What: Frink
Where: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Programs/Frink/ ftp://catless.ncl.ac.uk/pub/frink-2.1.5.tar.gz Description: Program to prettify (like the indent command) your Tcl/Tk program. Frink can format, minimize and/or obfuscate your Tcl code. It can take some forms of your code and convert it to use message catalogs (used for internationalization). It applies a variety of heuristics to the code to try to detect possible errors. Supports only vanilla tcl - not extensions such as tclX, itcl, etc. Does however recognize namesapce and interp commands. Check the first URL on a regular basis for updates. Does not permit commercial use. Currently at version 2.2.2. Updated: 06/2001 Contact: mailto:[email protected] [Lindsay F. Marshall]
This tool by Lindsay Marshall does Static syntax analysis.
See also "What debugging tools are available to a Tcl programmer" in general.
Frink makes a brief appearance in a UnixReview.com column in April 2002 [L1 ].
escargo 12 Nov 2003 - Anybody know a download link that works? The ftp link above does not work for me.
Note: Be very careful using frink to reformat your source code. Double check the frink results against the original source. It messes up your code every once and a while.
Question: What flags do you find most useful when using frink to check for errors/warnings?
Answer:
frink -HJ source.tcl
although I sometimes use
frink -JF FFFFE source.tcl
to turn off a warning for the construct variable $varname PT
LV I use frink -J -U -H to give me a LOT of possible issues; by the time I've checked them all (and I have run the code through procheck), I am ready to move on to looking at algorithm problems...
Category Debugging (=> Static syntax analysis) ]