This issue seems to come up frequently enough to deserve a page of tips, suggestions, warnings, etc. The basic situation is that a user is trying, either intentionally or accidentally, to do ''pointer'' like design. So they end up discovering they need to do something like: set a "123" set b "3.1415" set c "The price of petrol in Peroria" foreach var a b c { puts [set $var] } ---- [Category Tutorial]