Richard Suchenwirth 2005-12-12 - In the Tcl chatroom, CMcC said:
You know, in retrospect, I think [set x a b c] should be equivalent to [set x [list a b c]]
Well, Tcl is where wishes come true :) Here's my experimental code that overloads set, and seems to work fine, as far as I've tested. I had to reuse the _var name for upvar, so the error message comes right if the variable doesn't exist yet:
rename set _set
proc set {_var args} {
upvar 1 $_var $_var
_set ll [llength [info level 0]]
if {$ll==3} {
_set $_var [lindex $args 0]
} elseif {$ll>3} {_set $_var $args}
_set $_var
}The distinction between $ll==3 and $ll>3 is necessary so this frequent case comes right:
set something {}Testing:
% source myset.tcl
% set foo
can't read "foo": no such variable
% set foo 1
1
% set foo
1
% set bar 2 3 4
2 3 4
% set bar
2 3 4
% set grill {{}}
{}
% set grill
{}
% set nix {}
% set nix
%So far it looks as expected. But bytecode compilation may lose performance if a fundamental like set is pulled from under its feet...