This (platform-specific) variable holds a list of directories that are used by package installers to add to certain other directories to determine where the default package system of Tcl is looking for packages.

See [Magic names], [tclvars], [Tcl syntax help] for more on variables used by Tcl.

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Is this variable obsolete? My 8.4.5 tclsh & wish interps on windows tell me:

 can't read "tcl_pkgPath": no such variable

The teki installer supplied with the [winico] distribution seems to expect this variable to exist.
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The variable was removed from the Windows port
of Tcl only, several releases ago.  (Bad idea, if
you ask me, but they didn't ask at the time).

See Tcl Bug 1072603.

The "teki installer" you have is apparently not
up to date.
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''[escargo] 22 Aug 2005'' - This variable is also missing from the [Cygwin] port.
Any notion of what is being used to find packages instead?

Um, Cygwin is Windows, so we repeat ourselves, there's
no '''tcl_pkgPath''' variable there.  

Even on systems where a '''tcl_pkgPath''' variable exists, it is not
used to "find packages".  Rather, its only legitimate use is to direct
package installers where (the default package system of) Tcl is looking
for packages.  If you're not writing a package installer script, just
pretend the '''tcl_pkgPath''' variable does not exist.

''[escargo]'' - [Cygwin] ''runs'' on Windows, but it is certainly not an
identical environment to Windows.

I think after I ran into this I found more info at [auto_path], which does
work for finding packages on [Cygwin].
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Gyus, Cygwin is of course different environment than Windows and
Windows is only a base platform for Cygwin. This is only such a thing
that there is '''no''' Cygwin version of Tcl interpreter and the
Windows version (with some slight changes like honoring Cygwin paths)
is used instead. That's why the officially distributed tcl package on
Cygwin behaves the same as on Windows (try, for example [pwd] and see
the result).

Honestly, I don't know why. I succeeded to compile a native-Cygwin version of
tclsh8.5. Maybe there were problems with other packages, like Tk.

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[Category Dev. Tools] | [GSoC2007 Tcl/Tk Application]