In Tcl 8.5, the [expr] command has a variadic '''min()''' function. % expr min(5,1,4,2,3) 1 % expr min(5,1.1,-17.345,1e10) -17.345 Like all math functions in Tcl 8.5, it is available as a command % namespace import ::tcl::mathfunc::min % min 5 1 4 2 3 1 This does not work in releases up to 8.5.4 because max and min are not importable. This should be fixed in subsequent versions. [RS] 2008-09-19: Before that, you can hot-patch it yourself in one line of code: namespace eval tcl::mathfunc namespace export max min ;# this is it namespace import tcl::mathfunc::min All arguments to the min must be able to be interpreted as numeric. Otherwise, you get this sort of error: % expr min("non-numeric") expected floating-point number but got "non-numeric" ----- !!!!!! %|[Category Function]|[Category Mathematics]|% !!!!!!