The current [tcllib] release, as it can be found on [Sourceforge] since Oct 4 2006, is Version 1.9.

You should have an installed Tcl version greater or equal to 8.2 for most packages in Tcllib; for 64-bit systems, a recent Tcl 8.4 or newer is recommended. The minimal version for all Tcllib packages is 8.0, due to the use of namespaces.

[LV] Can anyone address why 64 bit systems need a newer Tcl? Is it because Tcl itself has problems before 8.4 on 64 bit machines?

[schlenk] Yes. As far as i remember there are some packages like MD5 etc., which don't work correctly on 64-bit systems with a pre-8.4 Tcl, but i don't rememeber the details, must be in the bugtracker.


'''Getting Tcllib'''

Depending on your OS, appropriate packages may be available from the vendor (be it RPM, deb or another system vendor-specific packaging system); if there is, maybe you should try those first.

If not, you have some ways to get to a working tcllib on your OS.

1. Get a distribution that includes the current Tcllib, like the ActiveState distro of Tcl. Install it and use your new system. Skip the installation part in this document.

2. Download one of the Tcllib distributions from sourceforge [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12883&package_id=24585]

If you have tclkit or the packages needed to run starkits you can use tcllib.kit, a starkit based installer. If not, just download either the zip, gz or bz2 compressed files, unpack in a temporary directory. Now read on under '''Installing Tcllib''' .

3. Checkout the tcllib from [CVS].

Change to a temporary working directory. Do a cvs checkout like this:

 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tcllib.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tcllib login
 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tcllib.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tcllib co -r tcllib-1-9 tcllib

Now you have a CVS version of the 1.9 version around. Follow the instructions under '''Installing Tcllib''' to install it. If you want the bleeding edge version from CVS do this instead:

 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tcllib.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tcllib login
 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tcllib.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tcllib co tcllib

The bleeding edge version may have extra bugfixes and new features. 

'''Installing Tcllib'''

If you used something like ActiveStates Distro, a deb or rpm package, you probably don't need this.

The easiest way to install tcllib is the included installer, try:

 tclsh installer.tcl

or

 wish installer.tcl

It pops up a GUI (if [Tk] is available) which will guide you through the installation. You can get info about valid command line switches for the installer by running:

 tclsh installer.tcl -help

'''Testing if Tcllib works'''

Fire up your default tcl interpreter. Try this (or to require any of the other packages):

 % package require nmea

If it works and returns the version number of the returned package, you installed Tcllib correctly. 
If it does not work, check your auto_path variable like this:

 % set auto_path

It has to contain the parent directory of the directory into which you installed the packages, or the install directory itself. If it is missing, you have to add it to your auto_path in your scripts.

 % lappend auto_path /path/to/tcllib/installdir
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[Tcllib] [Category Deployment]
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