Tcl Dev Kit

Tcl Dev Kit is based on the TclPro tools, which stopped development at version 1.4. It is not named TclPro because the trademark for that name is not held by ActiveState.

Attributes

Name
Tcl Dev Kit (TDK)
Company
ActiveState
Github
https://github.com/ActiveState/tdk
website
http://www.activestate.com/tcl-dev-kit (broken link 2018-05-04)
documentation
http://docs.activestate.com/tdk/5.4/toc.html
Current Version
5.4.0
Updated
2014-12-08
Contact
See ActiveState Site

PYK Fork

repository
https://chiselapp.com/user/pooryorick/repository/tdk

See Also

Komodo, by ActiveState
An multi-platform IDE with advanced Tcl support.
Tcl Dev Kit ActiveState Community page
The most extensife collection of information about the Tcl Dev Kit
ActiveTcl
Debugging AOLserver with Tcl Dev Kit
Komodo
Tcl Dev Kit Datasheet (PDF)

News

Tcl Dev Kit Now Open Source! , Jeff Rouse, 2018-03-29
"Until now, TDK has been maintained by ActiveState as part of its suite of products but moving forward the best option for its future development is to release it into the hands of the dedicated Tcl community."
A New Release To Tcl Your Fancy , Erin Williams, 2008-10-20
Announced the release of Tcl Dev Kit 5.0, which added TclApp cross-platform wrapping, multi-architecture starkits, improved TDK Checker syntax analysis, and support for Tcl 8.6.

Description

Tcl Dev Kit includes the following components:

debugger
  • A graphical dynamic debugger that provides Coverage Analysis and code profiling.
  • Improve code performance and reliability through coverage and hotspot analysi
  • Determine which code has not been run and which files lack coverage.
  • Identify bottleneck code to address performance issues.
  • Analyze file by file and function by function.
TclChecker
Cross reference tool
  • A graphical browser that maps out the structure of a Tcl program and helps make complex code more understandable.
compiler
Inspector
Analyze Tcl and Tk applications as they run. Based on TkInspect, for application Introspection.
  • Organize and display application components by component type.
  • Display and modify component configuration on-the-fly.
TclApp
  • Easily create and deploy self-contained Tcl executables to all major platforms. A replacement for prowrap, for script deployment based on starkits.
  • Deliver small, seamless executables with sophisticated extension wrapping and dynamically linked Tcl and Tk libraries.
  • Run from the command line, or choose intuitive GUIs for visual guides to build options.
  • Ensure that code is always executed by a specific version of Tcl.
  • Deploy to systems with or without Tcl and extensions installed.
TclApp Package Editor
  • A companion tool to TclApp included in Tcl Dev Kit, creates and edits the package description files used by TclApp.
  • Create, manage, export and use TEApot package repositories.
  • TEAcup: Package management client for fetching, installing, updating and removing Tcl packages (part of ActiveTcl). TEAcup can also provide meta data on installed and available packages and can be used to search multiple repositories using complex queries.
  • TEApot: Expose TEA repositories on a network via TCP/IP.
  • TEApot-Admin: Manage "opaque" repositories on the local file system. Create new repositories, add and remove packages, list the repository contents and retrieve packages.
  • TEApot-Pkg: Create TEA package archives from package sources and binaries.
Tcl Service Manager

The following components are no longer included in Tcl Dev Kit:

TDK Now Open Sourced

MG 2018-05-04: This is really great news. I've just grabbed it from Github. However... what the hell do I do with it now? ;) All the documentation seems to be geared around you downloading a wrapped version, and I can't find an entry point (was trying to run the graphical TclApp) that actually runs. Anyone have any instructions on what to do after you grab the source? Many thanks!

AK The TclApp entrypoint is https://github.com/ActiveState/tdk/blob/master/app/tclapp/entry.tcl . The toplevel README.md mentions that all the app entrypoints are under the app/ directory.

ABU Please help me. I'm on a Mac , with TclTk 8.6.4 ,

   wish .... entry.tcl  --> can't find package compiler

MG I tried that (and various other files throughout /app/ and /app/*/) but, as ABU says, they all throw errors about missing packages.

AK Re ABU: compiler is a binary package. It sources are under lib/tclcompiler. It has to be built and installed first, before it can be used.

AK Re MG Is this all about compiler as well ? If not, what are the missing packages ?

AK Pretty please use the issue tracker at https://github.com/ActiveState/tdk/issues to report problems. Collating them there helps all to see if their issue was encountered before, and what the solution was. At the moment it is clear that we need more documentation (install guide and the like).

JMC FWIW, it's taken some work, but I have it working. Start by following AK's advice and building tclcompiler. You'll also have to build tclparser. I use mingw & msys on Windows. Also, I build starkits with kbs.tcl (KitGen), but a Tcl build is part of that process. So, I used that Tcl build to complete the tclcompiler & tclparser compiles.

(Actually, as a first step, I recommend finding every reference to tdk_license in the whole project and either removing or commenting. There are many in the Tcl code, but they are informational only so they can be removed.)

To build tclcompiler:

  1. Remove this line from cmpWPkg.c - { "tdk_license", TdkLicenseObjCmd, 1 },
  2. Start bash.
  3. ./configure --with-tcl=/c/KitGen/buildWindowsNT/lib
  4. make

To build tclparser:

  1. remove this line from tclParser.c - { "tdk_license", TdkLicenseObjCmd, 1 },
  2. Start bash
  3. ./configure --with-tcl=/c/KitGen/buildWindowsNT/lib
  4. make

There are other random things that I encountered and had to change, but didn't make note of them. If others find problems and post here, I'll do my best to help.

AK: Uh. I had not realized that the tdk_license pieces were left in. I thought I had removed them. Oh, wait compiler and parser. I removed only in the Tcl code using these ... Definitely something to do and make a pull request (PR) for.


joerod - 2018-05-18 18:51:29

I am not familiar with GitHub, could someone list the step by step instructions to download the kit? Please.


MattAdams - 2018-05-20 23:03:38

I hate to be the guy that tells you to RTFM but GitHub is extremely well documented so you should probably read their help info vs. asking for instructions for a separate service that may go out of date at some point. Also, there is a nifty "Clone or download" button that allows you to download a ZIP archive of the project from the GitHub project page. That is probably what you want.


bttr - 2018-10-27 22:50:18

Any progress on building the FOSS version? I just need TclApp to be run by Quill to build WHD's Notebook App. Now I spent hours on buildung tclcompiler, which in turn seems to require kbs, which requires MinGW/MSYS... I'm a bit frustated.


coldfiremc - 2022-08-13 00:03:04

Some updated way to make it work? Is there any plans to fork it and patch it to make it easier to deploy?