immediately stops processing
1092 commands and returns to its caller. If there are several nested
1093 invocations of the Tcl interpreter in progress, then each nested
1094 command will usually return the error to its caller, until eventually
1095 the error is reported to the top-level application code. The
1096 application will then display the error message for the user.
1098 In a few cases, some commands will handle certain `error` conditions
1099 themselves and not return them upwards. For example, the `for`
1100 command checks for the +JIM_BREAK+ code; if it occurs, then `for`
1101 stops executing the body of the loop and returns +JIM_OK+ to its
1102 caller. The `for` command also handles +JIM_CONTINUE+ codes and the
1103 procedure interpreter handles +JIM_RETURN+ codes. The `catch`
1104 command allows Tcl programs to catch errors and handle them without
1105 aborting command interpretation any further.
1107 The `info returncodes` command may be used to programmatically map between
1108 return codes and names.
1112 Tcl allows you to extend the command interface by defining
1113 procedures. A Tcl procedure can be invoked just like any other Tcl
1114 command (it has a name and it receives one or more arguments).
1115 The only difference is that its body isn't a piece of C code linked
1116 into the program; it is a string containing one or more other
1119 The `proc` command is used to create a new Tcl command procedure:
1121 +*proc* 'name arglist ?statics? body'+
1123 The new command is named +'name'+, and it replaces any existing command
1124 there may have been by that name. Whenever the new command is
1125 invoked, the contents of +'body'+ will be executed by the Tcl
1128 +'arglist'+ specifies the formal arguments to the procedure.
1129 It consists of a list, possibly empty, of the following
1130 argument specifiers:
1133 Required Argument - A simple argument name.
1136 Optional Argument - A two-element list consisting of the
1137 argument name, followed by the default value, which will
1138 be used if the corresponding argument is not supplied.
1141 Reference Argument - The caller is expected to pass the name of
1142 an existing variable. An implicit +`upvar` 1 origname name+ is done
1143 to make the variable available in the proc scope.
1146 Variable Argument - The special name +'args'+, which is
1147 assigned all remaining arguments (including none) as a list. The
1148 variable argument may only be specified once. Note that
1149 the syntax +{args newname}+ may be used to retain the special
1150 behaviour of +'args'+ with a different local name. In this case,
1151 the variable is named +'newname'+ rather than +'args'+.
1153 When the command is invoked, a local variable will be created for each of
1154 the formal arguments to the procedure; its value will be the value
1155 of corresponding argument in the invoking command or the argument's
1158 Arguments with default values need not be specified in a procedure
1159 invocation. However, there must be enough actual arguments for all
1160 required arguments, and there must not be any extra actual arguments
1161 (unless the Variable Argument is specified).
1163 Actual arguments are assigned to formal arguments as in left-to-right
1164 order with the following precedence.
1166 1. Required Arguments (including Reference Arguments)
1167 2. Optional Arguments
1168 3. Variable Argument
1170 The following example illustrates precedence. Assume a procedure declaration:
1172 proc p {{a A} args b {c C} d} {...}
1174 This procedure requires at least two arguments, but can accept an unlimited number.
1175 The following table shows how various numbers of arguments are assigned.
1176 Values marked as +-+ are assigned the default value.
1178 [width="40%",frame="topbot",options="header"]
1180 |Number of arguments|a|args|b|c|d
1188 When +'body'+ is being executed, variable names normally refer to local
1189 variables, which are created automatically when referenced and deleted
1190 when the procedure returns. One local variable is automatically created
1191 for each of the procedure's arguments. Global variables can be
1192 accessed by invoking the `global` command or via the +::+ prefix.
1196 In addition to procedure arguments, Jim procedures may declare static variables.
1197 These variables scoped to the procedure and initialised at procedure definition.
1198 Either from the static variable definition, or from the enclosing scope.
1200 Consider the following example:
1203 jim> proc a {} {a {b 2}} {
1215 The static variable +'a'+ has no initialiser, so it is initialised from
1216 the enclosing scope with the value 1. (Note that it is an error if there
1217 is no variable with the same name in the enclosing scope). However +'b'+
1218 has an initialiser, so it is initialised to 2.
1220 Unlike a local variable, the value of a static variable is retained across
1221 invocations of the procedure.
1223 See the `proc` command for information on how to define procedures
1224 and what happens when they are invoked. See also NAMESPACES.
1226 VARIABLES - SCALARS AND ARRAYS
1227 ------------------------------
1228 Tcl allows the definition of variables and the use of their values
1229 either through '$'-style variable substitution, the `set`
1230 command, or a few other mechanisms.
1232 Variables need not be declared: a new variable will automatically
1233 be created each time a new variable name is used.
1235 Tcl supports two types of variables: scalars and arrays.
1236 A scalar variable has a single value, whereas an array variable
1237 can have any number of elements, each with a name (called
1238 its 'index') and a value.
1240 Array indexes may be arbitrary strings; they need not be numeric.
1241 Parentheses are used refer to array elements in Tcl commands.
1242 For example, the command
1246 will modify the element of 'x' whose index is 'first'
1247 so that its new value is '44'.
1249 Two-dimensional arrays can be simulated in Tcl by using indexes
1250 that contain multiple concatenated values.
1251 For example, the commands
1256 set the elements of 'a' whose indexes are '2,3' and '3,6'.
1258 In general, array elements may be used anywhere in Tcl that scalar
1259 variables may be used.
1261 If an array is defined with a particular name, then there may
1262 not be a scalar variable with the same name.
1264 Similarly, if there is a scalar variable with a particular
1265 name then it is not possible to make array references to the
1268 To convert a scalar variable to an array or vice versa, remove
1269 the existing variable with the `unset` command.
1271 The `array` command provides several features for dealing
1272 with arrays, such as querying the names of all the elements of
1273 the array and converting between an array and a list.
1275 Variables may be either global or local. If a variable
1276 name is used when a procedure isn't being executed, then it
1277 automatically refers to a global variable. Variable names used
1278 within a procedure normally refer to local variables associated with that
1279 invocation of the procedure. Local variables are deleted whenever
1280 a procedure exits. Either `global` command may be used to request
1281 that a name refer to a global variable for the duration of the current
1282 procedure (this is somewhat analogous to 'extern' in C), or the variable
1283 may be explicitly scoped with the +::+ prefix. For example
1299 ARRAYS AS LISTS IN JIM
1300 ----------------------
1301 Unlike Tcl, Jim can automatically convert between a list (with an even
1302 number of elements) and an array value. This is similar to the way Tcl
1303 can convert between a string and a list.
1314 Thus `array set` is equivalent to `set` when the variable does not
1317 The reverse is also true where an array will be converted into
1320 set a(1) one; set a(2) two
1329 Tcl 8.5 introduced the dict command, and Jim Tcl has added a version
1330 of this command. Dictionaries provide efficient access to key-value
1331 pairs, just like arrays, but dictionaries are pure values. This
1332 means that you can pass them to a procedure just as a list or a
1333 string. Tcl dictionaries are therefore much more like Tcl lists,
1334 except that they represent a mapping from keys to values, rather
1335 than an ordered sequence.
1337 You can nest dictionaries, so that the value for a particular key
1338 consists of another dictionary. That way you can elegantly build
1339 complicated data structures, such as hierarchical databases. You
1340 can also combine dictionaries with other Tcl data structures. For
1341 instance, you can build a list of dictionaries that themselves
1344 Dictionaries are values that contain an efficient, order-preserving
1345 mapping from arbitrary keys to arbitrary values. Each key in the
1346 dictionary maps to a single value. They have a textual format that
1347 is exactly that of any list with an even number of elements, with
1348 each mapping in the dictionary being represented as two items in
1349 the list. When a command takes a dictionary and produces a new
1350 dictionary based on it (either returning it or writing it back into
1351 the variable that the starting dictionary was read from) the new
1352 dictionary will have the same order of keys, modulo any deleted
1353 keys and with new keys added on to the end. When a string is
1354 interpreted as a dictionary and it would otherwise have duplicate
1355 keys, only the last value for a particular key is used; the others
1356 are ignored, meaning that, "apple banana" and "apple carrot apple
1357 banana" are equivalent dictionaries (with different string
1360 Note that in Jim, arrays are implemented as dictionaries.
1361 Thus automatic conversion between lists and dictionaries applies
1362 as it does for arrays.
1364 jim> dict set a 1 one
1366 jim> dict set a 2 two
1372 jim> dict set a 3 T three
1373 1 one 2 two 3 {T three}
1375 See the `dict` command for more details.
1379 Tcl added namespaces as a mechanism avoiding name clashes, especially in applications
1380 including a number of 3rd party components. While there is less need for namespaces
1381 in Jim Tcl (which does not strive to support large applications), it is convenient to
1382 provide a subset of the support for namespaces to easy porting code from Tcl.
1384 Jim Tcl currently supports "light-weight" namespaces which should be adequate for most
1385 purposes. This feature is currently experimental. See README.namespaces for more information
1386 and the documentation of the `namespace` command.
1388 GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION
1389 -----------------------------------------------
1390 Unlike Tcl, Jim has some sophisticated support for functional programming.
1391 These are described briefly below.
1393 More information may be found at http://wiki.tcl.tk/13847
1397 A reference can be thought of as holding a value with one level of indirection,
1398 where the value may be garbage collected when unreferenced.
1399 Consider the following example:
1401 jim> set r [ref "One String" test]
1402 <reference.<test___>.00000000000000000000>
1406 The operation `ref` creates a references to the value specified by the
1407 first argument. (The second argument is a "type" used for documentation purposes).
1409 The operation `getref` is the dereferencing operation which retrieves the value
1410 stored in the reference.
1412 jim> setref $r "New String"
1417 The operation `setref` replaces the value stored by the reference. If the old value
1418 is no longer accessible by any reference, it will eventually be automatically be garbage
1423 Normally, all values in Tcl are passed by value. As such values are copied and released
1424 automatically as necessary.
1426 With the introduction of references, it is possible to create values whose lifetime
1427 transcend their scope. To support this, case, the Jim system will periodically identify
1428 and discard objects which are no longer accessible by any reference.
1430 The `collect` command may be used to force garbage collection. Consider a reference created
1433 jim> proc f {ref value} { puts "Finaliser called for $ref,$value" }
1434 jim> set r [ref "One String" test f]
1435 <reference.<test___>.00000000000
1440 Finaliser called for <reference.<test___>.00000000000,One String
1443 Note that once the reference, 'r', was modified so that it no longer
1444 contained a reference to the value, the garbage collector discarded
1445 the value (after calling the finalizer).
1447 The finalizer for a reference may be examined or changed with the `finalize` command
1451 jim> finalize $r newf
1456 Jim provides a garbage collected `lambda` function. This is a procedure
1457 which is able to create an anonymous procedure. Consider:
1459 jim> set f [lambda {a} {{x 0}} { incr x $a }]
1466 This create an anonymous procedure (with the name stored in 'f'), with a static variable
1467 which is incremented by the supplied value and the result returned.
1469 Once the procedure name is no longer accessible, it will automatically be deleted
1470 when the garbage collector runs.
1472 The procedure may also be delete immediately by renaming it "". e.g.
1478 If Jim is built with UTF-8 support enabled (configure --enable-utf),
1479 then most string-related commands become UTF-8 aware. These include,
1480 but are not limited to, `string match`, `split`, `glob`, `scan` and
1483 UTF-8 encoding has many advantages, but one of the complications is that
1484 characters can take a variable number of bytes. Thus the addition of
1485 `string bytelength` which returns the number of bytes in a string,
1486 while `string length` returns the number of characters.
1488 If UTF-8 support is not enabled, all commands treat bytes as characters
1489 and `string bytelength` returns the same value as `string length`.
1491 Note that even if UTF-8 support is not enabled, the +{backslash}uNNNN+ and related syntax
1492 is still available to embed UTF-8 sequences.
1494 Jim Tcl supports all currently defined unicode codepoints. That is 21 bits, up to +'U+1FFFFF'.
1498 Commands such as `string match`, `lsearch -glob`, `array names` and others use string
1499 pattern matching rules. These commands support UTF-8. For example:
1501 string match a\[\ua0-\ubf\]b "a\u00a3b"
1505 +format %c+ allows a unicode codepoint to be be encoded. For example, the following will return
1506 a string with two bytes and one character. The same as +{backslash}ub5+
1510 `format` respects widths as character widths, not byte widths. For example, the following will
1511 return a string with three characters, not three bytes.
1513 format %.3s \ub5\ub6\ub7\ub8
1515 Similarly, +scan ... %c+ allows a UTF-8 to be decoded to a unicode codepoint. The following will set
1516 +'a'+ to 181 (0xb5) and +'b'+ to 65 (0x41).
1518 scan \u00b5A %c%c a b
1520 `scan %s` will also accept a character class, including unicode ranges.
1524 `string is` has *not* been extended to classify UTF-8 characters. Therefore, the following
1525 will return 0, even though the string may be considered to be alphabetic.
1527 string is alpha \ub5Test
1529 This does not affect the string classes 'ascii', 'control', 'digit', 'double', 'integer' or 'xdigit'.
1531 Case Mapping and Conversion
1532 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1533 Jim provides a simplified unicode case mapping. This means that case conversion
1534 and comparison will not increase or decrease the number of characters in a string.
1535 (Although it may change the number of bytes).
1537 `string toupper` will convert any lowercase letters to their uppercase equivalent.
1538 Any character which is not a letter or has no uppercase equivalent is left unchanged.
1539 Similarly for `string tolower` and `string totitle`.
1541 Commands which perform case insensitive matches, such as `string compare -nocase`
1542 and `lsearch -nocase` fold both strings to uppercase before comparison.
1544 Invalid UTF-8 Sequences
1545 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1546 Some UTF-8 character sequences are invalid, such as those beginning with '0xff',
1547 those which represent character sequences longer than 3 bytes (greater than U+FFFF),
1548 and those which end prematurely, such as a lone '0xc2'.
1550 In these situations, the offending bytes are treated as single characters. For example,
1551 the following returns 2.
1553 string bytelength \xff\xff
1557 If UTF-8 support is enabled, the built-in regular expression engine will be
1558 selected which supports UTF-8 strings and patterns.
1560 See REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
1564 The Tcl library provides the following built-in commands, which will
1565 be available in any application using Tcl. In addition to these
1566 built-in commands, there may be additional commands defined by each
1567 application, plus commands defined as Tcl procedures.
1569 In the command syntax descriptions below, words in +*boldface*+ are
1570 literals that you type verbatim to Tcl.
1572 Words in +'italics'+ are meta-symbols; they serve as names for any of
1573 a range of values that you can type.
1575 Optional arguments or groups of arguments are indicated by enclosing them
1576 in +?question-marks?+.
1578 Ellipses (+\...+) indicate that any number of additional
1579 arguments or groups of arguments may appear, in the same format
1580 as the preceding argument(s).
1591 Delivers the +SIGALRM+ signal to the process after the given
1592 number of seconds. If the platform supports 'ualarm(3)' then
1593 the argument may be a floating point value. Otherwise it must
1596 Note that unless a signal handler for +SIGALRM+ has been installed
1597 (see `signal`), the process will exit on this signal.
1601 +*alias* 'name args\...'+
1603 Creates a single word alias (command) for one or more words. For example,
1604 the following creates an alias for the command `info exists`.
1611 `alias` returns +'name'+, allowing it to be used with `local`.
1613 See also `proc`, `curry`, `lambda`, `local`, `info alias`, `exists -alias`
1617 +*append* 'varName value ?value value ...?'+
1619 Append all of the +'value'+ arguments to the current value
1620 of variable +'varName'+. If +'varName'+ doesn't exist,
1621 it is given a value equal to the concatenation of all the
1622 +'value'+ arguments.
1624 This command provides an efficient way to build up long
1625 variables incrementally.
1626 For example, "`append a $b`" is much more efficient than
1627 "`set a $a$b`" if +$a+ is long.
1631 +*apply* 'lambdaExpr ?arg1 arg2 \...?'+
1633 The command `apply` provides for anonymous procedure calls,
1634 similar to `lambda`, but without command name being created, even temporarily.
1636 The function +'lambdaExpr'+ is a two element list +{args body}+
1637 or a three element list +{args body namespace}+. The first element
1638 args specifies the formal arguments, in the same form as the `proc` and `lambda` commands.
1642 +*array* 'option arrayName ?arg\...?'+
1644 This command performs one of several operations on the
1645 variable given by +'arrayName'+.
1647 Note that in general, if the named array does not exist, the +'array'+ command behaves
1648 as though the array exists but is empty.
1650 The +'option'+ argument determines what action is carried out by the
1651 command. The legal +'options'+ (which may be abbreviated) are:
1653 +*array exists* 'arrayName'+::
1654 Returns 1 if arrayName is an array variable, 0 if there is
1655 no variable by that name. This command is essentially
1656 identical to `info exists`
1658 +*array get* 'arrayName ?pattern?'+::
1659 Returns a list containing pairs of elements. The first
1660 element in each pair is the name of an element in arrayName
1661 and the second element of each pair is the value of the
1662 array element. The order of the pairs is undefined. If
1663 pattern is not specified, then all of the elements of the
1664 array are included in the result. If pattern is specified,
1665 then only those elements whose names match pattern (using
1666 the matching rules of string match) are included. If arrayName
1667 isn't the name of an array variable, or if the array contains
1668 no elements, then an empty list is returned.
1670 +*array names* 'arrayName ?pattern?'+::
1671 Returns a list containing the names of all of the elements
1672 in the array that match pattern. If pattern is omitted then
1673 the command returns all of the element names in the array.
1674 If pattern is specified, then only those elements whose
1675 names match pattern (using the matching rules of string
1676 match) are included. If there are no (matching) elements
1677 in the array, or if arrayName isn't the name of an array
1678 variable, then an empty string is returned.
1680 +*array set* 'arrayName list'+::
1681 Sets the values of one or more elements in arrayName. list
1682 must have a form like that returned by array get, consisting
1683 of an even number of elements. Each odd-numbered element
1684 in list is treated as an element name within arrayName, and
1685 the following element in list is used as a new value for
1686 that array element. If the variable arrayName does not
1687 already exist and list is empty, arrayName is created with
1688 an empty array value.
1690 +*array size* 'arrayName'+::
1691 Returns the number of elements in the array. If arrayName
1692 isn't the name of an array then 0 is returned.
1694 +*array unset* 'arrayName ?pattern?'+::
1695 Unsets all of the elements in the array that match pattern
1696 (using the matching rules of string match). If arrayName
1697 isn't the name of an array variable or there are no matching
1698 elements in the array, no error will be raised. If pattern
1699 is omitted and arrayName is an array variable, then the
1700 command unsets the entire array. The command always returns
1707 This command may be invoked only inside the body of a loop command
1708 such as `for` or `foreach` or `while`. It returns a +JIM_BREAK+ code
1709 to signal the innermost containing loop command to return immediately.
1713 +*case* 'string' ?in? 'patList body ?patList body ...?'+
1715 +*case* 'string' ?in? {'patList body ?patList body ...?'}+
1717 *Note* that the `switch` command should generally be preferred unless compatibility
1718 with Tcl 6.x is desired.
1720 Match +'string'+ against each of the +'patList'+ arguments
1721 in order. If one matches, then evaluate the following +'body'+ argument
1722 by passing it recursively to the Tcl interpreter, and return the result
1723 of that evaluation. Each +'patList'+ argument consists of a single
1724 pattern or list of patterns. Each pattern may contain any of the wild-cards
1725 described under `string match`.
1727 If a +'patList'+ argument is +default+, the corresponding body will be
1728 evaluated if no +'patList'+ matches +'string'+. If no +'patList'+ argument
1729 matches +'string'+ and no default is given, then the `case` command returns
1732 Two syntaxes are provided.
1734 The first uses a separate argument for each of the patterns and commands;
1735 this form is convenient if substitutions are desired on some of the
1736 patterns or commands.
1738 The second form places all of the patterns and commands together into
1739 a single argument; the argument must have proper list structure, with
1740 the elements of the list being the patterns and commands.
1742 The second form makes it easy to construct multi-line case commands,
1743 since the braces around the whole list make it unnecessary to include a
1744 backslash at the end of each line.
1746 Since the +'patList'+ arguments are in braces in the second form,
1747 no command or variable substitutions are performed on them; this makes
1748 the behaviour of the second form different than the first form in some
1751 Below are some examples of `case` commands:
1753 case abc in {a b} {format 1} default {format 2} a* {format 3}
1763 will return '1', and
1778 +*catch* ?-?no?'code \...'? ?--? 'command ?resultVarName? ?optionsVarName?'+
1780 The `catch` command may be used to prevent errors from aborting
1781 command interpretation. `catch` evaluates +'command'+, and returns a
1782 +JIM_OK+ code, regardless of any errors that might occur while
1783 executing +'command'+ (with the possible exception of +JIM_SIGNAL+ -
1786 The return value from `catch` is a decimal string giving the code
1787 returned by the Tcl interpreter after executing +'command'+. This
1788 will be '0' (+JIM_OK+) if there were no errors in +'command'+; otherwise
1789 it will have a non-zero value corresponding to one of the exceptional
1790 return codes (see jim.h for the definitions of code values, or the
1791 `info returncodes` command).
1793 If the +'resultVarName'+ argument is given, then it gives the name
1794 of a variable; `catch` will set the value of the variable to the
1795 string returned from +'command'+ (either a result or an error message).
1797 If the +'optionsVarName'+ argument is given, then it gives the name
1798 of a variable; `catch` will set the value of the variable to a
1799 dictionary. For any return code other than +JIM_RETURN+, the value
1800 for the key +-code+ will be set to the return code. For +JIM_RETURN+
1801 it will be set to the code given in `return -code`. Additionally,
1802 for the return code +JIM_ERR+, the value of the key +-errorinfo+
1803 will contain the current stack trace (the same result as `info stacktrace`),
1804 the value of the key +-errorcode+ will contain the
1805 same value as the global variable $::errorCode, and the value of
1806 the key +-level+ will be the current return level (see `return -level`).
1807 This can be useful to rethrow an error:
1809 if {[catch {...} msg opts]} {
1810 ...maybe do something with the error...
1812 return {*}$opts $msg
1815 Normally `catch` will +'not'+ catch any of the codes +JIM_EXIT+, +JIM_EVAL+ or +JIM_SIGNAL+.
1816 The set of codes which will be caught may be modified by specifying the one more codes before
1819 e.g. To catch +JIM_EXIT+ but not +JIM_BREAK+ or +JIM_CONTINUE+
1821 catch -exit -nobreak -nocontinue -- { ... }
1823 The use of +--+ is optional. It signifies that no more return code options follow.
1825 Note that if a signal marked as `signal handle` is caught with `catch -signal`, the return value
1826 (stored in +'resultVarName'+) is name of the signal caught.
1832 Change the current working directory to +'dirName'+.
1834 Returns an empty string.
1836 This command can potentially be disruptive to an application, so it may
1837 be removed in some applications.
1842 Returns the current time as seconds since the epoch.
1845 Returns the current time in `clicks'.
1847 +*clock microseconds*+::
1848 Returns the current time in microseconds.
1850 +*clock milliseconds*+::
1851 Returns the current time in milliseconds.
1853 +*clock format* 'seconds' ?*-format* 'format?'+::
1854 Format the given time (seconds since the epoch) according to the given
1855 format. See strftime(3) for supported formats.
1856 If no format is supplied, "%c" is used.
1858 +*clock scan* 'str' *-format* 'format'+::
1859 Scan the given time string using the given format string.
1860 See strptime(3) for supported formats.
1868 Closes the file given by +'fileId'+.
1869 +'fileId'+ must be the return value from a previous invocation
1870 of the `open` command; after this command, it should not be
1877 Normally reference garbage collection is automatically performed periodically.
1878 However it may be run immediately with the `collect` command.
1880 See GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION for more detail.
1884 +*concat* 'arg ?arg \...?'+
1886 This command treats each argument as a list and concatenates them
1887 into a single list. It permits any number of arguments. For example,
1890 concat a b {c d e} {f {g h}}
1902 This command may be invoked only inside the body of a loop command such
1903 as `for` or `foreach` or `while`. It returns a +JIM_CONTINUE+ code to
1904 signal the innermost containing loop command to skip the remainder of
1905 the loop's body but continue with the next iteration of the loop.
1909 +*alias* 'args\...'+
1911 Similar to `alias` except it creates an anonymous procedure (lambda) instead of
1914 the following creates a local, unnamed alias for the command `info exists`.
1916 set e [local curry info exists]
1921 `curry` returns the name of the procedure.
1923 See also `proc`, `alias`, `lambda`, `local`.
1927 +*dict* 'option ?arg\...?'+
1929 Performs one of several operations on dictionary values.
1931 The +'option'+ argument determines what action is carried out by the
1932 command. The legal +'options'+ are:
1934 +*dict create* '?key value \...?'+::
1935 Create and return a new dictionary value that contains each of
1936 the key/value mappings listed as arguments (keys and values
1937 alternating, with each key being followed by its associated
1940 +*dict exists* 'dictionary key ?key \...?'+::
1941 Returns a boolean value indicating whether the given key (or path
1942 of keys through a set of nested dictionaries) exists in the given
1943 dictionary value. This returns a true value exactly when `dict get`
1944 on that path will succeed.
1946 +*dict get* 'dictionary ?key \...?'+::
1947 Given a dictionary value (first argument) and a key (second argument),
1948 this will retrieve the value for that key. Where several keys are
1949 supplied, the behaviour of the command shall be as if the result
1950 of "`dict get $dictVal $key`" was passed as the first argument to
1951 dict get with the remaining arguments as second (and possibly
1952 subsequent) arguments. This facilitates lookups in nested dictionaries.
1953 If no keys are provided, dict would return a list containing pairs
1954 of elements in a manner similar to array get. That is, the first
1955 element of each pair would be the key and the second element would
1956 be the value for that key. It is an error to attempt to retrieve
1957 a value for a key that is not present in the dictionary.
1959 +*dict keys* 'dictionary ?pattern?'+::
1960 Returns a list of the keys in the dictionary.
1961 If pattern is specified, then only those keys whose
1962 names match +'pattern'+ (using the matching rules of string
1963 match) are included.
1965 +*dict merge* ?'dictionary \...'?+::
1966 Return a dictionary that contains the contents of each of the
1967 +'dictionary'+ arguments. Where two (or more) dictionaries
1968 contain a mapping for the same key, the resulting dictionary
1969 maps that key to the value according to the last dictionary on
1970 the command line containing a mapping for that key.
1972 +*dict set* 'dictionaryName key ?key \...? value'+::
1973 This operation takes the +'name'+ of a variable containing a dictionary
1974 value and places an updated dictionary value in that variable
1975 containing a mapping from the given key to the given value. When
1976 multiple keys are present, this operation creates or updates a chain
1977 of nested dictionaries.
1979 +*dict size* 'dictionary'+::
1980 Return the number of key/value mappings in the given dictionary value.
1982 +*dict unset* 'dictionaryName key ?key \...? value'+::
1983 This operation (the companion to `dict set`) takes the name of a
1984 variable containing a dictionary value and places an updated
1985 dictionary value in that variable that does not contain a mapping
1986 for the given key. Where multiple keys are present, this describes
1987 a path through nested dictionaries to the mapping to remove. At
1988 least one key must be specified, but the last key on the key-path
1989 need not exist. All other components on the path must exist.
1991 +*dict with* 'dictionaryName key ?key \...? script'+::
1992 Execute the Tcl script in +'script'+ with the value for each
1993 key in +'dictionaryName'+ mapped to a variable with the same
1994 name. Where one or more keys are given, these indicate a chain
1995 of nested dictionaries, with the innermost dictionary being the
1996 one opened out for the execution of body. Making +'dictionaryName'+
1997 unreadable will make the updates to the dictionary be discarded,
1998 and this also happens if the contents of +'dictionaryName'+ are
1999 adjusted so that the chain of dictionaries no longer exists.
2000 The result of `dict with` is (unless some kind of error occurs)
2001 the result of the evaluation of body.
2003 The variables are mapped in the scope enclosing the `dict with`;
2004 it is recommended that this command only be used in a local
2005 scope (procedure). Because of this, the variables set by
2006 `dict with` will continue to exist after the command finishes (unless
2007 explicitly unset). Note that changes to the contents of +'dictionaryName'+
2008 only happen when +'script'+ terminates.
2010 +*dict for, values, incr, append, lappend, update, info, replace*+ to be documented...
2014 +*env* '?name? ?default?'+
2016 If +'name'+ is supplied, returns the value of +'name'+ from the initial
2017 environment (see getenv(3)). An error is returned if +'name'+ does not
2018 exist in the environment, unless +'default'+ is supplied - in which case
2019 that value is returned instead.
2021 If no arguments are supplied, returns a list of all environment variables
2022 and their values as +{name value \...}+
2024 See also the global variable +::env+
2032 Returns 1 if an end-of-file condition has occurred on +'fileId'+,
2035 +'fileId'+ must have been the return value from a previous call to `open`,
2036 or it may be +stdin+, +stdout+, or +stderr+ to refer to one of the
2037 standard I/O channels.
2041 +*error* 'message ?stacktrace?'+
2043 Returns a +JIM_ERR+ code, which causes command interpretation to be
2044 unwound. +'message'+ is a string that is returned to the application
2045 to indicate what went wrong.
2047 If the +'stacktrace'+ argument is provided and is non-empty,
2048 it is used to initialize the stacktrace.
2050 This feature is most useful in conjunction with the `catch` command:
2051 if a caught error cannot be handled successfully, +'stacktrace'+ can be used
2052 to return a stack trace reflecting the original point of occurrence
2057 error $errMsg [info stacktrace]
2059 See also `errorInfo`, `info stacktrace`, `catch` and `return`
2063 +*errorInfo* 'error ?stacktrace?'+
2065 Returns a human-readable representation of the given error message and stack trace.
2068 if {[catch {...} error]} {
2069 puts stderr [errorInfo $error [info stacktrace]]
2077 +*eval* 'arg ?arg\...?'+
2079 `eval` takes one or more arguments, which together comprise a Tcl
2080 command (or collection of Tcl commands separated by newlines in the
2081 usual way). `eval` concatenates all its arguments in the same
2082 fashion as the `concat` command, passes the concatenated string to the
2083 Tcl interpreter recursively, and returns the result of that
2084 evaluation (or any error generated by it).
2088 +*exec* 'arg ?arg\...?'+
2090 This command treats its arguments as the specification
2091 of one or more UNIX commands to execute as subprocesses.
2092 The commands take the form of a standard shell pipeline;
2093 +|+ arguments separate commands in the
2094 pipeline and cause standard output of the preceding command
2095 to be piped into standard input of the next command (or +|&+ for
2096 both standard output and standard error).
2098 Under normal conditions the result of the `exec` command
2099 consists of the standard output produced by the last command
2100 in the pipeline followed by the standard error output.
2102 If any of the commands writes to its standard error file,
2103 then this will be included in the result after the standard output
2104 of the last command.
2106 Note that unlike Tcl, data written to standard error does not cause
2107 `exec` to return an error.
2109 If any of the commands in the pipeline exit abnormally or
2110 are killed or suspended, then `exec` will return an error.
2111 If no standard error output was produced, or is redirected,
2112 the error message will include the normal result, as above,
2113 followed by error messages describing the abnormal terminations.
2115 If any standard error output was produced, these abnormal termination
2116 messages are suppressed.
2118 If the last character of the result or error message
2119 is a newline then that character is deleted from the result
2120 or error message for consistency with normal
2123 An +'arg'+ may have one of the following special forms:
2126 The standard output of the last command in the pipeline
2127 is redirected to the file. In this situation `exec`
2128 will normally return an empty string.
2131 As above, but append to the file.
2134 The standard output of the last command in the pipeline is
2135 redirected to the given (writable) file descriptor (e.g. stdout,
2136 stderr, or the result of `open`). In this situation `exec`
2137 will normally return an empty string.
2140 The standard error of the last command in the pipeline
2141 is redirected to the file.
2144 As above, but append to the file.
2147 The standard error of the last command in the pipeline is
2148 redirected to the given (writable) file descriptor.
2151 The standard error of the last command in the pipeline is
2152 redirected to the same file descriptor as the standard output.
2155 Both the standard output and standard error of the last command
2156 in the pipeline is redirected to the file.
2159 As above, but append to the file.
2162 The standard input of the first command in the pipeline
2163 is taken from the file.
2166 The standard input of the first command is taken as the
2167 given immediate value.
2170 The standard input of the first command in the pipeline
2171 is taken from the given (readable) file descriptor.
2173 If there is no redirection of standard input, standard error
2174 or standard output, these are connected to the corresponding
2175 input or output of the application.
2177 If the last +'arg'+ is +&+ then the command will be
2178 executed in background.
2179 In this case the standard output from the last command
2180 in the pipeline will
2181 go to the application's standard output unless
2182 redirected in the command, and error output from all
2183 the commands in the pipeline will go to the application's
2184 standard error file. The return value of exec in this case
2185 is a list of process ids (pids) in the pipeline.
2187 Each +'arg'+ becomes one word for a command, except for
2188 +|+, +<+, +<<+, +>+, and +&+ arguments, and the
2189 arguments that follow +<+, +<<+, and +>+.
2191 The first word in each command is taken as the command name;
2192 the directories in the PATH environment variable are searched for
2193 an executable by the given name.
2195 No `glob` expansion or other shell-like substitutions
2196 are performed on the arguments to commands.
2198 If the command fails, the global $::errorCode (and the -errorcode
2199 option in `catch`) will be set to a list, as follows:
2201 +*CHILDKILLED* 'pid sigName msg'+::
2202 This format is used when a child process has been killed
2203 because of a signal. The pid element will be the process's
2204 identifier (in decimal). The sigName element will be the
2205 symbolic name of the signal that caused the process to
2206 terminate; it will be one of the names from the include
2207 file signal.h, such as SIGPIPE. The msg element will be a
2208 short human-readable message describing the signal, such
2209 as "write on pipe with no readers" for SIGPIPE.
2211 +*CHILDSUSP* 'pid sigName msg'+::
2212 This format is used when a child process has been suspended
2213 because of a signal. The pid element will be the process's
2214 identifier, in decimal. The sigName element will be the
2215 symbolic name of the signal that caused the process to
2216 suspend; this will be one of the names from the include
2217 file signal.h, such as SIGTTIN. The msg element will be a
2218 short human-readable message describing the signal, such
2219 as "background tty read" for SIGTTIN.
2221 +*CHILDSTATUS* 'pid code'+::
2222 This format is used when a child process has exited with a
2223 non-zero exit status. The pid element will be the process's
2224 identifier (in decimal) and the code element will be the
2225 exit code returned by the process (also in decimal).
2227 The environment for the executed command is set from $::env (unless
2228 this variable is unset, in which case the original environment is used).
2232 +*exists ?-var|-proc|-command|-alias?* 'name'+
2234 Checks the existence of the given variable, procedure, command
2235 or alias respectively and returns 1 if it exists or 0 if not. This command
2236 provides a more simplified/convenient version of `info exists`,
2237 `info procs` and `info commands`.
2239 If the type is omitted, a type of '-var' is used. The type may be abbreviated.
2243 +*exit* '?returnCode?'+
2245 Terminate the process, returning +'returnCode'+ to the
2246 parent as the exit status.
2248 If +'returnCode'+ isn't specified then it defaults
2251 Note that exit can be caught with `catch`.
2257 Calls the expression processor to evaluate +'arg'+, and returns
2258 the result as a string. See the section EXPRESSIONS above.
2260 Note that Jim supports a shorthand syntax for `expr` as +$(\...)+
2261 The following two are identical.
2263 set x [expr {3 * 2 + 1}]
2268 +*file* 'option name ?arg\...?'+
2270 Operate on a file or a file name. +'name'+ is the name of a file.
2272 +'option'+ indicates what to do with the file name. Any unique
2273 abbreviation for +'option'+ is acceptable. The valid options are:
2275 +*file atime* 'name'+::
2276 Return a decimal string giving the time at which file +'name'+
2277 was last accessed. The time is measured in the standard UNIX
2278 fashion as seconds from a fixed starting time (often January 1, 1970).
2279 If the file doesn't exist or its access time cannot be queried then an
2282 +*file copy ?-force?* 'source target'+::
2283 Copies file +'source'+ to file +'target'+. The source file must exist.
2284 The target file must not exist, unless +-force+ is specified.
2286 +*file delete ?-force? ?--?* 'name\...'+::
2287 Deletes file or directory +'name'+. If the file or directory doesn't exist, nothing happens.
2288 If it can't be deleted, an error is generated. Non-empty directories will not be deleted
2289 unless the +-force+ options is given. In this case no errors will be generated, even
2290 if the file/directory can't be deleted. Use +'--'+ if there is any possibility of
2291 the first name being +'-force'+.
2293 +*file dirname* 'name'+::
2294 Return all of the characters in +'name'+ up to but not including
2295 the last slash character. If there are no slashes in +'name'+
2296 then return +.+ (a single dot). If the last slash in +'name'+ is its first
2297 character, then return +/+.
2299 +*file executable* 'name'+::
2300 Return '1' if file +'name'+ is executable by
2301 the current user, '0' otherwise.
2303 +*file exists* 'name'+::
2304 Return '1' if file +'name'+ exists and the current user has
2305 search privileges for the directories leading to it, '0' otherwise.
2307 +*file extension* 'name'+::
2308 Return all of the characters in +'name'+ after and including the
2309 last dot in +'name'+. If there is no dot in +'name'+ then return
2312 +*file isdirectory* 'name'+::
2313 Return '1' if file +'name'+ is a directory,
2316 +*file isfile* 'name'+::
2317 Return '1' if file +'name'+ is a regular file,
2320 +*file join* 'arg\...'+::
2321 Joins multiple path components. Note that if any components is
2322 an absolute path, the preceding components are ignored.
2323 Thus +"`file` join /tmp /root"+ returns +"/root"+.
2325 +*file link* ?*-hard|-symbolic*? 'newname target'+::
2326 Creates a hard link (default) or symbolic link from +'newname'+ to +'target'+.
2327 Note that the sense of this command is the opposite of `file rename` and `file copy`
2328 and also of `ln`, but this is compatible with Tcl.
2329 An error is returned if +'target'+ doesn't exist or +'newname'+ already exists.
2331 +*file lstat* 'name varName'+::
2332 Same as 'stat' option (see below) except uses the +'lstat'+
2333 kernel call instead of +'stat'+. This means that if +'name'+
2334 refers to a symbolic link the information returned in +'varName'+
2335 is for the link rather than the file it refers to. On systems that
2336 don't support symbolic links this option behaves exactly the same
2337 as the 'stat' option.
2339 +*file mkdir* 'dir1 ?dir2\...?'+::
2340 Creates each directory specified. For each pathname +'dir'+ specified,
2341 this command will create all non-existing parent directories
2342 as well as +'dir'+ itself. If an existing directory is specified,
2343 then no action is taken and no error is returned. Trying to
2344 overwrite an existing file with a directory will result in an
2345 error. Arguments are processed in the order specified, halting
2346 at the first error, if any.
2348 +*file mtime* 'name ?time?'+::
2349 Return a decimal string giving the time at which file +'name'+
2350 was last modified. The time is measured in the standard UNIX
2351 fashion as seconds from a fixed starting time (often January 1, 1970).
2352 If the file doesn't exist or its modified time cannot be queried then an
2353 error is generated. If +'time'+ is given, sets the modification time
2354 of the file to the given value.
2356 +*file normalize* 'name'+::
2357 Return the normalized path of +'name'+. See 'realpath(3)'.
2359 +*file owned* 'name'+::
2360 Return '1' if file +'name'+ is owned by the current user,
2363 +*file readable* 'name'+::
2364 Return '1' if file +'name'+ is readable by
2365 the current user, '0' otherwise.
2367 +*file readlink* 'name'+::
2368 Returns the value of the symbolic link given by +'name'+ (i.e. the
2369 name of the file it points to). If
2370 +'name'+ isn't a symbolic link or its value cannot be read, then
2371 an error is returned. On systems that don't support symbolic links
2372 this option is undefined.
2374 +*file rename* ?*-force*? 'oldname' 'newname'+::
2375 Renames the file from the old name to the new name.
2376 If +'newname'+ already exists, an error is returned unless +'-force'+ is
2379 +*file rootname* 'name'+::
2380 Return all of the characters in +'name'+ up to but not including
2381 the last '.' character in the name. If +'name'+ doesn't contain
2382 a dot, then return +'name'+.
2384 +*file size* 'name'+::
2385 Return a decimal string giving the size of file +'name'+ in bytes.
2386 If the file doesn't exist or its size cannot be queried then an
2389 +*file stat* 'name ?varName?'+::
2390 Invoke the 'stat' kernel call on +'name'+, and return the result
2391 as a dictionary with the following keys: 'atime',
2392 'ctime', 'dev', 'gid', 'ino', 'mode', 'mtime',
2393 'nlink', 'size', 'type', 'uid'.
2394 Each element except 'type' is a decimal string with the value of
2395 the corresponding field from the 'stat' return structure; see the
2396 manual entry for 'stat' for details on the meanings of the values.
2397 The 'type' element gives the type of the file in the same form
2398 returned by the command `file type`.
2399 If +'varName'+ is specified, it is taken to be the name of an array
2400 variable and the values are also stored into the array.
2402 +*file tail* 'name'+::
2403 Return all of the characters in +'name'+ after the last slash.
2404 If +'name'+ contains no slashes then return +'name'+.
2406 +*file tempfile* '?template?'+::
2407 Creates and returns the name of a unique temporary file. If +'template'+ is omitted, a
2408 default template will be used to place the file in /tmp. See 'mkstemp(3)' for
2409 the format of the template and security concerns.
2411 +*file type* 'name'+::
2412 Returns a string giving the type of file +'name'+, which will be
2413 one of +file+, +directory+, +characterSpecial+,
2414 +blockSpecial+, +fifo+, +link+, or +socket+.
2416 +*file writable* 'name'+::
2417 Return '1' if file +'name'+ is writable by
2418 the current user, '0' otherwise.
2420 The `file` commands that return 0/1 results are often used in
2421 conditional or looping commands, for example:
2423 if {![file exists foo]} {
2424 error {bad file name}
2431 +*finalize* 'reference ?command?'+
2433 If +'command'+ is omitted, returns the finalizer command for the given reference.
2435 Otherwise, sets a new finalizer command for the given reference. +'command'+ may be
2436 the empty string to remove the current finalizer.
2438 The reference must be a valid reference create with the `ref`
2441 See GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION for more detail.
2449 Flushes any output that has been buffered for +'fileId'+. +'fileId'+ must
2450 have been the return value from a previous call to `open`, or it may be
2451 +stdout+ or +stderr+ to access one of the standard I/O streams; it must
2452 refer to a file that was opened for writing. This command returns an
2457 +*for* 'start test next body'+
2459 `for` is a looping command, similar in structure to the C `for` statement.
2460 The +'start'+, +'next'+, and +'body'+ arguments must be Tcl command strings,
2461 and +'test'+ is an expression string.
2463 The `for` command first invokes the Tcl interpreter to execute +'start'+.
2464 Then it repeatedly evaluates +'test'+ as an expression; if the result is
2465 non-zero it invokes the Tcl interpreter on +'body'+, then invokes the Tcl
2466 interpreter on +'next'+, then repeats the loop. The command terminates
2467 when +'test'+ evaluates to 0.
2469 If a `continue` command is invoked within +'body'+ then any remaining
2470 commands in the current execution of +'body'+ are skipped; processing
2471 continues by invoking the Tcl interpreter on +'next'+, then evaluating
2472 +'test'+, and so on.
2474 If a `break` command is invoked within +'body'+ or +'next'+, then the `for`
2475 command will return immediately.
2477 The operation of `break` and `continue` are similar to the corresponding
2480 `for` returns an empty string.
2484 +*foreach* 'varName list body'+
2486 +*foreach* 'varList list ?varList2 list2 \...? body'+
2488 In this command, +'varName'+ is the name of a variable, +'list'+
2489 is a list of values to assign to +'varName'+, and +'body'+ is a
2490 collection of Tcl commands.
2492 For each field in +'list'+ (in order from left to right), `foreach` assigns
2493 the contents of the field to +'varName'+ (as if the `lindex` command
2494 had been used to extract the field), then calls the Tcl interpreter to
2497 If instead of being a simple name, +'varList'+ is used, multiple assignments
2498 are made each time through the loop, one for each element of +'varList'+.
2500 For example, if there are two elements in +'varList'+ and six elements in
2501 the list, the loop will be executed three times.
2503 If the length of the list doesn't evenly divide by the number of elements
2504 in +'varList'+, the value of the remaining variables in the last iteration
2505 of the loop are undefined.
2507 The `break` and `continue` statements may be invoked inside +'body'+,
2508 with the same effect as in the `for` command.
2510 `foreach` returns an empty string.
2514 +*format* 'formatString ?arg \...?'+
2516 This command generates a formatted string in the same way as the
2517 C 'sprintf' procedure (it uses 'sprintf' in its
2518 implementation). +'formatString'+ indicates how to format
2519 the result, using +%+ fields as in 'sprintf', and the additional
2520 arguments, if any, provide values to be substituted into the result.
2522 All of the 'sprintf' options are valid; see the 'sprintf'
2523 man page for details. Each +'arg'+ must match the expected type
2524 from the +%+ field in +'formatString'+; the `format` command
2525 converts each argument to the correct type (floating, integer, etc.)
2526 before passing it to 'sprintf' for formatting.
2528 The only unusual conversion is for +%c+; in this case the argument
2529 must be a decimal string, which will then be converted to the corresponding
2530 ASCII (or UTF-8) character value.
2532 In addition, Jim Tcl provides basic support for conversion to binary with +%b+.
2534 `format` does backslash substitution on its +'formatString'+
2535 argument, so backslash sequences in +'formatString'+ will be handled
2536 correctly even if the argument is in braces.
2538 The return value from `format` is the formatted string.
2542 +*getref* 'reference'+
2544 Returns the string associated with +'reference'+. The reference must
2545 be a valid reference create with the `ref` command.
2547 See GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION for more detail.
2551 +*gets* 'fileId ?varName?'+
2553 +'fileId' *gets* '?varName?'+
2555 Reads the next line from the file given by +'fileId'+ and discards
2556 the terminating newline character.
2558 If +'varName'+ is specified, then the line is placed in the variable
2559 by that name and the return value is a count of the number of characters
2560 read (not including the newline).
2562 If the end of the file is reached before reading
2563 any characters then -1 is returned and +'varName'+ is set to an
2566 If +'varName'+ is not specified then the return value will be
2567 the line (minus the newline character) or an empty string if
2568 the end of the file is reached before reading any characters.
2570 An empty string will also be returned if a line contains no characters
2571 except the newline, so `eof` may have to be used to determine
2572 what really happened.
2574 If the last character in the file is not a newline character, then
2575 `gets` behaves as if there were an additional newline character
2576 at the end of the file.
2578 +'fileId'+ must be +stdin+ or the return value from a previous
2579 call to `open`; it must refer to a file that was opened
2584 +*glob* ?*-nocomplain*? ?*-directory* 'dir'? ?*-tails*? ?*--*? 'pattern ?pattern \...?'+
2586 This command performs filename globbing, using csh rules. The returned
2587 value from `glob` is the list of expanded filenames.
2589 If +-nocomplain+ is specified as the first argument then an empty
2590 list may be returned; otherwise an error is returned if the expanded
2591 list is empty. The +-nocomplain+ argument must be provided
2592 exactly: an abbreviation will not be accepted.
2594 If +-directory+ is given, the +'dir'+ is understood to contain a
2595 directory name to search in. This allows globbing inside directories
2596 whose names may contain glob-sensitive characters. The returned names
2597 include the directory name unless +'-tails'+ is specified.
2599 If +'-tails'+ is specified, along with +-directory+, the returned names
2600 are relative to the given directory.
2605 +*global* 'varName ?varName \...?'+
2607 This command is ignored unless a Tcl procedure is being interpreted.
2608 If so, then it declares each given +'varName'+ to be a global variable
2609 rather than a local one. For the duration of the current procedure
2610 (and only while executing in the current procedure), any reference to
2611 +'varName'+ will be bound to a global variable instead
2614 An alternative to using `global` is to use the +::+ prefix
2615 to explicitly name a variable in the global scope.
2619 +*if* 'expr1' ?*then*? 'body1' *elseif* 'expr2' ?*then*? 'body2' *elseif* \... ?*else*? ?'bodyN'?+
2621 The `if` command evaluates +'expr1'+ as an expression (in the same way
2622 that `expr` evaluates its argument). The value of the expression must
2623 be numeric; if it is non-zero then +'body1'+ is executed by passing it to
2624 the Tcl interpreter.
2626 Otherwise +'expr2'+ is evaluated as an expression and if it is non-zero
2627 then +'body2'+ is executed, and so on.
2629 If none of the expressions evaluates to non-zero then +'bodyN'+ is executed.
2631 The +then+ and +else+ arguments are optional "noise words" to make the
2632 command easier to read.
2634 There may be any number of +elseif+ clauses, including zero. +'bodyN'+
2635 may also be omitted as long as +else+ is omitted too.
2637 The return value from the command is the result of the body script that
2638 was executed, or an empty string if none of the expressions was non-zero
2639 and there was no +'bodyN'+.
2643 +*incr* 'varName ?increment?'+
2645 Increment the value stored in the variable whose name is +'varName'+.
2646 The value of the variable must be integral.
2648 If +'increment'+ is supplied then its value (which must be an
2649 integer) is added to the value of variable +'varName'+; otherwise
2650 1 is added to +'varName'+.
2652 The new value is stored as a decimal string in variable +'varName'+
2653 and also returned as result.
2655 If the variable does not exist, the variable is implicitly created
2656 and set to +0+ first.
2661 +*info* 'option ?arg\...?'+::
2663 Provide information about various internals to the Tcl interpreter.
2664 The legal +'option'+'s (which may be abbreviated) are:
2666 +*info args* 'procname'+::
2667 Returns a list containing the names of the arguments to procedure
2668 +'procname'+, in order. +'procname'+ must be the name of a
2669 Tcl command procedure.
2671 +*info alias* 'command'+::
2672 +'command'+ must be an alias created with `alias`. In which case the target
2673 command and arguments, as passed to `alias` are returned. See `exists -alias`
2675 +*info body* 'procname'+::
2676 Returns the body of procedure +'procname'+. +'procname'+ must be
2677 the name of a Tcl command procedure.
2680 Returns a list of all open file handles from `open` or `socket`
2682 +*info commands* ?'pattern'?+::
2683 If +'pattern'+ isn't specified, returns a list of names of all the
2684 Tcl commands, including both the built-in commands written in C and
2685 the command procedures defined using the `proc` command.
2686 If +'pattern'+ is specified, only those names matching +'pattern'+
2687 are returned. Matching is determined using the same rules as for
2690 +*info complete* 'command' ?'missing'?+::
2691 Returns 1 if +'command'+ is a complete Tcl command in the sense of
2692 having no unclosed quotes, braces, brackets or array element names,
2693 If the command doesn't appear to be complete then 0 is returned.
2694 This command is typically used in line-oriented input environments
2695 to allow users to type in commands that span multiple lines; if the
2696 command isn't complete, the script can delay evaluating it until additional
2697 lines have been typed to complete the command. If +'varName'+ is specified, the
2698 missing character is stored in the variable with that name.
2700 +*info exists* 'varName'+::
2701 Returns '1' if the variable named +'varName'+ exists in the
2702 current context (either as a global or local variable), returns '0'
2705 +*info frame* ?'number'?+::
2706 If +'number'+ is not specified, this command returns a number
2707 which is the same result as `info level` - the current stack frame level.
2708 If +'number'+ is specified, then the result is a list consisting of the procedure,
2709 filename and line number for the procedure call at level +'number'+ on the stack.
2710 If +'number'+ is positive then it selects a particular stack level (1 refers
2711 to the top-most active procedure, 2 to the procedure it called, and
2712 so on); otherwise it gives a level relative to the current level
2713 (0 refers to the current procedure, -1 to its caller, and so on).
2714 The level has an identical meaning to `info level`.
2716 +*info globals* ?'pattern'?+::
2717 If +'pattern'+ isn't specified, returns a list of all the names
2718 of currently-defined global variables.
2719 If +'pattern'+ is specified, only those names matching +'pattern'+
2720 are returned. Matching is determined using the same rules as for
2724 An alias for `os.gethostname` for compatibility with Tcl 6.x
2726 +*info level* ?'number'?+::
2727 If +'number'+ is not specified, this command returns a number
2728 giving the stack level of the invoking procedure, or 0 if the
2729 command is invoked at top-level. If +'number'+ is specified,
2730 then the result is a list consisting of the name and arguments for the
2731 procedure call at level +'number'+ on the stack. If +'number'+
2732 is positive then it selects a particular stack level (1 refers
2733 to the top-most active procedure, 2 to the procedure it called, and
2734 so on); otherwise it gives a level relative to the current level
2735 (0 refers to the current procedure, -1 to its caller, and so on).
2736 See the `uplevel` command for more information on what stack
2739 +*info locals* ?'pattern'?+::
2740 If +'pattern'+ isn't specified, returns a list of all the names
2741 of currently-defined local variables, including arguments to the
2742 current procedure, if any. Variables defined with the `global`
2743 and `upvar` commands will not be returned. If +'pattern'+ is
2744 specified, only those names matching +'pattern'+ are returned.
2745 Matching is determined using the same rules as for `string match`.
2747 +*info nameofexecutable*+::
2748 Returns the name of the binary file from which the application
2749 was invoked. A full path will be returned, unless the path
2750 can't be determined, in which case the empty string will be returned.
2752 +*info procs* ?'pattern'?+::
2753 If +'pattern'+ isn't specified, returns a list of all the
2754 names of Tcl command procedures.
2755 If +'pattern'+ is specified, only those names matching +'pattern'+
2756 are returned. Matching is determined using the same rules as for
2759 +*info references*+::
2760 Returns a list of all references which have not yet been garbage
2763 +*info returncodes* ?'code'?+::
2764 Returns a list representing the mapping of standard return codes
2765 to names. e.g. +{0 ok 1 error 2 return \...}+. If a code is given,
2766 instead returns the name for the given code.
2769 If a Tcl script file is currently being evaluated (i.e. there is a
2770 call to 'Jim_EvalFile' active or there is an active invocation
2771 of the `source` command), then this command returns the name
2772 of the innermost file being processed. Otherwise the command returns an
2775 +*info source* 'script ?filename line?'+::
2776 With a single argument, returns the original source location of the given script as a list of
2777 +{filename linenumber}+. If the source location can't be determined, the
2778 list +{{} 0}+ is returned. If +'filename'+ and +'line'+ are given, returns a copy
2779 of +'script'+ with the associate source information. This can be useful to produce
2780 useful messages from `eval`, etc. if the original source information may be lost.
2782 +*info stacktrace*+::
2783 After an error is caught with `catch`, returns the stack trace as a list
2784 of +{procedure filename line \...}+.
2786 +*info statics* 'procname'+::
2787 Returns a dictionary of the static variables of procedure
2788 +'procname'+. +'procname'+ must be the name of a Tcl command
2789 procedure. An empty dictionary is returned if the procedure has
2790 no static variables.
2793 Returns the version number for this version of Jim in the form +*x.yy*+.
2795 +*info vars* ?'pattern'?+::
2796 If +'pattern'+ isn't specified,
2797 returns a list of all the names of currently-visible variables, including
2798 both locals and currently-visible globals.
2799 If +'pattern'+ is specified, only those names matching +'pattern'+
2800 are returned. Matching is determined using the same rules as for
2805 +*join* 'list ?joinString?'+
2807 The +'list'+ argument must be a valid Tcl list. This command returns the
2808 string formed by joining all of the elements of +'list'+ together with
2809 +'joinString'+ separating each adjacent pair of elements.
2811 The +'joinString'+ argument defaults to a space character.
2815 +*kill* ?'SIG'|*-0*? 'pid'+
2817 Sends the given signal to the process identified by +'pid'+.
2819 The signal may be specified by name or number in one of the following forms:
2827 The signal name may be in either upper or lower case.
2829 The special signal name +-0+ simply checks that a signal +'could'+ be sent.
2831 If no signal is specified, SIGTERM is used.
2833 An error is raised if the signal could not be delivered.
2837 +*lambda* 'args ?statics? body'+
2839 The `lambda` command is identical to `proc`, except rather than
2840 creating a named procedure, it creates an anonymous procedure and returns
2841 the name of the procedure.
2843 See `proc` and GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION for more detail.
2847 +*lappend* 'varName value ?value value \...?'+
2849 Treat the variable given by +'varName'+ as a list and append each of
2850 the +'value'+ arguments to that list as a separate element, with spaces
2853 If +'varName'+ doesn't exist, it is created as a list with elements given
2854 by the +'value'+ arguments. `lappend` is similar to `append` except that
2855 each +'value'+ is appended as a list element rather than raw text.
2857 This command provides a relatively efficient way to build up large lists.
2862 is much more efficient than
2864 set a [concat $a [list $b]]
2870 +*lassign* 'list varName ?varName \...?'+
2872 This command treats the value +'list'+ as a list and assigns successive elements from that list to
2873 the variables given by the +'varName'+ arguments in order. If there are more variable names than
2874 list elements, the remaining variables are set to the empty string. If there are more list elements
2875 than variables, a list of unassigned elements is returned.
2877 jim> lassign {1 2 3} a b; puts a=$a,b=$b
2883 +*local* 'cmd ?arg\...?'+
2885 First, `local` evaluates +'cmd'+ with the given arguments. The return value must
2886 be the name of an existing command, which is marked as having local scope.
2887 This means that when the current procedure exits, the specified
2888 command is deleted. This can be useful with `lambda`, local procedures or
2889 to automatically close a filehandle.
2891 In addition, if a command already exists with the same name,
2892 the existing command will be kept rather than deleted, and may be called
2893 via `upcall`. The previous command will be restored when the current
2894 procedure exits. See `upcall` for more details.
2896 In this example, a local procedure is created. Note that the procedure
2897 continues to have global scope while it is active.
2900 # proc ... returns "inner" which is marked local
2901 local proc inner {} {
2902 # will be deleted when 'outer' exits
2909 In this example, the lambda is deleted at the end of the procedure rather
2910 than waiting until garbage collection.
2913 set x [lambda inner {args} {
2914 # will be deleted when 'outer' exits
2916 # Use 'function' here which simply returns $x
2925 +*loop* 'var first limit ?incr? body'+
2927 Similar to `for` except simpler and possibly more efficient.
2928 With a positive increment, equivalent to:
2930 for {set var $first} {$var < $limit} {incr var $incr} $body
2932 If +'incr'+ is not specified, 1 is used.
2933 Note that setting the loop variable inside the loop does not
2934 affect the loop count.
2938 +*lindex* 'list ?index ...?'+
2940 Treats +'list'+ as a Tcl list and returns element +'index'+ from it
2941 (0 refers to the first element of the list).
2942 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'index'+.
2944 In extracting the element, +'lindex'+ observes the same rules concerning
2945 braces and quotes and backslashes as the Tcl command interpreter; however,
2946 variable substitution and command substitution do not occur.
2948 If no index values are given, simply returns +'list'+
2950 If +'index'+ is negative or greater than or equal to the number of elements
2951 in +'list'+, then an empty string is returned.
2953 If additional index arguments are supplied, then each argument is
2954 used in turn to select an element from the previous indexing
2955 operation, allowing the script to select elements from sublists.
2959 +*linsert* 'list index element ?element element \...?'+
2961 This command produces a new list from +'list'+ by inserting all
2962 of the +'element'+ arguments just before the element +'index'+
2963 of +'list'+. Each +'element'+ argument will become
2964 a separate element of the new list. If +'index'+ is less than
2965 or equal to zero, then the new elements are inserted at the
2966 beginning of the list. If +'index'+ is greater than or equal
2967 to the number of elements in the list, then the new elements are
2968 appended to the list.
2970 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'index'+.
2975 +*list* 'arg ?arg \...?'+
2977 This command returns a list comprised of all the arguments, +'arg'+. Braces
2978 and backslashes get added as necessary, so that the `lindex` command
2979 may be used on the result to re-extract the original arguments, and also
2980 so that `eval` may be used to execute the resulting list, with
2981 +'arg1'+ comprising the command's name and the other args comprising
2982 its arguments. `list` produces slightly different results than
2983 `concat`: `concat` removes one level of grouping before forming
2984 the list, while `list` works directly from the original arguments.
2985 For example, the command
2987 list a b {c d e} {f {g h}}
2991 a b {c d e} {f {g h}}
2993 while `concat` with the same arguments will return
3001 Treats +'list'+ as a list and returns a decimal string giving
3002 the number of elements in it.
3006 +*lset* 'varName ?index ..? newValue'+
3008 Sets an element in a list.
3010 The `lset` command accepts a parameter, +'varName'+, which it interprets
3011 as the name of a variable containing a Tcl list. It also accepts
3012 zero or more indices into the list. Finally, it accepts a new value
3013 for an element of varName. If no indices are presented, the command
3016 lset varName newValue
3018 In this case, newValue replaces the old value of the variable
3021 When presented with a single index, the `lset` command
3022 treats the content of the varName variable as a Tcl list. It addresses
3023 the index'th element in it (0 refers to the first element of the
3024 list). When interpreting the list, `lset` observes the same rules
3025 concerning braces and quotes and backslashes as the Tcl command
3026 interpreter; however, variable substitution and command substitution
3027 do not occur. The command constructs a new list in which the
3028 designated element is replaced with newValue. This new list is
3029 stored in the variable varName, and is also the return value from
3032 If index is negative or greater than or equal to the number of
3033 elements in $varName, then an error occurs.
3035 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'index'+.
3037 If additional index arguments are supplied, then each argument is
3038 used in turn to address an element within a sublist designated by
3039 the previous indexing operation, allowing the script to alter
3040 elements in sublists. The command,
3044 replaces element 2 of sublist 1 with +'newValue'+.
3046 The integer appearing in each index argument must be greater than
3047 or equal to zero. The integer appearing in each index argument must
3048 be strictly less than the length of the corresponding list. In other
3049 words, the `lset` command cannot change the size of a list. If an
3050 index is outside the permitted range, an error is reported.
3055 +*lmap* 'varName list body'+
3057 +*lmap* 'varList list ?varList2 list2 \...? body'+
3059 `lmap` is a "collecting" `foreach` which returns a list of its results.
3063 jim> lmap i {1 2 3 4 5} {expr $i*$i}
3065 jim> lmap a {1 2 3} b {A B C} {list $a $b}
3068 If the body invokes `continue`, no value is added for this iteration.
3069 If the body invokes `break`, the loop ends and no more values are added.
3075 Loads the dynamic extension, +'filename'+. Generally the filename should have
3076 the extension +.so+. The initialisation function for the module must be based
3077 on the name of the file. For example loading +hwaccess.so+ will invoke
3078 the initialisation function, +Jim_hwaccessInit+. Normally the `load` command
3079 should not be used directly. Instead it is invoked automatically by `package require`.
3083 +*lrange* 'list first last'+
3085 +'list'+ must be a valid Tcl list. This command will return a new
3086 list consisting of elements +'first'+ through +'last'+, inclusive.
3088 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'first'+ and +'last'+.
3090 If +'last'+ is greater than or equal to the number of elements
3091 in the list, then it is treated as if it were +end+.
3093 If +'first'+ is greater than +'last'+ then an empty string
3096 Note: +"`lrange` 'list first first'"+ does not always produce the
3097 same result as +"`lindex` 'list first'"+ (although it often does
3098 for simple fields that aren't enclosed in braces); it does, however,
3099 produce exactly the same results as +"`list` [`lindex` 'list first']"+
3104 +*lreplace* 'list first last ?element element \...?'+
3106 Returns a new list formed by replacing one or more elements of
3107 +'list'+ with the +'element'+ arguments.
3109 +'first'+ gives the index in +'list'+ of the first element
3112 If +'first'+ is less than zero then it refers to the first
3113 element of +'list'+; the element indicated by +'first'+
3114 must exist in the list.
3116 +'last'+ gives the index in +'list'+ of the last element
3117 to be replaced; it must be greater than or equal to +'first'+.
3119 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'first'+ and +'last'+.
3121 The +'element'+ arguments specify zero or more new arguments to
3122 be added to the list in place of those that were deleted.
3124 Each +'element'+ argument will become a separate element of
3127 If no +'element'+ arguments are specified, then the elements
3128 between +'first'+ and +'last'+ are simply deleted.
3132 +*lrepeat* 'number element1 ?element2 \...?'+
3134 Build a list by repeating elements +'number'+ times (which must be
3135 a positive integer).
3144 Returns the list in reverse order.
3146 jim> lreverse {1 2 3}
3151 +*lsearch* '?options? list pattern'+
3153 This command searches the elements +'list'+ to see if one of them matches +'pattern'+. If so, the
3154 command returns the index of the first matching element (unless the options +-all+, +-inline+ or +-bool+ are
3155 specified.) If not, the command returns -1. The option arguments indicates how the elements of
3156 the list are to be matched against pattern and must have one of the values below:
3158 *Note* that this command is different from Tcl in that default match type is +-exact+ rather than +-glob+.
3161 +'pattern'+ is a literal string that is compared for exact equality against each list element.
3162 This is the default.
3165 +'pattern'+ is a glob-style pattern which is matched against each list element using the same
3166 rules as the string match command.
3169 +'pattern'+ is treated as a regular expression and matched against each list element using
3170 the rules described by `regexp`.
3172 +*-command* 'cmdname'+::
3173 +'cmdname'+ is a command which is used to match the pattern against each element of the
3174 list. It is invoked as +'cmdname' ?*-nocase*? 'pattern listvalue'+ and should return 1
3175 for a match, or 0 for no match.
3178 Changes the result to be the list of all matching indices (or all matching values if
3179 +-inline+ is specified as well). If indices are returned, the indices will be in numeric
3180 order. If values are returned, the order of the values will be the order of those values
3181 within the input list.
3184 The matching value is returned instead of its index (or an empty string if no value
3185 matches). If +-all+ is also specified, then the result of the command is the list of all
3186 values that matched. The +-inline+ and +-bool+ options are mutually exclusive.
3189 Changes the result to '1' if a match was found, or '0' otherwise. If +-all+ is also specified,
3190 the result will be a list of '0' and '1' for each element of the list depending upon whether
3191 the corresponding element matches. The +-inline+ and +-bool+ options are mutually exclusive.
3194 This negates the sense of the match, returning the index (or value
3195 if +-inline+ is specified) of the first non-matching value in the
3196 list. If +-bool+ is also specified, the '0' will be returned if a
3197 match is found, or '1' otherwise. If +-all+ is also specified,
3198 non-matches will be returned rather than matches.
3201 Causes comparisons to be handled in a case-insensitive manner.
3205 +*lsort* ?*-index* 'listindex'? ?*-nocase|-integer|-real|-command* 'cmdname'? ?*-unique*? ?*-decreasing*|*-increasing*? 'list'+
3207 Sort the elements of +'list'+, returning a new list in sorted order.
3208 By default, ASCII (or UTF-8) sorting is used, with the result in increasing order.
3210 If +-nocase+ is specified, comparisons are case-insensitive.
3212 If +-integer+ is specified, numeric sorting is used.
3214 If +-real+ is specified, floating point number sorting is used.
3216 If +-command 'cmdname'+ is specified, +'cmdname'+ is treated as a command
3217 name. For each comparison, +'cmdname $value1 $value2+' is called which
3218 should compare the values and return an integer less than, equal
3219 to, or greater than zero if the +'$value1'+ is to be considered less
3220 than, equal to, or greater than +'$value2'+, respectively.
3222 If +-decreasing+ is specified, the resulting list is in the opposite
3223 order to what it would be otherwise. +-increasing+ is the default.
3225 If +-unique+ is specified, then only the last set of duplicate elements found in the list will be retained.
3226 Note that duplicates are determined relative to the comparison used in the sort. Thus if +-index 0+ is used,
3227 +{1 a}+ and +{1 b}+ would be considered duplicates and only the second element, +{1 b}+, would be retained.
3229 If +-index 'listindex'+ is specified, each element of the list is treated as a list and
3230 the given index is extracted from the list for comparison. The list index may
3231 be any valid list index, such as +1+, +end+ or +end-2+.
3235 +*open* 'fileName ?access?'+
3237 +*open* '|command-pipeline ?access?'+
3239 Opens a file and returns an identifier
3240 that may be used in future invocations
3241 of commands like `read`, `puts`, and `close`.
3242 +'fileName'+ gives the name of the file to open.
3244 The +'access'+ argument indicates the way in which the file is to be accessed.
3245 It may have any of the following values:
3248 Open the file for reading only; the file must already exist.
3251 Open the file for both reading and writing; the file must
3255 Open the file for writing only. Truncate it if it exists. If it doesn't
3256 exist, create a new file.
3259 Open the file for reading and writing. Truncate it if it exists.
3260 If it doesn't exist, create a new file.
3263 Open the file for writing only. The file must already exist, and the file
3264 is positioned so that new data is appended to the file.
3267 Open the file for reading and writing. If the file doesn't
3268 exist, create a new empty file. Set the initial access position
3269 to the end of the file.
3271 +'access'+ defaults to 'r'.
3273 If a file is opened for both reading and writing, then `seek`
3274 must be invoked between a read and a write, or vice versa.
3276 If the first character of +'fileName'+ is "|" then the remaining
3277 characters of +'fileName'+ are treated as a list of arguments that
3278 describe a command pipeline to invoke, in the same style as the
3279 arguments for exec. In this case, the channel identifier returned
3280 by open may be used to write to the command's input pipe or read
3281 from its output pipe, depending on the value of +'access'+. If write-only
3282 access is used (e.g. +'access'+ is 'w'), then standard output for the
3283 pipeline is directed to the current standard output unless overridden
3284 by the command. If read-only access is used (e.g. +'access'+ is r),
3285 standard input for the pipeline is taken from the current standard
3286 input unless overridden by the command.
3288 The `pid` command may be used to return the process ids of the commands
3289 forming the command pipeline.
3291 See also `socket`, `pid`, `exec`
3295 +*package provide* 'name ?version?'+
3297 Indicates that the current script provides the package named +'name'+.
3298 If no version is specified, '1.0' is used.
3300 Any script which provides a package may include this statement
3301 as the first statement, although it is not required.
3303 +*package require* 'name ?version?'*+
3305 Searches for the package with the given +'name'+ by examining each path
3306 in '$::auto_path' and trying to load '$path/$name.so' as a dynamic extension,
3307 or '$path/$name.tcl' as a script package.
3309 The first such file which is found is considered to provide the package.
3310 (The version number is ignored).
3312 If '$name.so' exists, it is loaded with the `load` command,
3313 otherwise if '$name.tcl' exists it is loaded with the `source` command.
3315 If `load` or `source` fails, `package require` will fail immediately.
3316 No further attempt will be made to locate the file.
3324 The first form returns the process identifier of the current process.
3326 The second form accepts a handle returned by `open` and returns a list
3327 of the process ids forming the pipeline in the same form as `exec ... &`.
3328 If 'fileId' represents a regular file handle rather than a command pipeline,
3329 the empty string is returned instead.
3331 See also `open`, `exec`
3335 +*proc* 'name args ?statics? body'+
3337 The `proc` command creates a new Tcl command procedure, +'name'+.
3338 When the new command is invoked, the contents of +'body'+ will be executed.
3339 Tcl interpreter. +'args'+ specifies the formal arguments to the procedure.
3340 If specified, +'statics'+, declares static variables which are bound to the
3343 See PROCEDURES for detailed information about Tcl procedures.
3345 The `proc` command returns +'name'+ (which is useful with `local`).
3347 When a procedure is invoked, the procedure's return value is the
3348 value specified in a `return` command. If the procedure doesn't
3349 execute an explicit `return`, then its return value is the value
3350 of the last command executed in the procedure's body.
3352 If an error occurs while executing the procedure body, then the
3353 procedure-as-a-whole will return that same error.
3357 +*puts* ?*-nonewline*? '?fileId? string'+
3359 +'fileId' *puts* ?*-nonewline*? 'string'+
3361 Writes the characters given by +'string'+ to the file given
3362 by +'fileId'+. +'fileId'+ must have been the return
3363 value from a previous call to `open`, or it may be
3364 +stdout+ or +stderr+ to refer to one of the standard I/O
3365 channels; it must refer to a file that was opened for
3368 In the first form, if no +'fileId'+ is specified then it defaults to +stdout+.
3369 `puts` normally outputs a newline character after +'string'+,
3370 but this feature may be suppressed by specifying the +-nonewline+
3373 Output to files is buffered internally by Tcl; the `flush`
3374 command may be used to force buffered characters to be output.
3380 Returns the path name of the current working directory.
3384 +*rand* '?min? ?max?'+
3386 Returns a random integer between +'min'+ (defaults to 0) and +'max'+
3387 (defaults to the maximum integer).
3389 If only one argument is given, it is interpreted as +'max'+.
3393 +*range* '?start? end ?step?'+
3395 Returns a list of integers starting at +'start'+ (defaults to 0)
3396 and ranging up to but not including +'end'+ in steps of +'step'+ defaults to 1).
3409 +*read* ?*-nonewline*? 'fileId'+
3411 +'fileId' *read* ?*-nonewline*?+
3413 +*read* 'fileId numBytes'+
3415 +'fileId' *read* 'numBytes'+
3418 In the first form, all of the remaining bytes are read from the file
3419 given by +'fileId'+; they are returned as the result of the command.
3420 If the +-nonewline+ switch is specified then the last
3421 character of the file is discarded if it is a newline.
3423 In the second form, the extra argument specifies how many bytes to read;
3424 exactly this many bytes will be read and returned, unless there are fewer than
3425 +'numBytes'+ bytes left in the file; in this case, all the remaining
3428 +'fileId'+ must be +stdin+ or the return value from a previous call
3429 to `open`; it must refer to a file that was opened for reading.
3433 +*regexp ?-nocase? ?-line? ?-indices? ?-start* 'offset'? *?-all? ?-inline? ?--?* 'exp string ?matchVar? ?subMatchVar subMatchVar \...?'+
3435 Determines whether the regular expression +'exp'+ matches part or
3436 all of +'string'+ and returns 1 if it does, 0 if it doesn't.
3438 See REGULAR EXPRESSIONS above for complete information on the
3439 syntax of +'exp'+ and how it is matched against +'string'+.
3441 If additional arguments are specified after +'string'+ then they
3442 are treated as the names of variables to use to return
3443 information about which part(s) of +'string'+ matched +'exp'+.
3444 +'matchVar'+ will be set to the range of +'string'+ that
3445 matched all of +'exp'+. The first +'subMatchVar'+ will contain
3446 the characters in +'string'+ that matched the leftmost parenthesized
3447 subexpression within +'exp'+, the next +'subMatchVar'+ will
3448 contain the characters that matched the next parenthesized
3449 subexpression to the right in +'exp'+, and so on.
3451 Normally, +'matchVar'+ and the each +'subMatchVar'+ are set to hold the
3452 matching characters from `string`, however see +-indices+ and
3455 If there are more values for +'subMatchVar'+ than parenthesized subexpressions
3456 within +'exp'+, or if a particular subexpression in +'exp'+ doesn't
3457 match the string (e.g. because it was in a portion of the expression
3458 that wasn't matched), then the corresponding +'subMatchVar'+ will be
3459 set to +"-1 -1"+ if +-indices+ has been specified or to an empty
3462 The following switches modify the behaviour of +'regexp'+
3465 Causes upper-case and lower-case characters to be treated as
3466 identical during the matching process.
3469 Use newline-sensitive matching. By default, newline
3470 is a completely ordinary character with no special meaning in
3471 either REs or strings. With this flag, +[^+ bracket expressions
3472 and +.+ never match newline, an +^+ anchor matches the null
3473 string after any newline in the string in addition to its normal
3474 function, and the +$+ anchor matches the null string before any
3475 newline in the string in addition to its normal function.
3478 Changes what is stored in the subMatchVars. Instead of
3479 storing the matching characters from string, each variable
3480 will contain a list of two decimal strings giving the indices
3481 in string of the first and last characters in the matching
3482 range of characters.
3484 +*-start* 'offset'+::
3485 Specifies a character index offset into the string at which to start
3486 matching the regular expression. If +-indices+ is
3487 specified, the indices will be indexed starting from the
3488 absolute beginning of the input string. +'offset'+ will be
3489 constrained to the bounds of the input string.
3492 Causes the regular expression to be matched as many times as possible
3493 in the string, returning the total number of matches found. If this
3494 is specified with match variables, they will contain information
3495 for the last match only.
3498 Causes the command to return, as a list, the data that would otherwise
3499 be placed in match variables. When using +-inline+, match variables
3500 may not be specified. If used with +-all+, the list will be concatenated
3501 at each iteration, such that a flat list is always returned. For
3502 each match iteration, the command will append the overall match
3503 data, plus one element for each subexpression in the regular
3507 Marks the end of switches. The argument following this one will be
3508 treated as +'exp'+ even if it starts with a +-+.
3512 +*regsub ?-nocase? ?-all? ?-line? ?-start* 'offset'? ?*--*? 'exp string subSpec ?varName?'+
3514 This command matches the regular expression +'exp'+ against
3515 +'string'+ using the rules described in REGULAR EXPRESSIONS
3518 If +'varName'+ is specified, the commands stores +'string'+ to +'varName'+
3519 with the substitutions detailed below, and returns the number of
3520 substitutions made (normally 1 unless +-all+ is specified).
3521 This is 0 if there were no matches.
3523 If +'varName'+ is not specified, the substituted string will be returned
3526 When copying +'string'+, the portion of +'string'+ that
3527 matched +'exp'+ is replaced with +'subSpec'+.
3528 If +'subSpec'+ contains a +&+ or +{backslash}0+, then it is replaced
3529 in the substitution with the portion of +'string'+ that
3532 If +'subSpec'+ contains a +{backslash}n+, where +'n'+ is a digit
3533 between 1 and 9, then it is replaced in the substitution with
3534 the portion of +'string'+ that matched the +'n'+\'-th
3535 parenthesized subexpression of +'exp'+.
3536 Additional backslashes may be used in +'subSpec'+ to prevent special
3537 interpretation of +&+ or +{backslash}0+ or +{backslash}n+ or
3540 The use of backslashes in +'subSpec'+ tends to interact badly
3541 with the Tcl parser's use of backslashes, so it's generally
3542 safest to enclose +'subSpec'+ in braces if it includes
3545 The following switches modify the behaviour of +'regsub'+
3548 Upper-case characters in +'string'+ are converted to lower-case
3549 before matching against +'exp'+; however, substitutions
3550 specified by +'subSpec'+ use the original unconverted form
3554 All ranges in +'string'+ that match +'exp'+ are found and substitution
3555 is performed for each of these ranges, rather than only the
3556 first. The +&+ and +{backslash}n+ sequences are handled for
3557 each substitution using the information from the corresponding
3561 Use newline-sensitive matching. By default, newline
3562 is a completely ordinary character with no special meaning in
3563 either REs or strings. With this flag, +[^+ bracket expressions
3564 and +.+ never match newline, an +^+ anchor matches the null
3565 string after any newline in the string in addition to its normal
3566 function, and the +$+ anchor matches the null string before any
3567 newline in the string in addition to its normal function.
3569 +*-start* 'offset'+::
3570 Specifies a character index offset into the string at which to
3571 start matching the regular expression. +'offset'+ will be
3572 constrained to the bounds of the input string.
3575 Marks the end of switches. The argument following this one will be
3576 treated as +'exp'+ even if it starts with a +-+.
3580 +*ref* 'string tag ?finalizer?'+
3582 Create a new reference containing +'string'+ of type +'tag'+.
3583 If +'finalizer'+ is specified, it is a command which will be invoked
3584 when the a garbage collection cycle runs and this reference is
3585 no longer accessible.
3587 The finalizer is invoked as:
3589 finalizer reference string
3591 See GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION for more detail.
3595 +*rename* 'oldName newName'+
3597 Rename the command that used to be called +'oldName'+ so that it
3598 is now called +'newName'+. If +'newName'+ is an empty string
3599 (e.g. {}) then +'oldName'+ is deleted. The `rename` command
3600 returns an empty string as result.
3604 +*return* ?*-code* 'code'? ?*-errorinfo* 'stacktrace'? ?*-errorcode* 'errorcode'? ?*-level* 'n'? ?'value'?+
3606 Return immediately from the current procedure (or top-level command
3607 or `source` command), with +'value'+ as the return value. If +'value'+
3608 is not specified, an empty string will be returned as result.
3610 If +-code+ is specified (as either a number or ok, error, break,
3611 continue, signal, return or exit), this code will be used instead
3612 of +JIM_OK+. This is generally useful when implementing flow of control
3615 If +-level+ is specified and greater than 1, it has the effect of delaying
3616 the new return code from +-code+. This is useful when rethrowing an error
3617 from `catch`. See the implementation of try/catch in tclcompat.tcl for
3618 an example of how this is done.
3620 Note: The following options are only used when +-code+ is JIM_ERR.
3622 If +-errorinfo+ is specified (as returned from `info stacktrace`)
3623 it is used to initialize the stacktrace.
3625 If +-errorcode+ is specified, it is used to set the global variable $::errorCode.
3629 +*scan* 'string format varName1 ?varName2 \...?'+
3631 This command parses fields from an input string in the same fashion
3632 as the C 'sscanf' procedure. +'string'+ gives the input to be parsed
3633 and +'format'+ indicates how to parse it, using '%' fields as in
3634 'sscanf'. All of the 'sscanf' options are valid; see the 'sscanf'
3635 man page for details. Each +'varName'+ gives the name of a variable;
3636 when a field is scanned from +'string'+, the result is converted back
3637 into a string and assigned to the corresponding +'varName'+. The
3638 only unusual conversion is for '%c'. For '%c' conversions a single
3639 character value is converted to a decimal string, which is then
3640 assigned to the corresponding +'varName'+; no field width may be
3641 specified for this conversion.
3645 +*seek* 'fileId offset ?origin?'+
3647 +'fileId' *seek* 'offset ?origin?'+
3649 Change the current access position for +'fileId'+.
3650 The +'offset'+ and +'origin'+ arguments specify the position at
3651 which the next read or write will occur for +'fileId'+.
3652 +'offset'+ must be a number (which may be negative) and +'origin'+
3653 must be one of the following:
3656 The new access position will be +'offset'+ bytes from the start
3660 The new access position will be +'offset'+ bytes from the current
3661 access position; a negative +'offset'+ moves the access position
3662 backwards in the file.
3665 The new access position will be +'offset'+ bytes from the end of
3666 the file. A negative +'offset'+ places the access position before
3667 the end-of-file, and a positive +'offset'+ places the access position
3668 after the end-of-file.
3670 The +'origin'+ argument defaults to +start+.
3672 +'fileId'+ must have been the return value from a previous call to
3673 `open`, or it may be +stdin+, +stdout+, or +stderr+ to refer to one
3674 of the standard I/O channels.
3676 This command returns an empty string.
3680 +*set* 'varName ?value?'+
3682 Returns the value of variable +'varName'+.
3684 If +'value'+ is specified, then set the value of +'varName'+ to +'value'+,
3685 creating a new variable if one doesn't already exist, and return
3688 If +'varName'+ contains an open parenthesis and ends with a
3689 close parenthesis, then it refers to an array element: the characters
3690 before the open parenthesis are the name of the array, and the characters
3691 between the parentheses are the index within the array.
3692 Otherwise +'varName'+ refers to a scalar variable.
3694 If no procedure is active, then +'varName'+ refers to a global
3697 If a procedure is active, then +'varName'+ refers to a parameter
3698 or local variable of the procedure, unless the +'global'+ command
3699 has been invoked to declare +'varName'+ to be global.
3701 The +::+ prefix may also be used to explicitly reference a variable
3702 in the global scope.
3706 +*setref* 'reference string'+
3708 Store a new string in +'reference'+, replacing the existing string.
3709 The reference must be a valid reference create with the `ref`
3712 See GARBAGE COLLECTION, REFERENCES, LAMBDA FUNCTION for more detail.
3716 Command for signal handling.
3718 See `kill` for the different forms which may be used to specify signals.
3720 Commands which return a list of signal names do so using the canonical form:
3723 +*signal handle* ?'signals \...'?+::
3724 If no signals are given, returns a list of all signals which are currently
3726 If signals are specified, these are added to the list of signals currently
3729 +*signal ignore* ?'signals \...'?+::
3730 If no signals are given, returns a lists all signals which are currently
3732 If signals are specified, these are added to the list of signals
3733 currently being ignored. These signals are still delivered, but
3734 are not considered by `catch -signal` or `try -signal`. Use
3735 `signal check` to determine which signals have occurred but
3738 +*signal default* ?'signals \...'?+::
3739 If no signals are given, returns a lists all signals which are currently have
3740 the default behaviour.
3741 If signals are specified, these are added to the list of signals which have
3742 the default behaviour.
3744 +*signal check ?-clear?* ?'signals \...'?+::
3745 Returns a list of signals which have been delivered to the process
3746 but are 'ignored'. If signals are specified, only that set of signals will
3747 be checked, otherwise all signals will be checked.
3748 If +-clear+ is specified, any signals returned are removed and will not be
3749 returned by subsequent calls to `signal check` unless delivered again.
3751 +*signal throw* ?'signal'?+::
3752 Raises the given signal, which defaults to +SIGINT+ if not specified.
3753 The behaviour is identical to:
3757 Note that `signal handle` and `signal ignore` represent two forms of signal
3758 handling. `signal handle` is used in conjunction with `catch -signal` or `try -signal`
3759 to immediately abort execution when the signal is delivered. Alternatively, `signal ignore`
3760 is used in conjunction with `signal check` to handle signal synchronously. Consider the
3763 Prevent a processing from taking too long
3765 signal handle SIGALRM
3768 .. possibly long running process ..
3771 puts stderr "Process took too long"
3774 Handle SIGHUP to reconfigure:
3776 signal ignore SIGHUP
3778 ... handle configuration/reconfiguration ...
3779 while {[signal check -clear SIGHUP] eq ""} {
3780 ... do processing ..
3782 # Received SIGHUP, so reconfigure
3789 Pauses for the given number of seconds, which may be a floating
3790 point value less than one to sleep for less than a second, or an
3791 integer to sleep for one or more seconds.
3795 +*source* 'fileName'+
3797 Read file +'fileName'+ and pass the contents to the Tcl interpreter
3798 as a sequence of commands to execute in the normal fashion. The return
3799 value of `source` is the return value of the last command executed
3800 from the file. If an error occurs in executing the contents of the
3801 file, then the `source` command will return that error.
3803 If a `return` command is invoked from within the file, the remainder of
3804 the file will be skipped and the `source` command will return
3805 normally with the result from the `return` command.
3809 +*split* 'string ?splitChars?'+
3811 Returns a list created by splitting +'string'+ at each character
3812 that is in the +'splitChars'+ argument.
3814 Each element of the result list will consist of the
3815 characters from +'string'+ between instances of the
3816 characters in +'splitChars'+.
3818 Empty list elements will be generated if +'string'+ contains
3819 adjacent characters in +'splitChars'+, or if the first or last
3820 character of +'string'+ is in +'splitChars'+.
3822 If +'splitChars'+ is an empty string then each character of
3823 +'string'+ becomes a separate element of the result list.
3825 +'splitChars'+ defaults to the standard white-space characters.
3828 split "comp.unix.misc" .
3830 returns +'"comp unix misc"'+ and
3832 split "Hello world" {}
3834 returns +'"H e l l o { } w o r l d"'+.
3839 +*stackdump* 'stacktrace'+
3841 Creates a human readable representation of a stack trace.
3848 Returns a live stack trace as a list of +proc file line proc file line \...+.
3849 Iteratively uses `info frame` to create the stack trace. This stack trace is in the
3850 same form as produced by `catch` and `info stacktrace`
3852 See also `stackdump`.
3857 +*string* 'option arg ?arg \...?'+
3859 Perform one of several string operations, depending on +'option'+.
3860 The legal options (which may be abbreviated) are:
3862 +*string bytelength* 'string'+::
3863 Returns the length of the string in bytes. This will return
3864 the same value as `string length` if UTF-8 support is not enabled,
3865 or if the string is composed entirely of ASCII characters.
3866 See UTF-8 AND UNICODE.
3868 +*string byterange* 'string first last'+::
3869 Like `string range` except works on bytes rather than characters.
3870 These commands are identical if UTF-8 support is not enabled.
3872 +*string cat* '?string1 string2 \...?'+::
3873 Concatenates the given strings into a single string.
3875 +*string compare ?-nocase?* ?*-length* 'len? string1 string2'+::
3876 Perform a character-by-character comparison of strings +'string1'+ and
3877 +'string2'+ in the same way as the C 'strcmp' procedure. Return
3878 -1, 0, or 1, depending on whether +'string1'+ is lexicographically
3879 less than, equal to, or greater than +'string2'+. If +-length+
3880 is specified, then only the first +'len'+ characters are used
3881 in the comparison. If +'len'+ is negative, it is ignored.
3882 Performs a case-insensitive comparison if +-nocase+ is specified.
3884 +*string equal ?-nocase?* '?*-length* len?' 'string1 string2'+::
3885 Returns 1 if the strings are equal, or 0 otherwise. If +-length+
3886 is specified, then only the first +'len'+ characters are used
3887 in the comparison. If +'len'+ is negative, it is ignored.
3888 Performs a case-insensitive comparison if +-nocase+ is specified.
3890 +*string first* 'string1 string2 ?firstIndex?'+::
3891 Search +'string2'+ for a sequence of characters that exactly match
3892 the characters in +'string1'+. If found, return the index of the
3893 first character in the first such match within +'string2'+. If not
3894 found, return -1. If +'firstIndex'+ is specified, matching will start
3895 from +'firstIndex'+ of +'string1'+.
3897 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'firstIndex'+.
3899 +*string index* 'string charIndex'+::
3900 Returns the +'charIndex'+'th character of the +'string'+
3901 argument. A +'charIndex'+ of 0 corresponds to the first
3902 character of the string.
3903 If +'charIndex'+ is less than 0 or greater than
3904 or equal to the length of the string then an empty string is
3907 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'charIndex'+.
3909 +*string is* 'class' ?*-strict*? 'string'+::
3910 Returns 1 if +'string'+ is a valid member of the specified character
3911 class, otherwise returns 0. If +-strict+ is specified, then an
3912 empty string returns 0, otherwise an empty string will return 1
3913 on any class. The following character classes are recognized
3914 (the class name can be abbreviated):
3916 +alnum+;; Any alphabet or digit character.
3917 +alpha+;; Any alphabet character.
3918 +ascii+;; Any character with a value less than 128 (those that are in the 7-bit ascii range).
3919 +boolean+;; Any of the valid string formats for a boolean value in Tcl (0, false, no, off, 1, true, yes, on)
3920 +control+;; Any control character.
3921 +digit+;; Any digit character.
3922 +double+;; Any of the valid forms for a double in Tcl, with optional surrounding whitespace.
3923 In case of under/overflow in the value, 0 is returned.
3924 +graph+;; Any printing character, except space.
3925 +integer+;; Any of the valid string formats for an integer value in Tcl, with optional surrounding whitespace.
3926 +lower+;; Any lower case alphabet character.
3927 +print+;; Any printing character, including space.
3928 +punct+;; Any punctuation character.
3929 +space+;; Any space character.
3930 +upper+;; Any upper case alphabet character.
3931 +xdigit+;; Any hexadecimal digit character ([0-9A-Fa-f]).
3933 Note that string classification does +'not'+ respect UTF-8. See UTF-8 AND UNICODE
3935 Note that only +'lowercase'+ boolean values are recognized (Tcl accepts any case).
3937 +*string last* 'string1 string2 ?lastIndex?'+::
3938 Search +'string2'+ for a sequence of characters that exactly match
3939 the characters in +'string1'+. If found, return the index of the
3940 first character in the last such match within +'string2'+. If there
3941 is no match, then return -1. If +'lastIndex'+ is specified, only characters
3942 up to +'lastIndex'+ of +'string2'+ will be considered in the match.
3944 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'lastIndex'+.
3946 +*string length* 'string'+::
3947 Returns a decimal string giving the number of characters in +'string'+.
3948 If UTF-8 support is enabled, this may be different than the number of bytes.
3949 See UTF-8 AND UNICODE
3951 +*string map ?-nocase?* 'mapping string'+::
3952 Replaces substrings in +'string'+ based on the key-value pairs in
3953 +'mapping'+, which is a list of +key value key value \...+ as in the form
3954 returned by `array get`. Each instance of a key in the string will be
3955 replaced with its corresponding value. If +-nocase+ is specified, then
3956 matching is done without regard to case differences. Both key and value may
3957 be multiple characters. Replacement is done in an ordered manner, so the
3958 key appearing first in the list will be checked first, and so on. +'string'+ is
3959 only iterated over once, so earlier key replacements will have no affect for
3960 later key matches. For example,
3962 string map {abc 1 ab 2 a 3 1 0} 1abcaababcabababc
3965 will return the string +01321221+.
3967 Note that if an earlier key is a prefix of a later one, it will completely mask the later
3968 one. So if the previous example is reordered like this,
3970 string map {1 0 ab 2 a 3 abc 1} 1abcaababcabababc
3973 it will return the string +02c322c222c+.
3975 +*string match ?-nocase?* 'pattern string'+::
3976 See if +'pattern'+ matches +'string'+; return 1 if it does, 0
3977 if it doesn't. Matching is done in a fashion similar to that
3978 used by the C-shell. For the two strings to match, their contents
3979 must be identical except that the following special sequences
3980 may appear in +'pattern'+:
3983 Matches any sequence of characters in +'string'+,
3984 including a null string.
3987 Matches any single character in +'string'+.
3990 Matches any character in the set given by +'chars'+.
3991 If a sequence of the form +'x-y'+ appears in +'chars'+,
3992 then any character between +'x'+ and +'y'+, inclusive,
3996 Matches the single character +'x'+. This provides a way of
3997 avoiding the special interpretation of the characters +{backslash}*?[]+
4000 Performs a case-insensitive comparison if +-nocase+ is specified.
4002 +*string range* 'string first last'+::
4003 Returns a range of consecutive characters from +'string'+, starting
4004 with the character whose index is +'first'+ and ending with the
4005 character whose index is +'last'+. An index of 0 refers to the
4006 first character of the string.
4008 See STRING AND LIST INDEX SPECIFICATIONS for all allowed forms for +'first'+ and +'last'+.
4010 If +'first'+ is less than zero then it is treated as if it were zero, and
4011 if +'last'+ is greater than or equal to the length of the string then
4012 it is treated as if it were +end+. If +'first'+ is greater than
4013 +'last'+ then an empty string is returned.
4015 +*string repeat* 'string count'+::
4016 Returns a new string consisting of +'string'+ repeated +'count'+ times.
4018 +*string replace* 'string first last ?newstring?'+::
4019 Removes a range of consecutive characters from +'string'+, starting
4020 with the character whose index is +'first'+ and ending with the
4021 character whose index is +'last'+. If +'newstring'+ is specified,
4022 then it is placed in the removed character range. If +'first'+ is
4023 less than zero then it is treated as if it were zero, and if +'last'+
4024 is greater than or equal to the length of the string then it is
4025 treated as if it were +end+. If +'first'+ is greater than +'last'+
4026 or the length of the initial string, or +'last'+ is less than 0,
4027 then the initial string is returned untouched.
4029 +*string reverse* 'string'+::
4030 Returns a string that is the same length as +'string'+ but
4031 with its characters in the reverse order.
4033 +*string tolower* 'string'+::
4034 Returns a value equal to +'string'+ except that all upper case
4035 letters have been converted to lower case.
4037 +*string totitle* 'string'+::
4038 Returns a value equal to +'string'+ except that the first character
4039 is converted to title case (or upper case if there is no UTF-8 titlecase variant)
4040 and all remaining characters have been converted to lower case.
4042 +*string toupper* 'string'+::
4043 Returns a value equal to +'string'+ except that all lower case
4044 letters have been converted to upper case.
4046 +*string trim* 'string ?chars?'+::
4047 Returns a value equal to +'string'+ except that any leading
4048 or trailing characters from the set given by +'chars'+ are
4050 If +'chars'+ is not specified then white space is removed
4051 (spaces, tabs, newlines, and carriage returns).
4053 +*string trimleft* 'string ?chars?'+::
4054 Returns a value equal to +'string'+ except that any
4055 leading characters from the set given by +'chars'+ are
4057 If +'chars'+ is not specified then white space is removed
4058 (spaces, tabs, newlines, and carriage returns).
4060 +*string trimright* 'string ?chars?'+::
4061 Returns a value equal to +'string'+ except that any
4062 trailing characters from the set given by +'chars'+ are
4064 If +'chars'+ is not specified then white space is removed
4065 (spaces, tabs, newlines, and carriage returns).
4066 Null characters are always removed.
4070 +*subst ?-nobackslashes? ?-nocommands? ?-novariables?* 'string'+
4072 This command performs variable substitutions, command substitutions,
4073 and backslash substitutions on its string argument and returns the
4074 fully-substituted result. The substitutions are performed in exactly
4075 the same way as for Tcl commands. As a result, the string argument
4076 is actually substituted twice, once by the Tcl parser in the usual
4077 fashion for Tcl commands, and again by the subst command.
4079 If any of the +-nobackslashes+, +-nocommands+, or +-novariables+ are
4080 specified, then the corresponding substitutions are not performed.
4081 For example, if +-nocommands+ is specified, no command substitution
4082 is performed: open and close brackets are treated as ordinary
4083 characters with no special interpretation.
4085 *Note*: when it performs its substitutions, subst does not give any
4086 special treatment to double quotes or curly braces. For example,
4087 the following script returns +xyz \{44\}+, not +xyz \{$a\}+.
4095 +*switch* '?options? string pattern body ?pattern body \...?'+
4097 +*switch* '?options? string {pattern body ?pattern body \...?}'+
4099 The `switch` command matches its string argument against each of
4100 the pattern arguments in order. As soon as it finds a pattern that
4101 matches string it evaluates the following body and returns the
4102 result of that evaluation. If the last pattern argument is default
4103 then it matches anything. If no pattern argument matches string and
4104 no default is given, then the `switch` command returns an empty string.
4105 If the initial arguments to switch start with - then they are treated
4106 as options. The following options are currently supported:
4109 Use exact matching when comparing string to a
4110 pattern. This is the default.
4113 When matching string to the patterns, use glob-style
4114 matching (i.e. the same as implemented by the string
4118 When matching string to the patterns, use regular
4119 expression matching (i.e. the same as implemented
4120 by the regexp command).
4122 +-command 'commandname'+::
4123 When matching string to the patterns, use the given command, which
4124 must be a single word. The command is invoked as
4125 'commandname pattern string', or 'commandname -nocase pattern string'
4126 and must return 1 if matched, or 0 if not.
4129 Marks the end of options. The argument following
4130 this one will be treated as string even if it starts
4133 Two syntaxes are provided for the pattern and body arguments. The
4134 first uses a separate argument for each of the patterns and commands;
4135 this form is convenient if substitutions are desired on some of the
4136 patterns or commands. The second form places all of the patterns
4137 and commands together into a single argument; the argument must
4138 have proper list structure, with the elements of the list being the
4139 patterns and commands. The second form makes it easy to construct
4140 multi-line `switch` commands, since the braces around the whole list
4141 make it unnecessary to include a backslash at the end of each line.
4142 Since the pattern arguments are in braces in the second form, no
4143 command or variable substitutions are performed on them; this makes
4144 the behaviour of the second form different than the first form in
4147 If a body is specified as +-+ it means that the body for the next
4148 pattern should also be used as the body for this pattern (if the
4149 next pattern also has a body of +-+ then the body after that is
4150 used, and so on). This feature makes it possible to share a single
4151 body among several patterns.
4153 Below are some examples of `switch` commands:
4155 switch abc a - b {format 1} abc {format 2} default {format 3}
4159 switch -regexp aaab {
4179 +*tailcall* 'cmd ?arg\...?'+
4181 The `tailcall` command provides an optimised way of invoking a command whilst replacing
4182 the current call frame. This is similar to 'exec' in Bourne Shell.
4184 The following are identical except the first immediately replaces the current call frame.
4188 return [uplevel 1 [list a b c]]
4190 `tailcall` is useful as a dispatch mechanism:
4193 tailcall sub_$cmd {*}$args
4204 Returns a decimal string giving the current access position in
4207 +'fileId'+ must have been the return value from a previous call to
4208 `open`, or it may be +stdin+, +stdout+, or +stderr+ to refer to one
4209 of the standard I/O channels.
4213 +*throw* 'code ?msg?'+
4215 This command throws an exception (return) code along with an optional message.
4216 This command is mostly for convenient usage with `try`.
4218 The command +throw break+ is equivalent to +break+.
4219 The command +throw 20 message+ can be caught with an +on 20 \...+ clause to `try`.
4223 +*time* 'command ?count?'+
4225 This command will call the Tcl interpreter +'count'+
4226 times to execute +'command'+ (or once if +'count'+ isn't
4227 specified). It will then return a string of the form
4229 503 microseconds per iteration
4231 which indicates the average amount of time required per iteration,
4234 Time is measured in elapsed time, not CPU time.
4238 +*try* '?catchopts? tryscript' ?*on* 'returncodes {?resultvar? ?optsvar?} handlerscript \...'? ?*finally* 'finalscript'?+
4240 The `try` command is provided as a convenience for exception handling.
4242 This interpeter first evaluates +'tryscript'+ under the effect of the catch
4243 options +'catchopts'+ (e.g. +-signal -noexit --+, see `catch`).
4245 It then evaluates the script for the first matching 'on' handler
4246 (there many be zero or more) based on the return code from the `try`
4247 section. For example a normal +JIM_ERR+ error will be matched by
4248 an 'on error' handler.
4250 Finally, any +'finalscript'+ is evaluated.
4252 The result of this command is the result of +'tryscript'+, except in the
4253 case where an exception occurs in a matching 'on' handler script or the 'finally' script,
4254 in which case the result is this new exception.
4256 The specified +'returncodes'+ is a list of return codes either as names ('ok', 'error', 'break', etc.)
4259 If +'resultvar'+ and +'optsvar'+ are specified, they are set as for `catch` before evaluating
4260 the matching handler.
4267 } on {continue break} {} {
4268 error "Unexpected break/continue"
4269 } on error {msg opts} {
4270 puts "Dealing with error"
4271 return {*}$opts $msg
4273 puts "Got signal: $sig"
4278 If break, continue or error are raised, they are dealt with by the matching
4281 In any case, the file will be closed via the 'finally' clause.
4283 See also `throw`, `catch`, `return`, `error`.
4287 +*unknown* 'cmdName ?arg arg ...?'+
4289 This command doesn't actually exist as part of Tcl, but Tcl will
4290 invoke it if it does exist.
4292 If the Tcl interpreter encounters a command name for which there
4293 is not a defined command, then Tcl checks for the existence of
4294 a command named `unknown`.
4296 If there is no such command, then the interpreter returns an
4299 If the `unknown` command exists, then it is invoked with
4300 arguments consisting of the fully-substituted name and arguments
4301 for the original non-existent command.
4303 The `unknown` command typically does things like searching
4304 through library directories for a command procedure with the name
4305 +'cmdName'+, or expanding abbreviated command names to full-length,
4306 or automatically executing unknown commands as UNIX sub-processes.
4308 In some cases (such as expanding abbreviations) `unknown` will
4309 change the original command slightly and then (re-)execute it.
4310 The result of the `unknown` command is used as the result for
4311 the original non-existent command.
4315 +*unset ?-nocomplain? ?--?* '?name name ...?'+
4318 Each +'name'+ is a variable name, specified in any of the
4319 ways acceptable to the `set` command.
4321 If a +'name'+ refers to an element of an array, then that
4322 element is removed without affecting the rest of the array.
4324 If a +'name'+ consists of an array name with no parenthesized
4325 index, then the entire array is deleted.
4327 The `unset` command returns an empty string as result.
4329 An error occurs if any of the variables doesn't exist, unless '-nocomplain'
4330 is specified. The '--' argument may be specified to stop option processing
4331 in case the variable name may be '-nocomplain'.
4335 +*upcall* 'command ?args ...?'+
4337 May be used from within a proc defined as `local` `proc` in order to call
4338 the previous, hidden version of the same command.
4340 If there is no previous definition of the command, an error is returned.
4344 +*uplevel* '?level? command ?command ...?'+
4346 All of the +'command'+ arguments are concatenated as if they had
4347 been passed to `concat`; the result is then evaluated in the
4348 variable context indicated by +'level'+. `uplevel` returns
4349 the result of that evaluation. If +'level'+ is an integer, then
4350 it gives a distance (up the procedure calling stack) to move before
4351 executing the command. If +'level'+ consists of +\#+ followed by
4352 a number then the number gives an absolute level number. If +'level'+
4353 is omitted then it defaults to +1+. +'level'+ cannot be
4354 defaulted if the first +'command'+ argument starts with a digit or +#+.
4356 For example, suppose that procedure 'a' was invoked
4357 from top-level, and that it called 'b', and that 'b' called 'c'.
4358 Suppose that 'c' invokes the `uplevel` command. If +'level'+
4359 is +1+ or +#2+ or omitted, then the command will be executed
4360 in the variable context of 'b'. If +'level'+ is +2+ or +#1+
4361 then the command will be executed in the variable context of 'a'.
4363 If +'level'+ is '3' or +#0+ then the command will be executed
4364 at top-level (only global variables will be visible).
4365 The `uplevel` command causes the invoking procedure to disappear
4366 from the procedure calling stack while the command is being executed.
4367 In the above example, suppose 'c' invokes the command
4369 uplevel 1 {set x 43; d}
4371 where 'd' is another Tcl procedure. The `set` command will
4372 modify the variable 'x' in 'b's context, and 'd' will execute
4373 at level 3, as if called from 'b'. If it in turn executes
4378 then the `set` command will modify the same variable 'x' in 'b's
4379 context: the procedure 'c' does not appear to be on the call stack
4380 when 'd' is executing. The command `info level` may
4381 be used to obtain the level of the current procedure.
4383 `uplevel` makes it possible to implement new control
4384 constructs as Tcl procedures (for example, `uplevel` could
4385 be used to implement the `while` construct as a Tcl procedure).
4389 +*upvar* '?level? otherVar myVar ?otherVar myVar ...?'+
4391 This command arranges for one or more local variables in the current
4392 procedure to refer to variables in an enclosing procedure call or
4393 to global variables.
4395 +'level'+ may have any of the forms permitted for the `uplevel`
4396 command, and may be omitted if the first letter of the first +'otherVar'+
4397 isn't +#+ or a digit (it defaults to '1').
4399 For each +'otherVar'+ argument, `upvar` makes the variable
4400 by that name in the procedure frame given by +'level'+ (or at
4401 global level, if +'level'+ is +#0+) accessible
4402 in the current procedure by the name given in the corresponding
4405 The variable named by +'otherVar'+ need not exist at the time of the
4406 call; it will be created the first time +'myVar'+ is referenced, just like
4407 an ordinary variable.
4409 `upvar` may only be invoked from within procedures.
4411 `upvar` returns an empty string.
4413 The `upvar` command simplifies the implementation of call-by-name
4414 procedure calling and also makes it easier to build new control constructs
4416 For example, consider the following procedure:
4423 'add2' is invoked with an argument giving the name of a variable,
4424 and it adds two to the value of that variable.
4425 Although 'add2' could have been implemented using `uplevel`
4426 instead of `upvar`, `upvar` makes it simpler for 'add2'
4427 to access the variable in the caller's procedure frame.
4431 +*while* 'test body'+
4433 The +'while'+ command evaluates +'test'+ as an expression
4434 (in the same way that `expr` evaluates its argument).
4435 The value of the expression must be numeric; if it is non-zero
4436 then +'body'+ is executed by passing it to the Tcl interpreter.
4438 Once +'body'+ has been executed then +'test'+ is evaluated
4439 again, and the process repeats until eventually +'test'+
4440 evaluates to a zero numeric value. `continue`
4441 commands may be executed inside +'body'+ to terminate the current
4442 iteration of the loop, and `break`
4443 commands may be executed inside +'body'+ to cause immediate
4444 termination of the `while` command.
4446 The `while` command always returns an empty string.
4451 The following extensions may or may not be available depending upon
4452 what options were selected when Jim Tcl was built.
4455 posix: os.fork, os.wait, os.gethostname, os.getids, os.uptime
4456 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4458 Invokes 'fork(2)' and returns the result.
4460 +*os.wait -nohang* 'pid'+::
4461 Invokes waitpid(2), with WNOHANG if +-nohang+ is specified.
4462 Returns a list of 3 elements.
4464 {0 none 0} if -nohang is specified, and the process is still alive.
4466 {-1 error <error-description>} if the process does not exist or has already been waited for.
4468 {<pid> exit <exit-status>} if the process exited normally.
4470 {<pid> signal <signal-number>} if the process terminated on a signal.
4472 {<pid> other 0} otherwise (core dump, stopped, continued, etc.)
4474 +*os.gethostname*+::
4475 Invokes 'gethostname(3)' and returns the result.
4478 Returns the various user/group ids for the current process.
4481 uid 1000 euid 1000 gid 100 egid 100
4484 Returns the number of seconds since system boot. See description of 'uptime' in 'sysinfo(2)'.
4486 ANSI I/O (aio) and EVENTLOOP API
4487 --------------------------------
4488 Jim provides an alternative object-based API for I/O.
4490 See `open` and `socket` for commands which return an I/O handle.
4494 +$handle *accept* ?addrvar?+::
4495 Server socket only: Accept a connection and return stream.
4496 If +'addrvar'+ is specified, the address of the connected client is stored
4497 in the named variable in the form 'addr:port'. See `socket` for details.
4499 +$handle *buffering none|line|full*+::
4500 Sets the buffering mode of the stream.
4502 +$handle *close* ?r(ead)|w(rite)?+::
4504 The two-argument form is a "half-close" on a socket. See the +shutdown(2)+ man page.
4506 +$handle *copyto* 'tofd ?size?'+::
4507 Copy bytes to the file descriptor +'tofd'+. If +'size'+ is specified, at most
4508 that many bytes will be copied. Otherwise copying continues until the end
4509 of the input file. Returns the number of bytes actually copied.
4512 Returns 1 if stream is at eof
4514 +$handle *filename*+::
4515 Returns the original filename associated with the handle.
4516 Handles returned by `socket` give the socket type instead of a filename.
4521 +$handle *gets* '?var?'+::
4522 Read one line and return it or store it in the var
4524 +$handle *isatty*+::
4525 Returns 1 if the stream is a tty device.
4528 Apply a POSIX lock to the open file associated with the handle using
4530 The handle must be open for write access.
4531 Returns 1 if the lock was successfully obtained, 0 otherwise.
4532 An error occurs if the handle is not suitable for locking (e.g.
4533 if it is not open for write)
4535 +$handle *ndelay ?0|1?*+::
4536 Set O_NDELAY (if arg). Returns current/new setting.
4537 Note that in general ANSI I/O interacts badly with non-blocking I/O.
4540 +$handle *puts ?-nonewline?* 'str'+::
4541 Write the string, with newline unless -nonewline
4543 +$handle *read ?-nonewline?* '?len?'+::
4544 Read and return bytes from the stream. To eof if no len.
4546 +$handle *recvfrom* 'maxlen ?addrvar?'+::
4547 Receives a message from the handle via recvfrom(2) and returns it.
4548 At most +'maxlen'+ bytes are read.
4549 If +'addrvar'+ is specified, the sending address of the message is stored in
4550 the named variable in the form 'addr:port'. See `socket` for details.
4552 +$handle *seek* 'offset' *?start|current|end?*+::
4553 Seeks in the stream (default 'current')
4555 +$handle *sendto* 'str ?addr:?port'+::
4556 Sends the string, +'str'+, to the given address via the socket using sendto(2).
4557 This is intended for udp/dgram sockets and may give an error or behave in unintended
4558 ways for other handle types.
4559 Returns the number of bytes written.
4562 Flush the stream, then fsync(2) to commit any changes to storage.
4563 Only available on platforms that support fsync(2).
4566 Returns the current seek position
4568 +$handle *ssl* *?-server cert priv?*+::
4569 Initiates a SSL/TLS session and returns a new stream
4571 +$handle *unlock*+::
4572 Release a POSIX lock previously acquired by `aio lock`.
4574 +$handle *verify*+::
4575 Verifies the certificate of a SSL/TLS stream peer
4577 +*load_ssl_certs* 'dir'+::
4578 Loads SSL/TLS CA certificates for use during verification
4582 +*fconfigure* 'handle' *?-blocking 0|1? ?-buffering noneline|full? ?-translation* 'mode'?+::
4583 For compatibility with Tcl, a limited form of the `fconfigure`
4584 command is supported.
4585 * `fconfigure ... -blocking` maps to `aio ndelay`
4586 * `fconfigure ... -buffering` maps to `aio buffering`
4587 * `fconfigure ... -translation` is accepted but ignored
4590 eventloop: after, vwait, update
4591 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4593 The following commands allow a script to be invoked when the given condition occurs.
4594 If no script is given, returns the current script. If the given script is the empty, the
4597 +$handle *readable* '?readable-script?'+::
4598 Sets or returns the script for when the socket is readable.
4600 +$handle *writable* '?writable-script?'+::
4601 Sets or returns the script for when the socket is writable.
4603 +$handle *onexception* '?exception-script?'+::
4604 Sets or returns the script for when oob data received.
4606 For compatibility with 'Tcl', these may be prefixed with `fileevent`. e.g.
4609 +fileevent $handle *readable* '\...'+
4611 Time-based execution is also available via the eventloop API.
4614 Sleeps for the given number of milliseconds. No events are
4615 processed during this time.
4617 +*after* 'ms'|*idle* 'script ?script \...?'+::
4618 The scripts are concatenated and executed after the given
4619 number of milliseconds have elapsed. If 'idle' is specified,
4620 the script will run the next time the event loop is processed
4621 with `vwait` or `update`. The script is only run once and
4622 then removed. Returns an event id.
4624 +*after cancel* 'id|command'+::
4625 Cancels an `after` event with the given event id or matching
4626 command (script). Returns the number of milliseconds
4627 remaining until the event would have fired. Returns the
4628 empty string if no matching event is found.
4630 +*after info* '?id?'+::
4631 If +'id'+ is not given, returns a list of current `after`
4632 events. If +'id'+ is given, returns a list containing the
4633 associated script and either 'timer' or 'idle' to indicated
4634 the type of the event. An error occurs if +'id'+ does not
4637 +*vwait* 'variable'+::
4638 A call to `vwait` enters the eventloop. `vwait` processes
4639 events until the named (global) variable changes or all
4640 event handlers are removed. The variable need not exist
4641 beforehand. If there are no event handlers defined, `vwait`
4642 returns immediately.
4644 +*update ?idletasks?*+::
4645 A call to `update` enters the eventloop to process expired events, but
4646 no new events. If 'idletasks' is specified, only expired time events are handled,
4648 Returns once handlers have been run for all expired events.
4650 Scripts are executed at the global scope. If an error occurs during a handler script,
4651 an attempt is made to call (the user-defined command) `bgerror` with the details of the error.
4652 If the `bgerror` command does not exist, the error message details are printed to stderr instead.
4654 If a file event handler script generates an error, the handler is automatically removed
4655 to prevent infinite errors. (A time event handler is always removed after execution).
4658 Called when an event handler script generates an error. Note that the normal command resolution
4659 rules are used for bgerror. First the name is resolved in the current namespace, then in the
4664 Various socket types may be created.
4666 +*socket unix* 'path'+::
4667 A unix domain socket client.
4669 +*socket unix.server* 'path'+::
4670 A unix domain socket server.
4672 +*socket ?-ipv6? stream* 'addr:port'+::
4673 A TCP socket client. (See the forms for +'addr'+ below)
4675 +*socket ?-ipv6? stream.server* '?addr:?port'+::
4676 A TCP socket server (+'addr'+ defaults to +0.0.0.0+ for IPv4 or +[::]+ for IPv6).
4678 +*socket ?-ipv6? dgram* ?'addr:port'?+::
4679 A UDP socket client. If the address is not specified,
4680 the client socket will be unbound and 'sendto' must be used
4681 to indicated the destination.
4683 +*socket ?-ipv6? dgram.server* 'addr:port'+::
4684 A UDP socket server.
4687 A pipe. Note that unlike all other socket types, this command returns
4688 a list of two channels: {read write}
4691 A socketpair (see socketpair(2)). Like `socket pipe`, this command returns
4692 a list of two channels: {s1 s2}. These channels are both readable and writable.
4694 This command creates a socket connected (client) or bound (server) to the given
4697 The returned value is channel and may generally be used with the various file I/O
4698 commands (gets, puts, read, etc.), either as object-based syntax or Tcl-compatible syntax.
4700 . set f [socket stream www.google.com:80]
4702 . $f puts -nonewline "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n"
4707 Server sockets, however support only 'accept', which is most useful in conjunction with
4710 set f [socket stream.server 80]
4712 set client [$f accept]
4715 $client puts -nonewline "HTTP/1.1 404 Not found\r\n"
4720 The address, +'addr'+, can be given in one of the following forms:
4722 1. For IPv4 socket types, an IPv4 address such as 192.168.1.1
4723 2. For IPv6 socket types, an IPv6 address such as [fe80::1234] or [::]
4726 Note that on many systems, listening on an IPv6 address such as [::] will
4727 also accept requests via IPv4.
4729 Where a hostname is specified, the +'first'+ returned address is used
4730 which matches the socket type is used.
4732 The special type 'pipe' isn't really a socket.
4734 lassign [socket pipe] r w
4736 # Must close $w after exec
4744 +*syslog* '?options? ?priority? message'+
4746 This command sends message to system syslog facility with given
4747 priority. Valid priorities are:
4749 emerg, alert, crit, err, error, warning, notice, info, debug
4751 If a message is specified, but no priority is specified, then a
4752 priority of info is used.
4754 By default, facility user is used and the value of global tcl variable
4755 argv0 is used as ident string. However, any of the following options
4756 may be specified before priority to control these parameters:
4758 +*-facility* 'value'+::
4759 Use specified facility instead of user. The following
4760 values for facility are recognized:
4762 authpriv, cron, daemon, kernel, lpr, mail, news, syslog, user,
4765 +*-ident* 'string'+::
4766 Use given string instead of argv0 variable for ident string.
4768 +*-options* 'integer'+::
4769 Set syslog options such as +LOG_CONS+, +LOG_NDELAY+. You should
4770 use numeric values of those from your system syslog.h file,
4771 because I haven't got time to implement yet another hash
4776 The optional 'pack' extension provides commands to encode and decode binary strings.
4778 +*pack* 'varName value' *-intle|-intbe|-floatle|-floatbe|-str* 'bitwidth ?bitoffset?'+::
4779 Packs the binary representation of +'value'+ into the variable
4780 +'varName'+. The value is packed according to the given type
4781 (integer/floating point/string, big-endian/little-endian), width and bit offset.
4782 The variable is created if necessary (like `append`).
4783 The variable is expanded if necessary.
4785 +*unpack* 'binvalue' *-intbe|-intle|-uintbe|-uintle|-floatbe|-floatle|-str* 'bitpos bitwidth'+::
4786 Unpacks bits from +'binvalue'+ at bit position +'bitpos'+ and with +'bitwidth'+.
4787 Interprets the value according to the type (integer/floating point/string, big-endian/little-endian
4788 and signed/unsigned) and returns it. For integer types, +'bitwidth'+
4789 may be up to the size of a Jim Tcl integer (typically 64 bits). For floating point types,
4790 +'bitwidth'+ may be 32 bits (for single precision numbers) or 64 bits (for double precision).
4791 For the string type, both the width and the offset must be on a byte boundary (multiple of 8). Attempting to
4792 access outside the length of the value will return 0 for integer types, 0.0 for floating point types
4793 or the empty string for the string type.
4797 The optional 'zlib' extension provides a Tcl-compatible subset of the `zlib` command.
4799 +*crc32* 'data' '?startValue?'+::
4800 Returns the CRC32 checksum of a buffer. Optionally, an initial value may be specified; this is most useful
4801 for calculating the checksum of chunked data read from a stream (for instance, a pipe).
4803 +*deflate* 'string' '?level?'+::
4804 Compresses a buffer and outputs a raw, Deflate-compressed stream. Optionally, a compression level (1-9) may
4805 be specified to choose the desired speed vs. compression rate ratio.
4807 +*inflate* 'data' '?bufferSize?'+::
4808 Decompresses a raw, Deflate-compressed stream. When the uncompressed data size is known and specified, memory
4809 allocation is more efficient. Otherwise, decomperssion is chunked and therefore slower.
4811 +*gzip* 'string' '?-level level?'+::
4812 Compresses a buffer and adds a gzip header.
4814 +*gunzip* 'data' '?-buffersize size?'+::
4815 Decompresses a gzip-compressed buffer. Decompression is chunked, with a default, small buffer size of 64K
4816 which guarantees lower memory footprint at the cost of speed. It is recommended to use a bigger size, on
4817 systems without a severe memory constraint.
4821 The optional, pure-Tcl 'binary' extension provides the Tcl-compatible `binary scan` and `binary format`
4822 commands based on the low-level `pack` and `unpack` commands.
4824 See the Tcl documentation at: http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/TclCmd/binary.htm
4826 Note that 'binary format' with f/r/R specifiers (single-precision float) uses the value of Infinity
4827 in case of overflow.
4831 The optional, pure-Tcl 'oo' extension provides object-oriented (OO) support for Jim Tcl.
4833 See the online documentation (http://jim.tcl.tk/index.html/doc/www/www/documentation/oo/) for more details.
4835 +*class* 'classname ?baseclasses? classvars'+::
4836 Create a new class, +'classname'+, with the given dictionary
4837 (+'classvars'+) as class variables. These are the initial variables
4838 which all newly created objects of this class are initialised with.
4839 If a list of baseclasses is given, methods and instance variables
4842 +*super* 'method ?args \...?'+::
4843 From within a method, invokes the given method on the base class.
4844 Note that this will only call the last baseclass given.
4848 The optional, pure-Tcl 'tree' extension implements an OO, general purpose tree structure
4849 similar to that provided by tcllib ::struct::tree (http://core.tcl.tk/tcllib/doc/trunk/embedded/www/tcllib/files/modules/struct/struct_tree.html)
4851 A tree is a collection of nodes, where each node (except the root node) has a single parent
4852 and zero or more child nodes (ordered), as well as zero or more attribute/value pairs.
4855 Creates and returns a new tree object with a single node named "root".
4856 All operations on the tree are invoked through this object.
4859 Destroy the tree and all it's nodes. (Note that the tree will also
4860 be automatically garbage collected once it goes out of scope).
4862 +$tree *set* 'nodename key value'+::
4863 Set the value for the given attribute key.
4865 +$tree *lappend* 'nodename key value \...'+::
4866 Append to the (list) value(s) for the given attribute key, or set if not yet set.
4868 +$tree *keyexists* 'nodename key'+::
4869 Returns 1 if the given attribute key exists.
4871 +$tree *get* 'nodename key'+::
4872 Returns the value associated with the given attribute key.
4874 +$tree *getall* 'nodename'+::
4875 Returns the entire attribute dictionary associated with the given key.
4877 +$tree *depth* 'nodename'+::
4878 Returns the depth of the given node. The depth of "root" is 0.
4880 +$tree *parent* 'nodename'+::
4881 Returns the node name of the parent node, or "" for the root node.
4883 +$tree *numchildren* 'nodename'+::
4884 Returns the number of child nodes.
4886 +$tree *children* 'nodename'+::
4887 Returns a list of the child nodes.
4889 +$tree *next* 'nodename'+::
4890 Returns the next sibling node, or "" if none.
4892 +$tree *insert* 'nodename ?index?'+::
4893 Add a new child node to the given node. The index is a list index
4894 such as +3+ or +end-2+. The default index is +end+.
4895 Returns the name of the newly added node.
4897 +$tree *walk* 'nodename' *dfs|bfs* {'actionvar nodevar'} 'script'+::
4898 Walks the tree starting from the given node, either breadth first (+bfs+)
4899 depth first (+dfs+).
4900 The value +"enter"+ or +"exit"+ is stored in variable +'actionvar'+.
4901 The name of each node is stored in +'nodevar'+.
4902 The script is evaluated twice for each node, on entry and exit.
4905 Dumps the tree contents to stdout
4909 The optional tclprefix extension provides the Tcl8.6-compatible 'tcl::prefix' command
4910 (http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.6/TclCmd/prefix.htm) for matching strings against a table
4911 of possible values (typically commands or options).
4913 +*tcl::prefix all* 'table string'+::
4914 Returns a list of all elements in +'table'+ that begin with the prefix +'string'+.
4916 +*tcl::prefix longest* 'table string'+::
4917 Returns the longest common prefix of all elements in +'table'+ that begin with the prefix +'string'+.
4919 +*tcl::prefix match* '?options? table string'+::
4920 If +'string'+ equals one element in +'table'+ or is a prefix to
4921 exactly one element, the matched element is returned. If not, the
4922 result depends on the +-error+ option.
4924 * +*-exact*+ Accept only exact matches.
4925 * +*-message* 'string'+ Use +'string'+ in the error message at a mismatch. Default is "option".
4926 * +*-error* 'options'+ The options are used when no match is found. If +'options'+ is
4927 empty, no error is generated and an empty string is returned.
4928 Otherwise the options are used as return options when
4929 generating the error message. The default corresponds to
4934 The optional history extension provides script access to the command line editing
4935 and history support available in 'jimsh'. See 'examples/jtclsh.tcl' for an example.
4936 Note: if line editing support is not available, `history getline` acts like `gets` and
4937 the remaining subcommands do nothing.
4939 +*history load* 'filename'+::
4940 Load history from a (text) file. If the file does not exist or is not readable,
4943 +*history getline* 'prompt ?varname?'+::
4944 Displays the given prompt and allows a line to be entered. Similarly to `gets`,
4945 if +'varname'+ is given, it receives the line and the length of the line is returned,
4946 or -1 on EOF. If +'varname'+ is not given, the line is returned directly.
4948 +*history add* 'line'+::
4949 Adds the given line to the history buffer.
4951 +*history save* 'filename'+::
4952 Saves the current history buffer to the given file.
4955 Displays the current history buffer to standard output.
4959 Provides namespace-related functions. See also: http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.6/TclCmd/namespace.htm
4961 +*namespace code* 'script'+::
4962 Captures the current namespace context for later execution of
4963 the script +'script'+. It returns a new script in which script has
4964 been wrapped in a +*namespace inscope*+ command.
4966 +*namespace current*+::
4967 Returns the fully-qualified name for the current namespace.
4969 +*namespace delete* '?namespace ...?'+::
4970 Deletes all commands and variables with the given namespace prefixes.
4972 +*namespace eval* 'namespace arg ?arg...?'+::
4973 Activates a namespace called +'namespace'+ and evaluates some code in that context.
4975 +*namespace origin* 'command'+::
4976 Returns the fully-qualified name of the original command to which the imported command +'command'+ refers.
4978 +*namespace parent* ?namespace?+::
4979 Returns the fully-qualified name of the parent namespace for namespace +'namespace'+, if given, otherwise
4980 for the current namespace.
4982 +*namespace qualifiers* 'string'+::
4983 Returns any leading namespace qualifiers for +'string'+
4985 +*namespace tail* 'string'+::
4986 Returns the simple name at the end of a qualified string.
4988 +*namespace upvar* 'namespace ?arg...?'+::
4989 This command arranges for zero or more local variables in the current procedure to refer to variables in +'namespace'+
4991 +*namespace which* '?-command|-variable? name'+::
4992 Looks up +'name'+ as either a command (the default) or variable and returns its fully-qualified name.
4996 The optional 'interp' command allows sub-interpreters to be created where commands may be run
4997 independently (but synchronously) of the main interpreter.
5000 Creates and returns a new interpreter object (command).
5001 The created interpeter contains any built-in commands along with static extensions,
5002 but does not include any dynamically loaded commands (package require, load).
5003 These must be reloaded in the child interpreter if required.
5005 +*$interp delete*+::
5006 Deletes the interpeter object.
5008 +*$interp eval* 'script' ...+::
5009 Evaluates a script in the context for the child interpreter, in the same way as 'eval'.
5011 +*$interp alias* 'alias childcmd parentcmd ?arg ...?'+::
5012 Similar to 'alias', but creates a command, +'childcmd'+, in the child interpreter that is an
5013 alias for +'parentcmd'+ in the parent interpreter, with the given, fixed arguments.
5014 The alias may be deleted in the child with 'rename'.
5016 [[BuiltinVariables]]
5020 The following global variables are created automatically
5024 This variable is set by Jim as an array
5025 whose elements are the environment variables for the process.
5026 Reading an element will return the value of the corresponding
5027 environment variable.
5028 This array is initialised at startup from the `env` command.
5029 It may be modified and will affect the environment passed to
5030 commands invoked with `exec`.
5033 This variable is set by Jim as an array containing information
5034 about the platform on which Jim was built. Currently this includes
5035 'os' and 'platform'.
5038 This variable contains a list of paths to search for packages.
5039 It defaults to a location based on where jim is installed
5040 (e.g. +/usr/local/lib/jim+), but may be changed by +jimsh+
5041 or the embedding application. Note that +jimsh+ will consider
5042 the environment variable +$JIMLIB+ to be a list of colon-separated
5043 list of paths to add to +*auto_path*+.
5046 This variable holds the value of the -errorcode return
5047 option set by the most recent error that occurred in this
5048 interpreter. This list value represents additional information
5049 about the error in a form that is easy to process with
5050 programs. The first element of the list identifies a general
5051 class of errors, and determines the format of the rest of
5052 the list. The following formats for -errorcode return options
5053 are used by the Tcl core; individual applications may define
5054 additional formats. Currently only `exec` sets this variable.
5055 Otherwise it will be +NONE+.
5057 The following global variables are set by jimsh.
5059 +*tcl_interactive*+::
5060 This variable is set to 1 if jimsh is started in interactive mode
5064 This variable is set by Jim as an array containing information
5065 about the platform upon which Jim was built. The following is an
5066 example of the contents of this array.
5068 tcl_platform(byteOrder) = littleEndian
5069 tcl_platform(engine) = Jim
5070 tcl_platform(os) = Darwin
5071 tcl_platform(platform) = unix
5072 tcl_platform(pointerSize) = 8
5073 tcl_platform(threaded) = 0
5074 tcl_platform(wordSize) = 8
5075 tcl_platform(pathSeparator) = :
5078 If jimsh is invoked to run a script, this variable contains the name
5082 If jimsh is invoked to run a script, this variable contains a list
5083 of any arguments supplied to the script.
5086 If jimsh is invoked to run a script, this variable contains the number
5087 of arguments supplied to the script.
5090 The value of argv[0] when jimsh was invoked.
5092 CHANGES IN PREVIOUS RELEASES
5093 ----------------------------
5097 1. +platform_tcl()+ settings are now automatically determined
5098 2. Add aio `$handle filename`
5099 3. Add `info channels`
5100 4. The 'bio' extension is gone. Now `aio` supports 'copyto'.
5101 5. Add `exists` command
5102 6. Add the pure-Tcl 'oo' extension
5103 7. The `exec` command now only uses vfork(), not fork()
5104 8. Unit test framework is less verbose and more Tcl-compatible
5105 9. Optional UTF-8 support
5106 10. Optional built-in regexp engine for better Tcl compatibility and UTF-8 support
5107 11. Command line editing in interactive mode, e.g. 'jimsh'
5111 1. `source` now checks that a script is complete (.i.e. not missing a brace)
5112 2. 'info complete' now uses the real parser and so is 100% accurate
5113 3. Better access to live stack frames with 'info frame', `stacktrace` and `stackdump`
5114 4. `tailcall` no longer loses stack trace information
5115 5. Add `alias` and `curry`
5116 6. `lambda`, `alias` and `curry` are implemented via `tailcall` for efficiency
5117 7. `local` allows procedures to be deleted automatically at the end of the current procedure
5118 8. udp sockets are now supported for both clients and servers.
5119 9. vfork-based exec is now working correctly
5120 10. Add 'file tempfile'
5121 11. Add 'socket pipe'
5122 12. Enhance 'try ... on ... finally' to be more Tcl 8.6 compatible
5123 13. It is now possible to `return` from within `try`
5124 14. IPv6 support is now included
5126 16. Event handlers works better if an error occurs. eof handler has been removed.
5127 17. `exec` now sets $::errorCode, and catch sets opts(-errorcode) for exit status
5128 18. Command pipelines via open "|..." are now supported
5129 19. `pid` can now return pids of a command pipeline
5130 20. Add 'info references'
5131 21. Add support for 'after +'ms'+', 'after idle', 'after info', `update`
5132 22. `exec` now sets environment based on $::env
5134 24. Add support for 'lsort -index'
5138 1. Add support to `exec` for '>&', '>>&', '|&', '2>@1'
5139 2. Fix `exec` error messages when special token (e.g. '>') is the last token
5140 3. Fix `subst` handling of backslash escapes.
5141 4. Allow abbreviated options for `subst`
5142 5. Add support for `return`, `break`, `continue` in subst
5143 6. Many `expr` bug fixes
5144 7. Add support for functions in `expr` (e.g. int(), abs()), and also 'in', 'ni' list operations
5145 8. The variable name argument to `regsub` is now optional
5146 9. Add support for 'unset -nocomplain'
5147 10. Add support for list commands: `lassign`, `lrepeat`
5148 11. Fully-functional `lsearch` is now implemented
5149 12. Add 'info nameofexecutable' and 'info returncodes'
5150 13. Allow `catch` to determine what return codes are caught
5151 14. Allow `incr` to increment an unset variable by first setting to 0
5152 15. Allow 'args' and optional arguments to the left or required arguments in `proc`
5154 17. Add 'try ... finally' command
5160 Copyright 2005 Salvatore Sanfilippo <antirez@invece.org>
5161 Copyright 2005 Clemens Hintze <c.hintze@gmx.net>
5162 Copyright 2005 patthoyts - Pat Thoyts <patthoyts@users.sf.net>
5163 Copyright 2008 oharboe - Oyvind Harboe - oyvind.harboe@zylin.com
5164 Copyright 2008 Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>
5165 Copyright 2008 Duane Ellis <openocd@duaneellis.com>
5166 Copyright 2008 Uwe Klein <uklein@klein-messgeraete.de>
5167 Copyright 2009 Steve Bennett <steveb@workware.net.au>
5170 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5171 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
5173 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
5174 notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
5175 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
5176 copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
5177 disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
5178 provided with the distribution.
5180 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE JIM TCL PROJECT ``AS IS'' AND ANY
5181 EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
5182 THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
5183 PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
5184 JIM TCL PROJECT OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
5185 INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
5186 (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
5187 OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
5188 HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
5189 STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
5190 ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
5191 ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
5193 The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation
5194 are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing
5195 official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Jim Tcl Project.