True or False. Tcl has no separate Boolean type, like in C, the integers 0 (false) and 1 (true - in fact any nonzero integer) are used.
NEM: Although expr will also accept "true" and "false" (and "yes"/"no"..) as Boolean values.
1S In fact, there's no separate Integer type in Tcl as well -- everything is a string. A proper boolean value is either a proper integer, with, like in C, zero meaning false and non-zero meaning true, or one of the following: yes, no, true, false, on, or off.
RS The canonical forms however, like expr produces them, are 1 and 0.
See Boolean Logic or Integers as Boolean Functions.
HaO 2011-05-02 Comparisions with == or != do not work with booleans not in canonical form:
% expr {true == 1} 0
This issue may be avoided using the bool() function to bring strings in boolean canonical form:
% expr {bool(true) == bool(1)} 1
This is only recommeded if two variables contain boolean data.
expr {bool($b1) == bool($b2)}
otherwise, one would use:
expr { $b1 } expr { ! $b1 }
MG The string is command also recognises booleans:
proc trueorfalse {str} { if { ![string is boolean -strict $str] } { return -1; # not a boolean } return [string is true $str] } % trueorfalse foo -1 % trueorfalse yes 1 % trueorfalse off 0
HaO Yes, correct, another way to get a value in canonical boolean form is:
string is true -strict $b
hv Here is my little script which lists which token is true, false, or neither:
# # Which token is considered true/false? # set tokens {-2 -1 0 1 2 yes no Yes No YES NO on off On Off ON OFF true false True False TRUE FALSE Y N OK FAIL} set trueTokens {} set falseTokens {} set neitherTokens {} foreach token $tokens { if {[string is true -strict $token]} { lappend trueTokens $token } else { if {[string is false -strict $token]} { lappend falseTokens $token } else { lappend neitherTokens $token } } } puts "True: $trueTokens" puts "False: $falseTokens" puts "Neither: $neitherTokens"
Output:
True: 1 yes Yes YES on On ON true True TRUE Y False:0 no No NO off Off OFF false False FALSE N Neither: -2 -1 2 OK FAIL
AMG: Why does [string is boolean] reject "2" when it valid to use "2" anywhere a Boolean is expected?
Also, in addition to the strings tested above by HV's code, [string is boolean] accepts all capitalizations of: t, tr, tru, f, fa, fal, fals, ye, and of. Notably, o is not accepted, since it is a common prefix shared by on and off.