The Tclx package documents commandloop as:
Create an interactive command loop reading commands from stdin and writing results to stdout. Command loops are maybe either be blocking or event oriented. This command is useful for Tcl scripts that do not normally converse interactively with a user through a Tcl command interpreter, but which sometimes want to enter this mode, perhaps for debugging or user configuration. The command loop terminates on EOF.
The following options are available:
In interactive mode, the results of set commands with two arguments are not printed.
If SIGINT is configured to generate a Tcl error (with signal), it can be used to delete the current command being type without aborting the program in progress.
KBK 2004-05-18 - Something very similar can be done in pure Tcl; the signal handling and 'isatty' checking is Unix and hence unportable, but the following code works for many purposes:
namespace eval ::mainloop {
variable partialCommand {}
}
proc ::mainloop::prompt {} {
variable partialCommand
if { [info complete $partialCommand] } {
set status [catch {
uplevel \#0 $partialCommand
} result]
if { $result ne {} } {
if { $status != 0 } {
puts stderr $result
} else {
puts stdout $result
}
}
set partialCommand {}
if { [info exists ::tcl_prompt1] } {
catch { uplevel \#0 $::tcl_prompt1 } prompt
} else {
set prompt "% "
}
} else {
append partialCommand \n
if { [info exists ::tcl_prompt2] } {
catch { uplevel \#0 $::tcl_prompt2 } prompt
} else {
set prompt "> "
}
}
puts -nonewline stderr $prompt
return
}
proc ::mainloop::readable {} {
variable partialCommand
variable eof
if { [gets stdin text] < 0 } {
fileevent stdin readable {}
set eof 1
} else {
append partialCommand $text
prompt
}
return
}
proc ::mainloop::mainloop {} {
variable eof
set ::tcl_interactive 1
info script ""
fconfigure stdin -buffering line -blocking 0
fileevent stdin readable ::mainloop::readable
::mainloop::prompt
vwait [namespace which -variable eof]
return
}
::mainloop::mainloopJH wrote the following code that you tack on to the end of a script to get the near equivalence of the tclsh prompt. For those who really want an interactive loop and are doing UI apps, look into the console megawidget or tkcon, both of which can be embedded into apps and provide many more features and polish.
if {!$tcl_interactive} {
set long_command ""
set verbose_history 0
if {![catch {rename unknown tcl_unknown}]} {
proc unknown {cmdname args} {
if {[regexp "^!..*" $cmdname]} {
banghist [string range $cmdname 1 end]
} else {
tcl_unknown $cmdname $args
}
}
}
proc banghist {val} {
global verbose_history
if {![string compare $val "!"]} {set val ""}
if {$verbose_history} {puts "[history event $val]"}
history redo $val
}
if {![info exists tcl_prompt1]} {
set tcl_prompt1 {puts -nonewline "tclsh ([history nextid]) % "}
}
proc read_stdin {} {
global eventLoop tcl_prompt1 long_command
set l [gets stdin]
if {[eof stdin]} {
set eventLoop "done" ;# terminate the vwait eventloop
} else {
if {[string compare $l {}]} {
append long_command "\n$l"
set l $long_command
if {[info complete $l]} {
if {[catch {uplevel \#0 history add [list $l] exec} err]} {
puts stderr $err
} elseif {[string compare $err {}]} {
puts $err
}
set long_command ""
catch $tcl_prompt1
} else {
puts -nonewline "> "
}
} elseif {![string compare $long_command {}]} {
catch $tcl_prompt1
} else {
puts -nonewline "> "
}
flush stdout
}
}
# set up our keyboard read event handler:
# Vector stdin data to the socket
fileevent stdin readable read_stdin
catch $tcl_prompt1
flush stdout
# wait for and handle or stdin events...
vwait eventLoop
}MH It would be great to see an example of command line completion here. Is this possible with commandloop ?
RS provides a minimal version here [L1 ]:
while 1 {
puts -nonewline "% "; flush stdout ;#-- prompt - can be more elaborated
gets stdin line
catch $line res
puts $res
} Other noteworthy functional alternatives include a cute hack of the rc file by Stephan Kuhagen [L2 ] and Ivan Young's stdin-based approach [L3 ]
stk If you don't mind, I add my tclshrc-hack, mentioned above, here. My first contribution here, so I hope, I do not mess things up... Put the following script into your ~/.tclshrc:
if {[info exists env(TCL_INIT_FILE)] && [info exists env(TCL_INIT_ARGS)]} {
if {[file exists $env(TCL_INIT_FILE)]} {
source "$env(TCL_INIT_FILE)"
}
catch {tclsh_init_proc "$env(TCL_INIT_ARGS)"}
}Now, if you have a Tcl script running, and the environment vars TCL_INIT_FILE and TCL_INIT_ARGS are set, then the Tcl-initialization will source that file, and call a proc named tclsh_init_proc afterwards, which should contain all your initialization stuff. The args to this proc are the args to your script. Your wrapper script mentioned above should then look like this:
#!/bin/sh
#\
export TCL_INIT_FILE="$0"
#\
export TCL_INIT_ARGS="$@"
#\
exec tclsh
proc tclsh_init_proc {args} {
puts "Do your init-stuff here"
puts "my args are: $args"
set ::example_var "Try to reach this var from the interactive shell"
}DKF: Here's a version I wrote:
proc commandloop {} {
global tcl_prompt1 tcl_prompt2 errorInfo
if {![info exists tcl_prompt1]} {
set tcl_prompt1 {puts -nonewline "% ";flush stdout}
}
# Show that this works too
if {![info exists tcl_prompt2]} {
set tcl_prompt2 {puts -nonewline "> ";flush stdout}
}
set prompt $tcl_prompt1
set script ""
while {![eof stdin]} {
uplevel 1 $prompt
if {[gets stdin line] >= 0} {
append script $line "\n"
if {[info complete $script]} {
if {[catch [list uplevel 1 $script] msg opt]} {
set ei [dict get $opt -errorinfo]
set errorInfo [join [lrange [split $ei "\n"] 0 end-6] "\n"]
puts stderr $msg
} elseif {$msg ne ""} {
puts stdout $msg
}
set script ""
set prompt $tcl_prompt1
} else {
set prompt $tcl_prompt2
}
}
}
}