This page is driven mostly by the 8.6 manual build .
Note that some commands may be listed with a **** against them. That is because they are present in multiple categories; they are ensembles (and related) and have partial compilations.
Technically, some of these are only done on the dkf-compile-misc-info branch.
append break catch concat continue dict **** dict append dict exists dict for dict get dict incr dict lappend dict map dict set dict unset dict update dict with error eval expr for foreach format global if incr info **** info commands info coroutine info exists info level lappend lassign lindex list llength lmap lrange lreplace lset namespace **** namespace code namespace current namespace upvar namespace which regexp regsub return self **** self namespace self object set string **** string compare string equal string first string index string length string map string match string range subst switch tcl::mathop tcl::mathop::! tcl::mathop::!= tcl::mathop::% tcl::mathop::& tcl::mathop::* tcl::mathop::** tcl::mathop::+ tcl::mathop::- tcl::mathop::/ tcl::mathop::< tcl::mathop::<< tcl::mathop::<= tcl::mathop::== tcl::mathop::> tcl::mathop::>= tcl::mathop::>> tcl::mathop::^ tcl::mathop::eq tcl::mathop::in tcl::mathop::ne tcl::mathop::ni tcl::mathop::| tcl::mathop::~ throw try unset unsupported **** tcl::unsupported::assemble upvar variable while yield
AMG: lmap?
DKF: Yes, indeed (and dict map too)! See TIP #405 for the details; the code was committed on Oct 18. More to the point, some commands (info coroutine, info level, namespace current and self object) aren't yet BCCed on the trunk.
I chose to do those four because they're things that are relatively accessible to the bytecode engine.
AMG: I'm glad to see [info coroutine], which is performance-critical to Wibble. You may have noticed SEH's contributions to the Wibble implementation, mostly driven by performance. One thing he did was try to cache [info coroutine] in a variable. It seems to me an optimized [info coroutine] ought to take less time than reading a variable.
DKF: Don't get your hopes up too much; reading a local variable whose name is known at compile time is exceptionally fast (assuming it is untraced).
Note that there is no consideration of whether these should be bytecoded; with many of them, it might well be a very bad idea for other reasons (e.g., costly internal algorithms).
(Note also that anything marked with !!! is ultra-unlikely to be done, on the grounds that it is rare in real code.)
array **** array exists array get array names array set array size array unset binary binary decode binary encode binary format binary scan dict **** dict create dict filter dict keys dict merge dict remove dict replace dict size dict values info **** info args info body info class info complete info default info errorstack info frame info globals info locals info object info patchlevel info procs info script info vars join linsert lrepeat lreverse lsearch lsort mathfunc namespace **** namespace children namespace delete namespace ensemble **** namespace ensemble configure namespace ensemble exists namespace eval namespace exists namespace export namespace forget namespace import namespace inscope namespace origin namespace parent namespace path namespace qualifiers namespace tail namespace unknown next nextto scan self **** self call self caller self class self filter self method self next self target split string **** string is string last string repeat string replace string reverse string tolower string totitle string toupper string trim string trimleft string trimright string wordend !!! string wordstart !!! tailcall tcl::prefix tcl::prefix all tcl::prefix longest tcl::prefix match time uplevel yieldto
DKF: I'm guessing that next, tailcall, yield and yieldto would be good candidates. Maybe also some variants of array unset (those that can be based on the existing unset machinery) and some more dict subcommands. We also ought to be able to do namespace code, though I'm not sure how much of a win that is. Maybe some cases of string is could be done too, though I'm not convinced that would be a net win. uplevel would be good, but I'm really uncertain about how to do it (except in the uplevel 0 case, which is rather low-value). Also, self namespace can probably be done, and if we were to do string map we might also be able to handle some regsub cases (which would definitely benefit some users' code). We can also probably handle some format cases (e.g., “all literals” and “only %s used in format string”).
DKF: Turns out to be impossible to do array unset; you get a difference in the trace behavior which you can't work around. Unless I was to add in a special instruction for doing just that particular thing (a “synch the array entries” trace)… Hmm…
| array unset | Requires new opcode to get trace semantics right. |
| dict create | Rarely used. |
| dict merge | The other relatively common non-compiled dict subcommand in tcllib. |
| next | Relatively common; complex because of NRE interaction. |
| nextto | Maybe; the complexity might not be justifiable. |
| string is | Maybe, for cases where we can do it and if the performance difference makes sense. |
| tailcall | Relatively common; complex because of NRE interaction. |
| uplevel 0 | Very rarely used! (i.e., long possible but not present in tcllib) |
| yieldto | Not hugely common but would benefit coroutines quite a bit. |
AMG: Regarding [uplevel 0]: I think the major use case for this command went away when we fixed/broke the nested array bug/feature. I recently used [uplevel 0] because I had a bunch of commands operating on a variable name that resulted from several substitutions I got tired of typing all the time, but I later redesigned the code to avoid it.
These are commands that access information that is probably not best used in production systems, or do things that are largely obsolete.
array array anymore array donesearch array nextelement array startsearch array statistics dict **** dict info encoding **** encoding system info **** info cmdcount info functions info tclversion memory memory active memory break_on_malloc memory info memory init memory objs memory onexit memory tag memory trace memory trace_on_at_malloc memory validate string **** string bytelength unsupported **** tcl::unsupported::disassemble tcl::unsupported::inject tcl::unsupported::representation
DKF: I know my assertion that info tclversion is obsolete is somewhat controversial, but info patchlevel has been useful for much longer, and package's relationship to the Tcl package is probably more relevant anyway.
These are commands where the dominant performance factors are the OS, or they are deliberately kept as scripted commands. In either case, there's no real benefit to bytecoding (there are better choices of place to put effort).
after after <ms> after cancel after idle after info auto_execok auto_import auto_load auto_mkindex auto_path auto_qualify auto_reset bgerror cd chan chan blocked chan close chan configure chan copy chan create chan eof chan event chan flush chan gets chan names chan pending chan pipe chan pop chan postevent chan push chan puts chan read chan seek chan tell chan truncate clock clock add clock clicks clock format clock microseconds clock milliseconds clock scan clock seconds close dde dde eval dde execute dde poke dde request dde servername dde services encoding encoding convertfrom encoding convertto encoding dirs encoding names eof exec exit fblocked fconfigure fcopy file file atime file attributes file channels file copy file delete file dirname file executable file exists file extension file isdirectory file isfile file join file link file lstat file mkdir file mtime file nativename file normalize file owned file pathtype file readable file readlink file rename file rootname file separator file size file split file stat file system file tail file tempfile file type file volumes file writable fileevent flush gets glob history history add history change history clear history event history info history keep history nextid history redo http http::cleanup http::code http::config http::data http::error http::formatQuery http::geturl http::meta http::ncode http::register http::reset http::size http::status http::unregister http::wait info **** info hostname info library info loaded info nameofexecutable info sharedlibextension interp **** interp aliases interp bgerror interp cancel interp debug interp eval interp exists interp hidden interp invokehidden interp issafe interp limit interp marktrusted interp recursionlimit interp share interp slaves interp target interp transfer load msgcat msgcat::mc msgcat::mcflmset msgcat::mcflset msgcat::mcload msgcat::mclocale msgcat::mcmax msgcat::mcmset msgcat::mcpreferences msgcat::mcset msgcat::mcunknown open package package forget package ifneeded package names package prefer package present package provide package require package require package unknown package vcompare package versions package vsatisfies parray pid pkg::create pkg_mkIndex platform platform::generic platform::identify platform::patterns platform::shell platform::shell::generic platform::shell::identify platform::shell::platform puts pwd read registry registry broadcast registry delete registry get registry keys registry set registry type registry values safe **** safe::interpAddToAccessPath safe::interpConfigure safe::interpDelete safe::interpFindInAccessPath safe::interpInit safe::setLogCmd seek socket source tcl_endOfWord tcl_findLibrary tcl_startOfNextWord tcl_startOfPreviousWord tcl_wordBreakAfter tcl_wordBreakBefore tcltest tcltest::bytestring tcltest::cleanupTests tcltest::configure tcltest::customMatch tcltest::debug tcltest::errorChannel tcltest::errorFile tcltest::interpreter tcltest::limitConstraints tcltest::loadFile tcltest::loadScript tcltest::loadTestedCommands tcltest::makeDirectory tcltest::makeFile tcltest::match tcltest::matchDirectories tcltest::matchFiles tcltest::normalizeMsg tcltest::normalizePath tcltest::outputChannel tcltest::outputFile tcltest::preserveCore tcltest::removeDirectory tcltest::removeFile tcltest::runAllTests tcltest::singleProcess tcltest::skip tcltest::skipDirectories tcltest::skipFiles tcltest::temporaryDirectory tcltest::test tcltest::testConstraint tcltest::testsDirectory tcltest::verbose tcltest::viewFile tcltest::workingDirectory tell tm tcl::tm::path tcl::tm::roots trace trace add trace info trace remove trace variable trace vdelete trace vinfo unknown unload update vwait zlib zlib adler32 zlib compress zlib crc32 zlib decompress zlib deflate zlib gunzip zlib gzip zlib inflate zlib push zlib stream
These create commands and do related tricks; they mostly benefit a lot from bytecoding, but there's little value in boosting them themselves. (Though rename is a special case in that it is possible to sensibly bytecode it, but it is much more likely to trigger a progressive recompile than nearly any other command.)
apply coroutine interp **** interp alias interp create interp delete interp expose interp hide my namespace **** namespace ensemble **** namespace ensemble create oo::class oo::copy oo::define oo::objdefine oo::object proc rename safe **** safe::interpCreate
These have manpage links, but aren't commands as such.
Tcl argc argv argv0 env errorCode errorInfo filename re_syntax refchan tcl_interactive tcl_library tcl_nonwordchars tcl_patchLevel tcl_pkgPath tcl_platform tcl_precision tcl_rcFileName tcl_traceCompile tcl_traceEval tcl_version tcl_wordchars transchan