Poor Yorick

Attributes

nick
PYK
name
Nathan Coulter
ethereum wallet
0x0b5049C148b00a216B29641ab16953b6060Ef8A6
website
website
editors
vim , emacs
contact
t k dot t c l dot w i k i at p o o r y o r i c k dot c o m
wikipedia user page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pooryorick~enwiki
Tcl theme song nominee
Who Do You Want To Be ? -- get your shimmer on !
slogan
"If something is worth doing , it's worth doing right ."
slogan
"Hang the sense of it all and keep yourself occupied ."
slogan
return -level 0 {*}[yieldto return -level 0]

Presence

wikipedia
stackoverflow
stackexchange
superuser
serverfault

Tcl Events Attended

Eighteenth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2011)
Nineteenth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2012)
Twentieth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2013)
Twenty-first Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2014)
13th European Tcl/Tk Users Meeting 2015
Twenty-second Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2015)
14th European Tcl/Tk Users Meeting 2016
Twenty-third Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2016)
15th European Tcl/Tk Users Meeting 2017
Twenty-fourth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2017)
16th European Tcl/Tk Users Meeting 2018
Twenty-fifth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference (2018)

FAQ

What's up with the weird punctuation on this page ?
I think it looks more balanced and flows better . I think it's beautiful . It calms me . Maybe I picked it up from Chinese texts .

Tcl Thoughts

Tcl started off with an ingeniously simple and regular syntax , and has consistently followed through with a knack for exposing just the right foundational capabilities without overbuilding the language . Tcl attracts engineering types who already know how to build things , and provides a helpful toolset rather than a framework one would have to work around . If Guido has a time machine , then the Tcl Core Team has a timeless machine .

Expectations

Here are my guidelines for editing this wiki . I'm not sure how representative it is of the expectations and guidelines of other editors , so feel free to edit , annotate , and express your opinion and make suggestions regarding these guidelines , particularly if they've caused you any discomfort as an editor yourself .

  • This wiki is a resource for the community , and all content is subject to editing by anyone .
  • This wiki aims to be comprehensive , but it does not aim to be just an encyclopedia .
  • This wiki is not an official reference .
  • This wiki is not a source code management system .
  • It isn't necessary to have a Ph.D. in computer science to contribute .
  • No individual owns any page , not even their namesake page . (MJ: it's true)
  • A page can be as trivial or as complex as one desires .
  • There is a lot of room on this wiki , and there is room for content of varying quality . More frequently-visited pages are held to a higher standard . Content not meeting that standard may be moved off to less-frequented page .
  • This wiki tries to find a balance between the single coherent narrative of consensus and the chaos of discussion and individual presentation . The primary strategy to achieve this is to keep each page true to the measure of its creation , often by migrating some content to other pages . Organization and reorganization are constant activities and part of every contributor's duty .
  • Like ethernet , a wiki is intrinsically contention-based . A contributor should be ready and willing to take the time necessary to defend their position .
  • Collaborative editing can require extreme patience and indulgence . A contributor should meet unwelcome edits with a good nature and a willingness to engage in the game . It's almost always best to resist the temptation to take offense at other contributors . There is usually something to be learned , even from the conversation with the jerk that's insulting your mother , kicking your dog , and questioning your sexuality .
  • Clever/smart content is prized . A dumb/lazy contribution will be called out . A contributor may abruptly be pointed to references on how to do things the smart way . This is an opportunity to avoid the temptation to take offense , to think about what the smart way might be , and improve . Being smart is just a matter of practice .
  • It is never necessary to ask for permission to make an edit .
  • It is not necessary use external side channels to get approval or build consensus in advance for controversial edits . The wiki is the side channel , and consensus can be hashed out right here on its pages . However , discussions may be moved off to another page .
  • In the case of an edit conflict , a contributor should attempt to explain their position and rationale – again and again and again , and also to rethink their position – again and again and again .
  • When there is a succession of alternating edits representing competing viewpoints , to avoid falling into a rut of disagreement each edit should provide some new information or offer some new non-superficial variation of a previous edit . The idea is to keep the content and perspectives evolving . In many cases , a permutation on an idea is a sufficient alternative to direct conversation , but in other cases , it isn't .
  • Contributors are welcome to make a mess while they play , and even more welcome to put their toys back on the shelves when they are done .
  • This wiki is a good place to chat with other Tclers .
  • This wiki may contain content that makes you look stupid to your boss and coworkers .
  • This wiki is a good place to contribute code written under the influence of hallucinogenic substances .
  • Personality and flair are welcome , but are no substitute for quality content .
  • Signal-to-noise ratio is perhaps the top priority for all content.
  • Any topic even remotely-related to Tcl is fair game . Sometimes just being a Tcler , and having some other interest , is sufficient . That said , the signal-to-noise ratio should remain high . Every contribution should add value . If it doesn't , it might be deleted in short order .
  • The wiki is a teaching tool . Beginning Tclers are encouraged to ask questions and even to make changes to established content if they think they can improve it . If they are wrong , more experienced Tclers will take the opportunity and time to provide the requisite explanations .
  • A contributor who is right , and gets angry because another contributor is wrong , might as well go off and maintain their own website , as they are bound to be disappointed here .
  • This wiki needs a greater diversity of editors . If you are a child , teenager , retiree , or otherwise total newbie to programming , or know someone who is and might want to take up a new hobby , please encourage them to start learning Tcl and contributing to this wiki !

Pages Authored

A Message User Agent
Originally based on A little NNTP reader , but undergoing continuous rewrite at the moment .
The Anatomy of an Object System
A walk-through of the design of an object system similar to ycl shelf .
Android SDK
How to make an image of a block device in an android system via adb .
Asynchronous Script Evaluation via Coroutines and Channels
A building block for distributed systems .
cmdSplit
Contributed wordparts , exprlex , and funclex .
cmdStream
One of my early Tcl scripts .
Creating an Invalid Tcl_Obj via SQLite
Because SQLite doesn't encode a blob into the database encoding when casting to text , it is possible to create a malformed Tcl_Obj with just a Tcl script .
critbit
Improved description of intermediate and leaf nodes . Removed inaccurate information and described the alternatives for storing key-value pairs .
daerth
Threaded asynchronous pipelined backpressure-mediated pipelined death stations .
deep dict
A deep list in which each structured value is itself a deep dictionary .
deep list
A standard Tcl list in which each single value is encoded as a list containing only one item , and each sequence of values is a list containing more than one item . This makes it possible to differentiate e.g. , the single value one two three from a list containing the values one , two , and three .
Every Word is a Constructor
An argument for typed values .
Execute in Parallel and Wait
Execute multiple processes which run in parallel , and wait for them to complete .
Expect: Mediating an Interaction
Monitor user input and program output , making sure they don't say "Ni!" .
Expect: Prompt Detection
An attempt to automatically detect the prompt of a program spawned with Expect .
for in
A drop-in replacement for for that also accepts with iterators .
How to Write Quality Documentation
A companion to Tips for Writing Quality Software .
images2pdf
A small utility to create a pdf document from a bunch of images . Uses pdf4tcl .
inter-coroutine return
How cooperating coroutines can operate as a virtual call stack .
knit
A small but complete(ish ?) macro system that leverages tailcall .
lexec
Alexandre Ferrieux's implementation of TIP 424 , Improving exec , rolled into its own package .
lproc
Like proc except that the body is a list of lists and no string representation of the body is generated .
lswitch
Like switch , but each pattern is a list of patterns to match against the item in string at the corresponding position . All switch options are supported .
main script
How to determine whether a script is the main script of an interpreter .
my oh my
A response to a question by jbr in Ask, and it shall be given # 11 .
nxs
Nested eXtensible heterogeneous data Structures .
Playing newLISP
Procedures that modify themselves while they are being evaluated .
procstep
A drop-in replacement for proc that evaluates one command of a procedure body at at time , and a hook to inspect and manipulate the command before it is evaluated , and another to react to return conditions of the evaluation .
proc alias
The details of creating an alias for a procedure while avoiding the drawbacks of interp alias .
pure value
Pure values are values whose string representation has not been generated .
Regular Expressions Match Requirements
A set of expectations for regular expressions .
Rust
2022-05-08 , added initial description of the language .
Scripted List
Avoid backslash in multi-line lists while still retaining variable and command substitution , add comments into the list a-la Unix shells .
scripted templates
A Template and Macro processing/macro system based on scripted list .
simulating daily temperatures
A demo that simulates daily temperatures based on empirical data, and displays them using plotchart.
sneaky message passing
Out-of-band channels for passing data to components .
stowroutine
Give a routine a namespace to play in .
Tcl Minimal Escaping Style
An escaping style that hews closely to the functional description of braces and quotations in the Tcl language specification , not using quotations when braces would suffice , and not using braces unless some backslash substitution would otherwise be necessary .
Tcl Rules Redux
A restatement of the Tcl Rules that articulates the syntax of lists and defines scripts in terms of lists .
thread: -eventmark and send -async
An interaction in the thread package that stymied me over the course of two frenzied weeks until I understood what was going on .
Tkeyes
An xeyes clone .
vrtcl
A Tcl-based alternative to JSON , HUDDLE , XML , etc .
ycl
My personal toolbox .
ycl coro relay
A small but complete system for communication between cooperating asynchronous coroutines .
ycl shelf
A simple yet effective prototype-based object system .

Edits to Other Pages

@decorators
Replaced @memoize with an implementation that doesn't require an external variable , and is careful not to generate the string representation of its memory .
2048.tcl
Converted program to event-driven style . Added some features and controls .
3D Maze
Modified code to not use update .
3D polyhedra with simple tk canvas
Modified code to avoid update .
A balance toy
Modified code to not use update .
A Graph plotter
Minor improvements to functionality and visual elements .
A Hypertext Help System
Trivial modification to not use update .
BNF for Tcl
Contributed to the EBNF description of the rules.
bytecode
Added description of elision of call to empty procedures .
Characters, glyphs, code-points, and byte-sequences
Includes a link to What's the difference between a character, a code point, a glyph and a grapheme? .
Colliding balls
Fixed a bug where the loop in checkForCollision became infinite if the velocity was set too high .
commands pipe
Contributed a variant of pipe .
Convolutions
Modified code to not use update and vwait .
Coroutine cancellability, {2022 03 24}
Provided an example of a coroutine interface that handles both channel events and requests to end the coroutine.
Critcl
Added an example where one package can import a C function exported by another package .
do...until in Tcl
Contributed a variant that uses tailcall .
Dodekalogue
Contributed the Octalogue .
Elevator simulation
Removed update idletasks .
Ensemble extend
Provided the implementation of extend that wraps an existing ensemble of routines , and where extension routines are organized into their own namespaces .
exec quotes problem
Investigated the phenomenon and rewrote the page .
expr
Contributed the section entitled , "A Logical Conundrum" .
Flag signalling
Minor modification to not use update .
Functional imaging
Removed update , various changes to the user interface . Added object system to turn it into a widget that can be instantiated multiple times . Consolidated contributed code examples into one script .
Functional Imaging with a High-Capacity GUI
Change to the design of the system to fix existing issues .
Gadgets
Added a namespace and a test suite . Made generated code more robust by encapsulating interpolated values in list format .
Gear Animation
Removed update .
Graphs: BFS an DFS animated demo
Removed update .
Graphs: Dijkstra animated demo
Removed update .
GRIDPLUS2
Added section regarding how to modify GRIDPLUS2 so that it properly handles newlines that are not command delimiters in a layout.
How to embed Tcl in C applications
Added an example of using the stubs mechanism on posix systems to initialize Tcl , and another example of accessing the TclOO C interface when embedding Tcl .
Jittering toplevel
Removed update , added jitter parameter .
Moon Lander
Removed update , minor usability improvements .
More model railroading
Removed update .
Move an item on a Canvas Widget in a Straight Line (animated)
Removed update idletasks .
owh - a fileless tclsh
Fixed what looked like a bug: With the default split behaviour there was an error on an input line that wasn't a list .
Particle System
Removed update .
Playing with bits
Wide'ified the original code by RS .
Rain Storm - Take 2
Removed update .
Regular Expressions
Lots of touch-up .
returneval
Elaborated on the tailcall-optimizing call_eproc of Lars H .
Serial summing
Updated the system to use apply and tailcall .
ssh
Added and example that uses rsync together with sudo over ssh without exposing the password that sudo prompts for .
SQLite
Added examples illustrating the various EIAS violations of SQLite .
stacking
Replaced Larry Smith's Code with a rewrite that avoids proliferation of global variables by using stacks and indexes in namespace dictionaries instead .
Stubs - Another explanation
Revised the description of the stubs mechanism .
subst
Added section on generating scripts and lists . Reworked description and other content .
TIP #431 Discussion
The issue of file mkdir behaving like Unix mkdir -p , and having no analogue to just mkdir .
TkAlign4
Replaced update with coroutine .
Tool Protocol Language
Provided a more straight-forward example of using Tcl script format for passing messages .
trains2.tcl
Removed update .
trains3.tcl
Removed update .
transchan
{2022 03 25} Described the pecularities of using a transformer on a standard channel.
tree
Added a description of a format for a value that represents a tree .
XML
Described the proper use of attributes in tags as data about the document itself rather than as data about the subject of the document .
yieldTo
How to implement uplevel with yieldTo .
Vogel spiral
Started editing code to remove update from loops , but then it turned into a project to practice the art of programming in Tk . Any tips and/or productive modifications to the code are welcome ! This revision runs noticeably faster than the previous one , probably due to changes that take better advantage of byte compilation . It also illustrates a method for distinguishing true key events from auto-repeated ones , which is used to make the accelerating spinbox work with arrow keys . See revision 4 of this page for the previous version .

Tcl Core Activity

bug reports
lseq "count" argument also dictates output formatting {2024 09 03}
Discovered and reported.
Basic nonblocking write-only refchan hangs {2024 08 13}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in ab87ef464e12c190 .
lseq list conversion results in attempt to access freed memory {2023 05 17}
Discovered , reported , diagnosd , and fixed in e45cee0c53 .
Fix memory leaks and remove unnecessary reference count bounce {2023 05 16}
New function, TclDuplicatePureObj() , {2023 05 16}
Doesn't duplicate the string representation when duplicating an object, unless necessary. Remove TclListCopy() in favor of TclDuplicatePureObj(), allowing internal representation to change after the copy rather than before.
Add bytearray checking to TclCheckEmptyString(), and then use TclCheckEmptyString() in Tcl_AppendObjToObj and TclStringCat() to reduce string generation. {2023 04 23}
Concatening strings is broken when the "bytes" field of a Tcl_Obj contains invalid data and the type is not tclStringType {2023 04 22}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in b699959d625540f8 , which also adds a couple of more changes to make Tcl_AppendObjToObj() more efficient by reducing generation of string representations.
Commit 4a7b807856c2753a {2023 04 21}
Made Tcl_AppendObjToObj() more efficient and also reduce unnecessarry generation string representations.
incomplete utf-8 sequence followed by eofchar results in failed assertion {2023 04 19}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in a02c5b9f8b6877aa .
[read] error persists on channel with strict encoding after encoding is changed to binary {2023 04 17}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in 3fa3d48874 .
Under strict encoding, [gets] returns an error instead of returning the second line {2023 04 15}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in d481d08ed9 .
[read] loses data under strict encoding {2023 04 14}
Discovered and reported .
Under strict encoding, [gets] returns an error even though a complete line is available {2023 04 14}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in 67baae2829603703 .
[fcopy $chan1 $chan2 -size $size] is not [puts -nonewline $chan2 [read $chan1 -size $size] ] {2023 04 03}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in 51d813943bcaf835 . This later lead to the removal of binary as a channel encoding option. See Unable to set channel to binary encoding .
Sync fcopy buffers input in ReadChars() {2023 04 03}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed, and fixed .
Fix TclCopyChannel() incorrect use of CHANNEL_PROFILE_GET() {2023 03 31}
Very rare bug (segfault) if set variable (with error case) using self-releasable object as new value {2023 03 31}
Diagnosed as invalid and closed .
Fix memory leak in Tcl_JoinObjCmd() {2023 03 26}
memory leak: SetFsPathFromAny, assisted by the global literal table, causes a Tcl_Obj to reference itself {2023 03 26}
Discovered , diagnosed , and fixed .
Traces crash with multi-lappend {2023 03 22}
Updated the existing fix to remove unneeded calls to Tcl_IncrRefCount() and TclDecrRefCount() .
Make valgrind_foreach target in Makefile.in properly handle interrupted tests {2023 03 16}
Crash when using a channel transformation on TCP client socket , {2023 03 16}
Diagnosed and fixed for Tcl 8.6 in a8b8ecbc039fb4e0 and a719a1392ca50359 , for Tcl 8.7 in 6d017aacac9dd19d and 294e0130dcff79a3 , and for Tcl 9.0 in 62058cafe065cb35 and a76dee9eb447f3f9 .
Fix Valgrind "still reachable" report in TestcmdtokenCmd() {2023 03 03}
sporadic segmentation fault in coroutine.test/coroutine-7.4 {2023 01 27}
Discovered, reported, diagnosed, and fixed in 417d67fc63d237b7 .
Test TableFromUtfProc() with strict handling of encoding errors {2023 01 25}
New test .
string-2.20.1 fails on big endian {2023 01 12}
Fixed in 9858a68816f2053a .
buffer allocation on every call to Write in tclIO.c {2022 04 20}
Discovered, reported, diagnosed, and fixed in a62764efd4fcdad3 and d699b9b1453b6734 .
using the Thread package in a debugging build of Tcl results in a segmentation fault at exit {2022 03 21}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
lsearch returns different results depending on order of -bisect and -exact arguments {2021 12 30}
Discovered and reported
'argument with no name' calling proc with args built in different frame , {2021 10 07}
Fixed in 75a9777184741e05 .
namespace ensemble subcommand name prefix matching and a subsequent error results in a segmentation fault {2021 09 04}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in a2e801a3d6c1675b and d49a1b03291b4cde .
failure to yieldto is not the same thing as not calling yieldto in the first place {2021 06 20}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed as duplicate , and added test case .
vwait is not NRE-enabled, and yieldto cannot find the right splicing spot {2021 06 20}
Discovered , analyzed , reported and fixed in eb50e83ee1d8f207 .
cesu-8 encoding fails on \u80 {2021 06 19}
Discovered and reported .
epoll, special files, directories, links, epoll_ctl operation not permitted, and abort {2021 06 17}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in 7587b7aeb9ce863c , with tests in dcb888ed85adeb86 .
namespace is removed from other namespace paths before deletion is complete {2021 05 19}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in bdd005f3301eec51 .
Per-interp Loaded library structures not cleaned up on interp exit. {2021 05 15}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in a4de334c5f297a92 , 723d1eb93779e81b , and ccfd61a7cf6bce85 , and more on the pyk-tclUnload branch .
Fix quoting issues in gdb-test and lldb targets. {2021 05 13}
Makefile madness . valgrind and lldb targets now interpret TESTFLAGS (and other) arguments the same way the test target does .
Tcl_Unload, make gdb-test, segmentation fault {2021 05 14}
Reported, diagnosed, and fixed .
tclZipfs.c exit handlers don't deallocate allocated storage. {2021 05 15}
Discovered, reported, and fixed in 47601ca8e37b50f4 and 20117765bd03fc9f .
Segmentation fault when closing a channel in an event handler for that channel {2021 04 26}
And also some tests for the issue .
New test constraints {2021 04 27}
"debug" , "purify" , and "debugpurify" .
with "make valgrind", safe-zipfs-5.5 fails with the error, 'can't set "path": variable is array' {2021 04 25}
Reported , diagnosed , and fixed in ac18feaba778d8c7 .
zipfs-5.1 Valgrind, TclZipfs_MountBuffer, "1 blocks are definitely lost" {2021 04-20}
Reported , diagnosed , and fixed in dd4f24fce90dc392 .
Tcl_AppendObjToObj and Tcl_GetUnicode lead to Valgrind "Invalid read of size". {2021 04 21}
Reported , diagnosed , and fixed in c7100a073ba1e0b8 . More fixes in ec5b3d21f9b29ee9 for similar issues reported by Valgrind .
New test for segmentation fault {2021 04 03}
Occurs when the handle on the routine that represents the object is accessed during deletion of the namespace for an object , but that routine has already been deleted and the handle nullified . Fixed in 3ddbaef3566385a2 .
Tcl interprets two adjacent surrogate code points as a character encoded using UTF-16 {2021 03 06}
Reported and discussed .
imported namespace ensemble command name distorted during deletion trace on the import {2020 09 02}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
double free when deleting namespace containing the origin routine for some imported routine {2020 08 20}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
trace on imported alias deletes alias and then calls import and triggers memory error {2020 08 16}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed and fixed .
calling an imported alias in a deletion trace on the alias causes Tcl to cycle on routine resolution {2020 08 10}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
segmentation fault from deleting the the target of an imported alias during a trace on the target of the alias {2020 08 16}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed in 37243ff47659d65c , de751a349009f88a , b9d1a1ce1aef55c3 , with a test case at 2da1596304896026 .
zlib push/pop corrupts underlying channel {2020 06 16}
Discovered and reported .
[uplevel $list] , [uplevel 1 $list] and generation of string representations {2020 05 05}
Reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
tis-620 encoding fails to load {2020 01 04}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
ensemble unknown handler confused by tailcall {2020 01 03}
Discovered and reported .
tailcall does not trigger an namespace unknown handler {2019 12 24}
Discovered and reported .
tcltest::SetupTest and tcltest::EvalTest {2019 12 01}
Laying the groundwork to customize the behaviour of tcltest such that each test is evaluated in a separate interpreter for real test independence .
regexp (?:a*b)+c indices wrong {2019 11 24}
Discovered and reported . See also Regular Expressions Match Requirements . Marked as invalid, but I want to take a close look at it sometime.
TclOO segmentation fault: direct call to a method called by the object destructor , and that deletes the object via rename before calling next {2019 11 13}
Reduced a reported issue in a complex systems to a reproducible test suite , diagnosed , and reported .
A change to the system encoding , a stale cached file FsPath object , and an incorrect result {2019 10 22}
Discovered , diagnosed , reported , and fixed .
changing [encoding system can corrupt [encoding dirs] {2019 10 21}
Discovered and reported .
write-only nonblocking refchan and Tcl internal buffers {2019 05 06}
Diagnosed , reported , and fixed . See also TCL_FILE_EVENTS cannot drive async I/O alone .
try interaction with local variable names produces segmentation fault {2019 04 08}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed .
Fixed memory leak in TclOO.c:ObjectNamespaceDeleted, object mixins and object/class mutation. {2018 11 01}
return -code break/tailcall break from coroutine goes wrong at the top-level {2018 07 31}
Discovered and reported .
concatenating binary array with empty string yields the empty string {2018 07 22}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed , with additional fixes by dgp .
(tailcall|yieldto) failed to find the proper namespace Abort {2018 06 28}
Added script to reproduce . Fixed in 9198c16407f3 .
epoll notifer leaks memory {2018-05-09}
Fixed .
Fix more memory leaks in TclOO cleanup routines {2018 03 14}
Add tests that isolate leaks to certain TclOO facilities .
refchan , coroutine , and postevent from the "watch" proc {2016 08 15}
Discovered , reported , diagnosed , and fixed . Further analyzed and defended in a blocking memory channel no longer works , {2021 06 09} .
TIP 498 - Simplify Tcl_DeleteNamespace
Simplify the implementation of Tcl_DeleteNamespace in order to make behaviour more consistent , facilitate the resolution of outstanding issues , and pave the way for further developments .
NRE-enable package require
Allows for a coroutine to yield from a script evaluated during package require . A previous , less polished implementation no longer applied cleanly .
Delete a namespace for an ensemble having a deletion trace deletes its namespace: segmentation fault.
Fixed .
Further refactoring of TclOO object cleanup routines
Also resolved TclOO, segmentation fault: deleting a class mixed into an object that calls a method on the class in a deletion trace .
TclOO segmentation fault cleaning up objects that that have mixed themselves into themselves
Fixed .
Streamline TclOO object cleanup routines
ensemble: segmentation fault when -subcommands and -map values are the same object
Fixed .
namespace ensemble command named ":" is mistakenly given the empty string as its name.
Fixed . See also thefix for a followup issue .
Modify TclCreateProc to handle arbitrary argument names, not just ASCII
segmentation fault in TclOO.c/ReleaseClassContents() for a class mixed into one of its instances
Fixed .
TclOO - aborts when a trace on command deletion deletes the object's namespace
Fixed .
TclOO method with non-literal value for body argument causes segmentation fault
Fixed .
Avoid generating string representation when comparing against the empty string .
caching objects
Use duplicate Tcl_Obj structures to hang onto previous intreps . Eliminates the need to generate a string representation of a list that contains redundant keys when used as a dictionary . string length No longer causes intreps of items in a list or dictionary to be discarded . With a little more work , string range could be modified to take advantage of the cached objects and not generate a string for the entire list or dictionary just to derive some substring . The next step is to take advantage of this patch to never generate the string representation of a full list or dictionary . This patch introduces TclObjLookupTyped() , which returns a Tcl_Obj of the desired type , or NULL if there isn't one handy . Such an interface could prove generally useful in further development of Tcl .
alias trace did not find command in real command list of import references
Discovered and reported .
off-by-one address error in AppendUnicodeToUnicodeRep , 2012-02-04
Reported and diagnosed .

Tcl Core - Documentation

SetResult.3 {2023 04 13}
Reduced word count by 46%
passing pointer to uninitialized memory leads Tcl_UniCharToUtf() to corrupt data {2023 04 26}
Discovered , diagnosed , reported , and fixed in f5eadcbf9a6b1b4c , although a better fix would be to reform the code base, improving the function signatue of Tcl_UniCharToUTf() and removing code related to "TCL_UTF_MAX = 3".
Corrected spelling errors in source code comments and in documentation {2023 04 12}
For Tcl 8.6 , 8.7 , and 9.0 .
Make the documentation of [encoding] more concise and readable {2023 03 27}
Reduced the size of doc/encoding.n by 41% .
Make the descriptions in doc/Tcl.n more concise and intuitive {2023 02 28}
Reduced the size of doc/Tcl.n by 41%. Back down to 10 rules, and "list" is specified.
SaveResult.3
Reduced word count by 40% .
chan.n , 2022-01-22
Reduced word count by 26% .

Other Tcl Project Activity

(sqlite) Tcl bytearray woes
Diagnosed and reported. [set v ""] = bytearray object? , comp.lang.tcl {2005 06 21} is an earlier report of the same issue.
(tcllib) add end-of-line signaling to tcl::chan::halfpipe {2022 01 25}
(tcllib) make coroutine::util gets/read more efficient, and also restore any existing handler when finished {2022 01 18}
(thread) thread::errorproc is called twice for one error, once for "worker" and once for "main" thread {2021 11 10}
Discovered and reported.
(thread) interp bgerror is ignored in thread, error sent to other interp instead {2021 11 10}
Discovered and reported.
(sqlite) segmentation fault when closing a database from within a transaction , sqlite {2021 09 14}
Discovered and reported . Subsequently fixed by Dan Kennedy.
(tohil) Tohil issue 53, error {No module named 'tohil' (unable to import tohil module to python interpreter) {2021 08 12}
Reported, diagnosed, and fixed in b5cebdf4f252a6ed .
(tohil) Tohil issue 52, package require fails after package forget {2021 08 11}
Reported and diagnosed.
(tohil) (sqlite) conversion of literal values, or lack thereof {2021 06 04}
Inconsistent conversion of string values to numeric.
(tcllib) testutilities, remove sensitivity to directory a test is invoked from {2021 04 14}
Makes it easier to run a test without using sak.
sqlite null character sorts greater than 0x7f and less than 0x80 {2020 08 01}
Discovered and reported .
sqlite Tcl coroutine , db eval ... script` , yield, segmentation fault {2020 04 09}
Discovered , reported, and diagnosed.
pdf4tcl
Added support for TIFF images with group-4 compression .
tcllib: Isolate the evaluation of each .test file
A response to a test failure that arose from the interaction of two <code>.test</code> files .
(tcllib) mime package: rewrite
Uses temporary files and channels in order to keep the memory footprint low in all cases . Use a command instead of a token as a handle for a message . For header values , add support for parameters that are not key/value pairs . For cookies , add the HttpOnly parameter and make it the default .
(tcllib) mime package: new API
Offers the ability to read in messages from a channel , more consistent and straightforward manipulation of message headers , and more flexibility for use as a general Internet Message library . See also commit 37008172d910 .
(tcllib) Namespace resolution for relative namespaces in namespacex
Diagnosed and fixed .
MIME issue , Let ::mime::parsepart accept a header only with multipart
Fixed .
MIME , added a default value of multpart/mized when -parts is provided
This should make mime::initialize a little more user-friendly .
MIME issue , too much braced message header values (::mime::getheader)
Fixed .
MIME issue , Problems with qp_encode and encoded_word, no_softbreak
Fixed .
(tcllib) fileutil::magic::filetype issue , mimetype, filetype result empty for text files
Fixed .
(tcllib) fileutil::magic::filetype issue , TCL fileutil::magic::mimetype not recognising Microsoft documents or mp3
Fixed .
(tcllib) Another round of work on fileutil::magic
Fixed issue ::fileutil::magic fails to identify mimetype , and also other issues .
(tcllib) Tcllib ncgi issue , Correct Handling of quotes in quoted strings in parseMimeValue
Fixed .
Tcllib mime issue , Error in mime.tcl
Fixed and added a test case .
(TclX) Update the build files for TclX
Also replaced deprecated autoconf functions .
tclconfig: CFLAGS broken at configure time
Untangled the offending strings from CFLAGS and made the corresponding changes in sampleextension .
(thread) thread::send -async script varname aborts with "alloc: invalid block"
Reported and fixed , but then sebres produced a better fix .
(tdom) tdom: selectNodes -cache 1 and a syntactically incorrect xPath statement , 2017-06-16
(tdom) removeAttributeNS: segmentation fault when there are other attributes with no namespace , 2017-06-17
(tcllib) fumagic , 2016
Significant modifications to bring fumagic , aka fileutil::magic::filetype much closer to feature parity with file(1) , and to be capable of ingesting the latest magic spec files .
sqlite issue : Incorrect result from a UNION with an ORDER BY .
Discovered and reported .
[::coroutine::util read closes the channel], 2017-09-20
Discovered, reported, diagnosed, and fixed .
[coroutine::util read swallows data when the channel becomes blocked], 2017-09-20.
Discovered, reported, diagnosed, and fixed .
fileutil::fileType - detects some pdf files just as text , 2015-05-28
Discovered, reported, diagnosed, and fixed.
thread issue : -eventmark + thread::send -async == deadlock , 2015-04-12
Discovered , reported and fixed .
memchan stops generating read events when cursor is at end of file , 2013-11-21
Discovered, reported, and diagnosed .

Technical Contributions to Projects not related to Tcl

Instructions for updating the BIOS of an HP Envy m4 without using Windows

Reclaimed Programs

One of my ongoing projects is to give abandoned Tcl programs a new home . Here is a list of the rescues to date .

KalininLaTeXeditor

Open Questions

Should there be a fork command for coroutines ?

Seems like something that might be fun/useful

AMG: I've asked about this before on the coroutine page . Search for "Cloning" . Sorry , not going to happen . Quote from MS: "The real obstacle is that each coroutine has its own Tcl stack , which stores (among other things) pointers to itself . Making a copy of that stack implies fixing those autorefs , which in turn implies storing the nature of each entry in the stack to know if it has to be fixed or not (and how) , which in turn implies a redesign of the tcl stack ."

Should variable substitution be more script-like ?

Assuming the following alternate definition of variable substitution ,

In a word , $ and the variable name immediately following it are replaced by the value of that variable . The variable name can be a sequence of characters in the range 0-9a-zA-Z , or , if the variable name begins with " , [ , { , $ , or \ , the variable name is determined according to the corresponding rule for double quotes , command substitution , braces , variable substitution , or backslash substitution , respectively . Non-whitespace characters may occur immediately after the variable name , i.e. , immediately after the closing " , ] , or } . If the variable is immediately be followed by a string index of the form (index) , index , which may not contain a literal ) , is the name of an element with that array .

Tcl would behave like this:

# warning: hypothetical behaviour
% set {{}} hello
hello
% puts ${{}}
hello
% puts $[join { \{ \} } {}]
hello
% set \{ goodbye
% puts $\{}
goodbye}
% set greeting greetings!
greetings!
% puts $"greeting".yada
greetings!.yada
% set name {{}}
{}
% puts $$name
hello
% puts $"$name"
hello
% set na \{
{
% set me \}
}
% puts $"$na$me"
hello

This makes variable substitution more consistent with the other syntax rules of Tcl , and more flexible as well .

AMG: This functionality is provided by single-argument [set] . Tcl's $ notation is a shorthand for single-argument [set] that only works for variable names that are literal , though substitutions are allowed inside the array index .

I don't understand what you are asking for with your "greetings" example . Tcl already behaves like you show because the period following $greeting isn't treated as part of the variable name .

In Brush I propose a new $"..." notation that works like [set ...] , as shown in your puts $"$name" and puts $"$na$me" examples . If you want to get silly , this notation can be nested because opening $" is distinct from closing " .

$$name is explicitly disallowed because of ambiguity when combined with indexing . Does faux-Brush $$name{0} mean the same as Tcl [set [lindex $name 0]]] or Tcl [lindex [set $name] 0] ? Instead write $"$name{0}" or $"$name"{0} to make the intent clear .

Brush's proposed $[...] notation does not work as shown in your puts $[join ...] example . To get that behavior , instead write $"[join ...]" . Brush's $[...] is a mechanism for applying variable indexing operations to the result of a [script substitution] without having to first save the substitution result into a variable . For instance , Brush $[command](key1 key2){1 2} means precisely the same as Tcl [lindex [dict get key1 key2 [command]]] 1 2] . The C analogue would be roughly command()->key1->key2[1][2] .

PYK 2016-04-07: I've added quotes to the "greetings" example , which is there just to confirm that the behaviour in that case doesn't change , in spite of the fact that normally , extra characters aren't allowed after the closing brace or quote . The apparent ambiguity of $$name(index) doesn't seem too problematic to me ; interpreting it as the equivalnet of of $"$name(index)" is visually straightforward enough . In that last Brush example I think you meant [lindex [dict get [command] key1 key2] 1 2] .

Should info nameofexecutable be fully normalized if it's a symlink ?

info nameofexecutable is currently used in the code that sets $auto_path in init.tcl , so with the current behaviour , $auto_path is set differently for every symlink to a tclsh executable .

EMJ: Assuming that you mean init.tcl . If you have installed tclsh in some strange place then that place should be on your path anyway (as , of course , is the official location) . I really don't see why you would ever need a symlink to tclsh or wish at all .

Would it scale better to have commands like [append list ...] rather than lappend ?

AMG: I'd much prefer [list append] , but the [list] command is thoroughly taken . Tcl subcommand structures are typically named by putting the noun (class) first , at least when it's not the case that the object instance handle name is the command name .

PYK 2013-09-22: Been thinking about it often , and I still have this suspicion that the world might be a better place if we all went with [verb object ...] rather than [object verb ...] . It still seems reasonable to me that Tcl could dispatch based what type role the object most-recently played .

AMG: I'd be careful about the word "object" in this situation . To me , the word "object" , especially when next door to the word "verb" , is a specific thing being acted on , in other words an instance . In C++ notation , "myList.append(value);" , would have myList as the object , or more properly the instance . When you say "object" you really seem to mean "type" .

So , how would command dispatch work if the hierarchy went the other way around ? I see types as collections of operations , along with established schemas for values of that type . So types are above operations in the hierarchy . In the Tcl command ensemble dispatch concept , that means the type name must go first . Put it second , and things get funny , especially when the ensemble is more than two levels deep . You could implement this if you like , either by making procs for all operations , which take type names as their first arguments , or by making an unknown handler that does custom dispatch .

As for type inference , this is scary in situations where the type cannot be determined by static , lexical analysis , for instance when operating on an argument to a proc . The behavior of the proc would depend on what the caller had most recently done with the arguments . For instance , let's say the length of a list is the number of space-separated words in its string representation , but the length of a dictionary is the number of keys . How does a proc tell how many words there are in a value that was just passed to it ? It would have to do some dummy operation to force the value to be a list . Now this potentially screws up all the code (including extensions , the proc's caller , any holders of shared values) that assumes the value is a dictionary . Far safer to explicitly say "this is a dict" or "this is a list" every time an operation is performed . In other words , what Tcl already does !

should the string command be retired and its subcommands become "top-level" Tcl commands ?

DKF: Ensembles purely organizational . From 8.6 onwards — or is it 8.6.1 ? I forget when the commit went into HEAD — the built-in ones compile themselves out entirely in almost all cases (the exceptions are some of the complex cases , notably including namespace eval and info frame); the implementation is used just as if it was an independent command . This isn't done for user-created ensembles , because we suspect the performance cost to Snit is suspected to be too high there . (I ought to check that assumption . If it's wrong , it's trivial to turn on compilation for all ensembles . Contrast with TclOO where compilation of the dispatch doesn't make sense at all , and which uses other mechanisms to accelerate .)

AMG: I wish we could do this with [list]... :^(

Should [dict incr] return a single value rather than a key-value pair ?

It would be more consistent with incr if it did , and most of the time , the single value is what I need .

AMG: The goal was consistency with most of the other [dict] commands that take a variable name as their first argument . These commands all return the entire modified dictionary , not just the portion that changed .

If we were to generalize the concept of nested dicts such that a zero-length key path refers to the entire dict , and we were to make all dict commands support key paths , then [dict incr] with zero keys would behave the same as [incr] . (By the way , [dict get] and [dict with] support zero-length key paths , even though [dict set] and [dict unset] do not . However , they still expect their argument to be a valid dict , or at least an even-length list , so they do not exhibit the full generalization I just suggested .)

There are two other [dict] commands that take a variable name as their first argument , but they also take a script as their last argument . Even though they modify the dictionary , these two commands return the return value of the script . This is consistent with non-looping commands like eval , if , try , and [uplevel] that take script arguments .

To Do

Fix sqlite coroutine segmentation fault

See this post .

tclTrace.c

NRE-enable trace routines , starting with variable traces .

vwait

NRE_enable vwait .

Tcl_FSEvalFileEx and TclNREvalFile

Remove duplicate code . Also remove duplicate code in DivertUnloadFile and TclFSUnloadTempFile .

Tk build

macos, linux: configuration: unable to build using trunk
Address the issues leading to reversion of this work , and merge back into trunk .

encoding

Update documentation for encoding convertto and encoding convertfrom to clarify that those routines munge data
If a character can't be converted to the target encoding , it is replace with a character that can .

Logical Strings

In the following example ,

set mylist [list some huge list]
set script "lappend somevar {*}[list mylist]"
eval $script

A string representation is generated for $script , and that representation unfortunately includes the string representation of $mylist . In some future version of Tcl where each type of value has an interface which includes the standard operations of a string abstract data type , A "concatenated value" type could provide the logical equivalent of the string representation in $script while not actually generating the full string .

This is one of the fundamental pieces that remains to be added to Tcl in order to give it more of the power of other Lisps , making The Best Lisp (TM) .

Another example:

proc p1 {} [list ::apply [list hugelist {lindex $hugelist 1}] $hugelist]
p1

Ideally this would not trigger the generation of a string representation for $hugelist .

package require

package require could return a handle for the required package . Commands that operate on a handle could include:

package namespace
Returns the namespace of the loaded package .
package version
Returns the version of the loaded package .

sorted-aware lists

Would this be a performance win in the large?

Make [upvar 0 othervar myvar] work with env

Also fix traces so that traces on the array , not just the individual element are fired for $myvar .

[L1 ]

fix 1-argument invocation of uplevel

Modify uplevel so that when only 1 argument is passed , it won't try to interpret that one argument as the optional level argument .

Add Moose-like Convenience to a Tcl object system

In the Tcl Chatroom on 2014-02-26 , mst described how convenient it is in Moose , an object system in Perl , to create objects with slots for lazy variables , which the ability , if desired , to initialize those variables at the time of object creation . I think something like that would be almost trivial to add to a Tcl object system , perhaps to ycl::ns::object

AMG: How is this different than initializing those variables in the object's instance constructor ?

PYK: mst described a system where the attribute would not be computed until first accessed , but then optionally could be initialized in the constructor . Apparently in Moose there is a nice terse syntax to express this . The difference , of course , might be felt when deriving the value is relatively costly , and that cost can be deferred until the value is actually needed , and then the value could be cached for future reference .

AMG: This can be done with read traces .

Modify tclsh treatment of stdin

Currently , tclsh switches to interactive mode whenever the Tcl script is read from stdin . This is even true when stdin is a pipeline . One consequence of the current behaviour is that when there are errors in a script that comes through a stdin redirection , the interpreter exit , or to display a stack trace . This can cause a script to behave quite differently depending on whether it is in a named file or redirected from stdin .

Modify tclsh to accept scripts whose name begins with "-"

AMG: I propose the opposite: make tclsh bail out if its arguments , prior to the filename , can't be interpreted as valid options . The current behavior is bizarre . If the first character of the first argument is "-" (and the argument's not "-encoding") , tclsh drops into interactive mode with all arguments placed in $argv . What good is this ?

Right now the only supported option is "-encoding" . I'm not comfortable with allowing scripts whose names being with "-" because we unavoidably get in trouble when the script's name is "-encoding" .

PYK: I don't think Tcl needs to do that much babysitting . If someone is reckless enough to both have a file named -encoding and be using tclsh -encoding , they're asking for it . On the other hand , why should Tcl be able to interpret any file , regardless of name ?

AMG: Why "should" ? I'm going to assume you meant to say "shouldn't" . It may seem unfortunate , but every system must define some limits which its users must observe . In this case , Tcl doesn't allow the startup script's name to begin with a dash . This is done to avoid ambiguity with command-line options . There's an easy workaround though: prefix the script's name with "./" , an absolute path , or any other such construct containing a slash . Many other workarounds exist involve renaming , copying , linking , or sourcing the file .

RLE: There is another alternative . First , tighten up tclsh's (and wish's) option parsing to accept only valid options and refuse invalid ones . Then add support for the "end of options" option "--" , at which point if one wants to have a script named -encoding , one would do:

tclsh -- -encoding

And if one wanted to set an explicit encoding , for a script named -encoding , one would do:

tclsh -encoding utf-8 -- -encoding

This would be consistent with a bunch of tcl commands that already implement the end-of-options option "--" , and with a bunch (most , at least of the GNU variety) command line programs that also accept the end-of-options option .

memory characteristics of string replace

In the following example , when the first command sets b , the memory usage quadruples . In the second example , it doubles . If possible , modify string replace so that the first example only doubles the memory usage while the second example doesn't change it .

set a [string repeat a 10000000]; set b [string replace $a[set a {}] 0 0 b]
set a [string repeat a 10000000]; set b [string replace $a 0 0 b]

AMG: You sure you don't have that backwards ? I would expect the second line (example?) to cause the larger growth in memory because now both $a and $b contain 10000000-character strings . In fact , I just tested this on my system , and indeed it behaves as I describe .

Run 1:

% set a [string repeat a 10000000]         ; exec ps -o size --no-header [pid]
19000
% set b [string replace $a[set a {}] 0 0 b]; exec ps -o size --no-header [pid]
19044

Run 2:

% set a [string repeat a 10000000]; exec ps -o size --no-header [pid]
19000
% set b [string replace $a 0 0 b] ; exec ps -o size --no-header [pid]
28768

I'm not entirely sure I know what you're asking . My best guess is a request to make [string replace] not return a new pure string but rather some Tcl_Obj that references its source string value but contains an annotation saying to replace its first character with b when a string representation is demanded . Indeed that would cut memory usage in half for the examples you give , but creating a new "string replace result" intrep would be a special case of dubious benefit . Indeed , that benefit would vanish as soon as a string representation is needed , which will be pretty much right away , unless you were to never look at or use the value you got .

PYK 2014-04-24: Yes , I had it backwards . My idea for improvement is that if the number of characters being substituted in is the same as the replacement value , and the object is unshared , could the string representation be modified in-place ? Those criteria should be true for the first example:

set a [string repeat a 10000000]; set b [string replace $a[set a {}] 0 0 b]

AMG: This first example already works just fine . My simple profiling above shows no appreciable increase in size . What's the problem ?

Modernize Ffidl

Fix [file link -symbolic]

so that it doesn't require the destination to exist in order to create the symlink

Fix [[trace] facilities so that errors never disappear into a vortex

Also work towards consistent behaviour of trace . Make sure commands like [append] and [[lappend] consistently trigger traces at the logical points .

This is well-underway . See my branch of tcl .

Modify trace add command ... enter somecommand

See proposal on the trace page to use the result of somecommand as the actual command to run

Expect Bug

#! /bin/env tclsh
package require Expect
spawn tclsh; fileevent [set fh [open /dev/random]] readable {expect something {}}; vwait forever

eliminate newline substitution in comments ? (tclParse.c/ParseComment)

AMG: How about eliminating backslash-newline substitution inside braces ? No one seems to know what it's good for , and it has caused strange problems for me with templates and subst . Specifically , long lines continued with backslash must have percent signs at the beginning of each physical line when the data is [read] in from disk and must not have percent signs at the beginning of subsequent lines when the data is inside braces .

PYK 2013-03-08: That's an interesting point . I'd never really paid attention to that , but now that you mention it , it does seem odd/useless/obstructive . Maybe it's just an artifact of the original implementation of the parser . If anyone out there can shed more light on the subject , feel free to comment on this page , and I might move the discussion to another page later .

PYK 2013-04-15: I found an example of backslash-newline substitution being put to use at scriptSplit , where it allows the error message to be indented in the source code , but come out de-indented at runtime . That use case led me to wonder if the \<newline>whiteSpace rule shouldn't be changed to \<newline>\<newline>*whiteSpace instead

AMG: Even if backslash-newline substitution inside braces were to be eliminated , the code you reference would still produce error messages all on one line , with indents and line breaks removed . This is because the parser already has special handling for backslash-newline-whitespace when outside braces . Inside quotes , it's a single space . Outside , it's a word (argument) separator . I find it redundant and destructive to do this processing at multiple layers of interpretation .

write a port of the DOS game , Slicks'n'Slides , as mentioned at Car racing in Tcl

a Tcl alternative to TeX

AMG: Great idea , I had been considering the same thing . But perhaps there's a way to make a Tcl frontend for TeX or for one of the frontends TeX already has (e.g. LaTeX or DocBook) ?

PYK: I think a front-end for TeX would most definitely be the way to start .

PYK 2014-08-19: Another starting point might be to write a Tcl patoline extension and build on that

Tcl implementation in RPython . May involve writing a Tcl analogue to Rpython

[binary set]

AMG: I assume this would modify individual bits and fields of a structure in-place , thereby avoiding the need to reconstitute the entire structure each time a piece has to change . Kind of like [lset] ...

PYK: right .

fix lindex so that [lindex $somevalue] throws an error if $somevalue is not a list

AMG: I'm assuming you're talking about single-argument [lindex] which simply returns its argument . What's the problem with that ? I believe it currently has the correct behavior . [lindex]'s subsequent arguments specify what list indexes should be applied , so if there are no list index arguments , no list indexing should be applied . If no list indexing should be applied , there should be no requirement that the data be a list .

Let's look at it from another perspective . Take this code:

lindex {{{asdf}fff}} 0

This returns {asdf}fff , since that is the one (and only) element of [lindex]'s first argument , which is indeed a list . The fact that {asdf}fff itself isn't a list is totally irrelevant . But then take this:

lindex {{{asdf}fff}} 0 0

Now we have a problem . [lindex] is being asked not to return {asdf}fff but instead to drill inside it and take its first element . Since it's not a list , there is an error .

In summary , it's already the case that [lindex]:

  1. is capable of returning values that aren't lists , and
  2. is unconcerned about the listhood of values (or nested values) when it's not being asked to index into them .

I see no reason to special-case the situation where [lindex] is given only a single argument .

PYK 2014-08-22: I've since become accustomed to using lindex as the identity function , and because anyone providing it with ony 1 argument has surely read the documentation , I no-longer see it as broken . So now , on with the critique of your analysis ! The fact that elements of a list don't themselves have to be lists isn't particularly relevant to the argument , and lindex without an argument already is a special case , both because it is the only time that lindex isn't actually being asked to return an element from a list , and because it's the only time that the first argument is not required to be a list . This special case is a hole that like other such holes , was ingeniously exploited . It's an easter egg , and a very useful one that spices up any script with a touch of wizardry .

AMG: I argue the opposite , that single-argument [lindex] is not a special case nor a hole but rather a natural consequence of the generality of [lindex]'s definition . Furthermore , I argue that the fact it doesn't require its lone argument to be a list is to be a direct consequence of that same definition .

I know I'm repeating myself , but I'll try it anyway to see if I can make my point clearer .

[lindex] must be given one data argument followed by any number (even zero) of list index arguments . Initially , [lindex] lets the data argument be the tentative result . For each index argument n , [lindex] obtains the nth element of the result and lets it be the new result .

That's almost the entire definition . The only part I left out is that the indexes can either be separate arguments or a single list .

From this I'm sure you can see that if there are no index arguments , no list indexing is performed . And if no list indexing is performed , there's no need for the first argument to be a list . It's the result and that's the end of the story .

As for your argument , I will now use similar logic to show that four-argument [lindex] is a special case . It's the only time [lindex] is being asked to return an element from a list in a list in a list , and it's the only time its first argument is required to be a list nested minimum three levels deep along the selected path . Basically I'm saying that the number zero is no more special than the number three .

PYK 2014-08-23: That is a most illuminating and satisfying reply . As long as lindex is going to accept only 1 argument , that operational description of why the current behaviour is the correct behaviour makes perfect sense . I appreciate the twist on my logic for the four-argument case , but it had to drop the key word , isn't , for the word is . Saying that lindex is implicitly not being asked to extract anything from its final result is a bit of a tautology — but wait — what could be more fitting than a tautology to express an identity ? I give up !

[lsearch -filter] . Or even better , have lindex interpret its arguments as lists of indexes

AMG: [lindex] already supports having an indexList argument , and {*} can be used to make any argument work as an index list . Please post an example showing what you have in mind .

PYK: I mean that

lindex {uno dos tres quatro} {1 3}
# -> {dos quatro}

For compatibility with current usage , it might have to be

lindex {uno dos tres quatro} {{1 3} {}}
#-> {dos quatro}]

AMG: Ah , we're talking about two different kinds of index lists . I was talking about a list of indices forming a path to a single element located within nested lists . You're talking about indexing multiple elements . The [lmap] command may help:

proc lindex_multi {data indexes} {
    lmap index $indexes {lindex $data $index}
}
lindex_multi {uno dos tres quatro} {1 3}

A Tcl implementation of or binding for a hierarchical temporal memory system

Contribute to a Tcl project competing with pandas

Messages

Archived Discussions

The discussions below have been archived at the the indicated revisions of this page .

revision 553
Conversations through 2018.
revision 550
Conversation regarding modernizing scripts on wiki pages.