&| '''What'''        | '''eltclsh''' |&
&| '''Where'''       | http://homepages.laas.fr/mallet/soft/shell/eltclsh (latest version) <<br>> https://www.openrobots.org/wiki/eltclsh (outdated) |&
&| '''Description''' | The editline tcl shell is an interactive shell for the Tcl interpreter.  It provides command line editing, history browsing, and variable/command completion thanks to [http://thrysoee.dk/editline/%|%editline]'s features.  The completion engine is programmable and comes with built-in completion for all of [Tk].  The package also includes elwish, an interactive interpreter for Tcl/Tk analogous to [wish]. <<br>> Currently at version 1.16. |&
&| '''Updated'''     | 2017-01-16 |&


** Summary **

[aspect]: The eltclsh distribution packages eltclsh as an extension, which the binary simply [package require]s into the interpreter it creates.  The extension includes a signal handler and the editline binding itself.


** Building **

On FreeBSD you will need [gmake], and to touch `eltclsh.1.cat` in the unpacked eltclsh-1.9
directory before running

======none
./configure --with-tk=no; gmake install clean
======

------

When built for Tcl/Tk 8.5:
   * eltclsh operated correctly;
   * elwish did not show the initial Tk window (and eltclsh with `package require Tk` did). You can reveal with window with `wm deiconify .`

On a [Debian]-based machine building it successfully required installing `libxss-dev`.


** Use **

To make eltclsh your completion engine for the standard [tclsh] in
interactive mode (similarly to how it is done on [tclreadline]), simply add
something like the following to your [tclshrc]:

======
if {![file exists /usr/local/share/eltcl/pkgIndex.tcl] || [catch {
    lappend ::auto_path /usr/local/share/eltcl
    package require eltclsh
    set ::el::prompt1 {list tclsh [info patchlevel] %}
    set ::el::prompt2 {list tclsh ...... >}
    interactive
    exit
}]} {
    puts "Failed to load eltclsh!"
}
======

If eltclsh can't be loaded, you can try to fall back on [tclreadline],
or the standard tclsh prompt (which is default behaviour with the above
code). The `interactive` command is eltclsh's equivalent of
`::tclreadline::Loop`. Loading eltclsh in this manner has at least a few
advantages: you don't have to retrain your fingers from typing `tclsh`,
and the same mechanism can work against multiple tclsh versions,
without having to link multiple eltclsh binaries.

The eltclsh code is quite tidy and straightforward. Noteworthy is
`tools/complete.tcl`, which sets up the variable `::el::completionPatterns`
which it uses to do argument completion of core Tcl commands.

<<categories>> Application | Dev. Tools | Package