July 2002

Tcl 8.4 Overview

July 2002

Tcl 8.4 Overview

Jeff Hobbs

ActiveState Corporation

July 2002

Agenda

• Introduction

• Development timeline

• New features

• Steps to 8.4.0

July 2002

About ActiveState

• ActiveState provides multi-language, cross-platform software & services– Tcl, Perl, PHP, Python, XSLT

– Linux, Solaris, Windows, HP-UX, AIX, …

• We make it easy to use new technologies– Web Services and .NET

• Mission: Make Programming Easier– Our IDEs

– Active distributions

– ASPN

July 2002

8.0 Aug8.0 Aug

History of Tcl

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995 1997 1998

100 1000 10,000 1M ?100,000

2. Open source distributionsfrom U.C. Berkeley:

• Easy GUIs under Unix• Extensible applications

2. Open source distributionsfrom U.C. Berkeley:

• Easy GUIs under Unix• Extensible applications

3. Tcl enhanced at Sun Microsystems:• Windows, Macintosh ports• Web/Internet support• Java support

3. Tcl enhanced at Sun Microsystems:• Windows, Macintosh ports• Web/Internet support• Java support

4. Scriptics formed:• Evolve and extend Tcl platform• Create development tools

4. Scriptics formed:• Evolve and extend Tcl platform• Create development tools

1. Tcl created as general-purpose command/scripting language by John Ousterhout

1. Tcl created as general-purpose command/scripting language by John Ousterhout

500,000

1994 19991996 2000

6. Scriptics/Ajuba Acquired by Interwoven (Nov.)

6. Scriptics/Ajuba Acquired by Interwoven (Nov.)

2001

7. ActiveState introduces Tcl support and services

7. ActiveState introduces Tcl support and services

5. Tcl Core Team formed (August)

5. Tcl Core Team formed (August)

6.0 Sept6.0 Sept 7.0 Sept7.0 Sept 7.4 July7.4 July 7.6 Oct7.6 Oct 8.1 Apr8.1 Apr

8.2 Aug8.2 Aug

8.3 Feb8.3 Feb

You are here

……

July 2002

Recent History of Tcl

5. Scriptics/Ajuba acquired by Interwoven; Tcl/Tk core moves to SourceForge; TclPro open sourced (Nov.)

5. Scriptics/Ajuba acquired by Interwoven; Tcl/Tk core moves to SourceForge; TclPro open sourced (Nov.)

6. ActiveState introduces Tcl support and services (Feb)

6. ActiveState introduces Tcl support and services (Feb)

4. Tcl Core Team formed (August)

4. Tcl Core Team formed (August)

2000 2001

8.3.3 May8.3.3 May

8.3.0 Feb8.3.0 Feb

8.3.1 Apr8.3.1 Apr 8.3.2 Aug8.3.2 Aug

8.4a1 June8.4a1 June 8.4a2 Nov8.4a2 Nov

1. Tcl’2K in Austin (Feb)1. Tcl’2K in Austin (Feb)

2. Scriptics becomes Ajuba (May)

2. Scriptics becomes Ajuba (May)

7. Tcl’Europe 2001 (June)

7. Tcl’Europe 2001 (June)

9. 8th Tcl Conference (July)

9. 8th Tcl Conference (July)

11. ActiveTcl 8.3.4.3 (July)

11. ActiveTcl 8.3.4.3 (July)

( 8.4.0 )( 8.4.0 )

3. Tcl’Europe 2000 (June)

3. Tcl’Europe 2000 (June)

R.I.P

You are here

8.4a3 July8.4a3 July

2002

8.4b18.4b1

8.4a3 Mar8.4a3 Mar

8.3.4 Oct8.3.4 Oct

10. ActiveState TclPro (Dec)

10. ActiveState TclPro (Dec)

12. ActiveState TclPro 2.0 beta (July)

12. ActiveState TclPro 2.0 beta (July)

July 2002

Tcl 8.4 Development: TIPs

• First time the TIP process has defined a Tcl release

http://www.tcl.tk/cgi-bin/tct/tip/

• TIPs are intended to guide and document development on the core– Initially rough, but process has improved

• Of the 100+ TIPs, most targeted 8.4• Many thanks to the maintainers and

contributors

July 2002

Tcl Changes

• 20+% improved performance over 8.3

• Completely new Virtual File System (VFS)

• Improvements to numerous commands

• 64-bit integer and file system support

July 2002

Minor command enhancements

• array statistics• array names arrayName ?mode? ?pattern?• interp recursionlimit• regsub ?switches? exp string subSpec ?varName?• unset ?-nocomplain? ?..? ?name ...?• expr ‘eq’ and ‘ne’ for true string comparisons• glob -tails pattern ...• namespace exists• info script ?filename?

July 2002

Updated list commands

• New lset command– Efficient way to replace elements

• lindex list ?index ...?– Index into nested lists easily

• lsearch -all -ascii -decreasing -dictionary -increasing -inline -integer -not -real -sorted -start

July 2002

‘file’ enhancements

• Virtual File Sytem– Allows hooks into all FS functionality

• Full support for 64-bit file systems

• file normalize

• file separator

• file system

• file link

July 2002

Tcltest 2.0

• Greatly enhanced ‘test’ command

• Supports multiple error match types

• Runs multi-process for robustness

• 100% backwards compatible with v1.0

July 2002

Serial Port Control

• fconfigure serial -mode baud,parity,data,stop -handshake type -queue -timeout msec -ttycontrol signalMap -ttystatus -xchar charPair -pollinterval msec -sysbuffer sizeList

• fconfigure -lasterror

July 2002

64-bit “wide” integers

• Uses int64 or long long

• Not completely transparent 32/64-bit barrier– expr wide(…)

• ::tcl_platform(wordSize)

• binary command support– binary format wW ...– binary scan string wW ...

July 2002

Changed behavior

• fcopy now respects encodings of its channels• format %ld and likewise treat argument as wide

integer• scan %ld and likewise no longer ignore the field

width specifier• source treats the byte 0x1a (^Z) as an EOF char on

all platforms• subst treats break and continue during command

substitution differently• tcl_traceExec and tcl_traceCompile only available

with TCL_COMPILE_DEBUG build.

July 2002

Updated ‘trace’ command

• trace add

• trace remove

• trace info

• Command tracing now possible

July 2002

Formalized ‘memory’ command

• Useful for debugging memory problems

• Requires compilation with TCL_MEM_DEBUG

• memory active

• memory init

• memory onexit

• memory tag

• Removed memory display

July 2002

Tk Changes

• Widget styling support (TIP #48)

• New widgets

• Significant widget enhancements

• Improved I18N and L10N– Improved XIM and IME support

• bell ?-nice?– First new feature of 8.4

July 2002

New Widgets

• spinbox– Builds on the entry widget– Fast, feature rich and efficient

• panedwindow– Part widget, part geometry manager

• labelframe– Separate from frame to not bloat it

July 2002

New Tk subcommands

• clipboard get

• image inuse

• photo transparency– Now we can properly animate GIFs

• tk caret window ?-x x? ?-y y? ?-height h?– For controlling global caret– Also directs placement of IME/XIM window

July 2002

‘text’ Changes

• New undo/redo support with ‘edit’– -undo, -autoseparators and -maxundo option

• ‘get’ takes multiple range pairs

• ‘delete’ takes multiple range pairs– Atomic deletes

• New virtual events– <<Selection>>– <<Modified>>

July 2002

‘wm’ Changes

• wm stackorder– View/Control the stacking order of toplevels

• wm attributes– For controlling the platform specific aspects of

toplevels– Implementations for Mac and Windows

• May get Unix features in the future

– Finally: topmost functionality on Windows

July 2002

Compound widgets

• Allow both image and text to be displayed simultaneously– Orientation can be controlled with -compound

option

• Support for all button types and label widget, as well as in menus

July 2002

Updated widgets

• button -disabledbackground –disabledforeground -compound

• entry -state readonly -readonlybackground• checkbutton -compound -overrelief• listbox -disabledforeground -state -

activestyle• menu add -compound• menubutton -compound• radiobutton -overrelief

July 2002

Asynchronous padding

• Allows left/right or top/bottom asymmetry in padding (-padx -pady)

• Applies to widgets …– frame– toplevel– labelframe

• And geometry managers …– pack– grid

• grid columnconfigure master index -uniform• grid rowconfigure master index -uniform

July 2002

Tk dialog changes

• tk_getOpenFile -multiple -message

• tk_getSaveFile -message

• tk_getOpenFile and tk_getSaveFile are different in whether the returned file name includes the extension.

July 2002

Removed Tk Privates

• tkPriv

• tk[A-Z]*

• Replace with ::tk::Priv and tk::…– Support for ‘exporting’ the private commands– … but don’t use them anyways

July 2002

Steps to 8.4.0

• Testing, testing, testing …

• Testing, testing, testing …

July 2002

Where to get it

• Tcl Developer Xchange– Points to everything– http://www.tcl.tk/

• ActiveState ActiveTcl– Binary distributions with extensions– http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActiveTcl/

• SourceForge– Core source distributions– http://tcl.sourceforge.net/