'\"
'\" Copyright (c) 1993 The Regents of the University of California.
'\" Copyright (c) 1994-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
'\"
'\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution
'\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.
'\"
.TH tclsh 1 "" Tcl "Tcl Applications"
.\" The -*- nroff -*- definitions below are for supplemental macros used
.\" in Tcl/Tk manual entries.
.\"
.\" .AP type name in/out ?indent?
.\"	Start paragraph describing an argument to a library procedure.
.\"	type is type of argument (int, etc.), in/out is either "in", "out",
.\"	or "in/out" to describe whether procedure reads or modifies arg,
.\"	and indent is equivalent to second arg of .IP (shouldn't ever be
.\"	needed;  use .AS below instead)
.\"
.\" .AS ?type? ?name?
.\"	Give maximum sizes of arguments for setting tab stops.  Type and
.\"	name are examples of largest possible arguments that will be passed
.\"	to .AP later.  If args are omitted, default tab stops are used.
.\"
.\" .BS
.\"	Start box enclosure.  From here until next .BE, everything will be
.\"	enclosed in one large box.
.\"
.\" .BE
.\"	End of box enclosure.
.\"
.\" .CS
.\"	Begin code excerpt.
.\"
.\" .CE
.\"	End code excerpt.
.\"
.\" .VS ?version? ?br?
.\"	Begin vertical sidebar, for use in marking newly-changed parts
.\"	of man pages.  The first argument is ignored and used for recording
.\"	the version when the .VS was added, so that the sidebars can be
.\"	found and removed when they reach a certain age.  If another argument
.\"	is present, then a line break is forced before starting the sidebar.
.\"
.\" .VE
.\"	End of vertical sidebar.
.\"
.\" .DS
.\"	Begin an indented unfilled display.
.\"
.\" .DE
.\"	End of indented unfilled display.
.\"
.\" .SO ?manpage?
.\"	Start of list of standard options for a Tk widget. The manpage
.\"	argument defines where to look up the standard options; if
.\"	omitted, defaults to "options". The options follow on successive
.\"	lines, in three columns separated by tabs.
.\"
.\" .SE
.\"	End of list of standard options for a Tk widget.
.\"
.\" .OP cmdName dbName dbClass
.\"	Start of description of a specific option.  cmdName gives the
.\"	option's name as specified in the class command, dbName gives
.\"	the option's name in the option database, and dbClass gives
.\"	the option's class in the option database.
.\"
.\" .UL arg1 arg2
.\"	Print arg1 underlined, then print arg2 normally.
.\"
.\" .QW arg1 ?arg2?
.\"	Print arg1 in quotes, then arg2 normally (for trailing punctuation).
.\"
.\" .PQ arg1 ?arg2?
.\"	Print an open parenthesis, arg1 in quotes, then arg2 normally
.\"	(for trailing punctuation) and then a closing parenthesis.
.\"
.\"	# Set up traps and other miscellaneous stuff for Tcl/Tk man pages.
.if t .wh -1.3i ^B
.nr ^l \n(.l
.ad b
.\"	# Start an argument description
.de AP
.ie !"\\$4"" .TP \\$4
.el \{\
.   ie !"\\$2"" .TP \\n()Cu
.   el          .TP 15
.\}
.ta \\n()Au \\n()Bu
.ie !"\\$3"" \{\
\&\\$1 \\fI\\$2\\fP (\\$3)
.\".b
.\}
.el \{\
.br
.ie !"\\$2"" \{\
\&\\$1	\\fI\\$2\\fP
.\}
.el \{\
\&\\fI\\$1\\fP
.\}
.\}
..
.\"	# define tabbing values for .AP
.de AS
.nr )A 10n
.if !"\\$1"" .nr )A \\w'\\$1'u+3n
.nr )B \\n()Au+15n
.\"
.if !"\\$2"" .nr )B \\w'\\$2'u+\\n()Au+3n
.nr )C \\n()Bu+\\w'(in/out)'u+2n
..
.AS Tcl_Interp Tcl_CreateInterp in/out
.\"	# BS - start boxed text
.\"	# ^y = starting y location
.\"	# ^b = 1
.de BS
.br
.mk ^y
.nr ^b 1u
.if n .nf
.if n .ti 0
.if n \l'\\n(.lu\(ul'
.if n .fi
..
.\"	# BE - end boxed text (draw box now)
.de BE
.nf
.ti 0
.mk ^t
.ie n \l'\\n(^lu\(ul'
.el \{\
.\"	Draw four-sided box normally, but don't draw top of
.\"	box if the box started on an earlier page.
.ie !\\n(^b-1 \{\
\h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\l'\\n(^lu+3n\(ul'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\l'|0u-1.5n\(ul'
.\}
.el \}\
\h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\h'\\n(^lu+3n'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\l'|0u-1.5n\(ul'
.\}
.\}
.fi
.br
.nr ^b 0
..
.\"	# VS - start vertical sidebar
.\"	# ^Y = starting y location
.\"	# ^v = 1 (for troff;  for nroff this doesn't matter)
.de VS
.if !"\\$2"" .br
.mk ^Y
.ie n 'mc \s12\(br\s0
.el .nr ^v 1u
..
.\"	# VE - end of vertical sidebar
.de VE
.ie n 'mc
.el \{\
.ev 2
.nf
.ti 0
.mk ^t
\h'|\\n(^lu+3n'\L'|\\n(^Yu-1v\(bv'\v'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^Yu'\h'-|\\n(^lu+3n'
.sp -1
.fi
.ev
.\}
.nr ^v 0
..
.\"	# Special macro to handle page bottom:  finish off current
.\"	# box/sidebar if in box/sidebar mode, then invoked standard
.\"	# page bottom macro.
.de ^B
.ev 2
'ti 0
'nf
.mk ^t
.if \\n(^b \{\
.\"	Draw three-sided box if this is the box's first page,
.\"	draw two sides but no top otherwise.
.ie !\\n(^b-1 \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\l'\\n(^lu+3n\(ul'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\h'|0u'\c
.el \h'-1.5n'\L'|\\n(^yu-1v'\h'\\n(^lu+3n'\L'\\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^yu'\h'|0u'\c
.\}
.if \\n(^v \{\
.nr ^x \\n(^tu+1v-\\n(^Yu
\kx\h'-\\nxu'\h'|\\n(^lu+3n'\ky\L'-\\n(^xu'\v'\\n(^xu'\h'|0u'\c
.\}
.bp
'fi
.ev
.if \\n(^b \{\
.mk ^y
.nr ^b 2
.\}
.if \\n(^v \{\
.mk ^Y
.\}
..
.\"	# DS - begin display
.de DS
.RS
.nf
.sp
..
.\"	# DE - end display
.de DE
.fi
.RE
.sp
..
.\"	# SO - start of list of standard options
.de SO
'ie '\\$1'' .ds So \\fBoptions\\fR
'el .ds So \\fB\\$1\\fR
.SH "STANDARD OPTIONS"
.LP
.nf
.ta 5.5c 11c
.ft B
..
.\"	# SE - end of list of standard options
.de SE
.fi
.ft R
.LP
See the \\*(So manual entry for details on the standard options.
..
.\"	# OP - start of full description for a single option
.de OP
.LP
.nf
.ta 4c
Command-Line Name:	\\fB\\$1\\fR
Database Name:	\\fB\\$2\\fR
Database Class:	\\fB\\$3\\fR
.fi
.IP
..
.\"	# CS - begin code excerpt
.de CS
.RS
.nf
.ta .25i .5i .75i 1i
..
.\"	# CE - end code excerpt
.de CE
.fi
.RE
..
.\"	# UL - underline word
.de UL
\\$1\l'|0\(ul'\\$2
..
.\"	# QW - apply quotation marks to word
.de QW
.ie '\\*(lq'"' ``\\$1''\\$2
.\"" fix emacs highlighting
.el \\*(lq\\$1\\*(rq\\$2
..
.\"	# PQ - apply parens and quotation marks to word
.de PQ
.ie '\\*(lq'"' (``\\$1''\\$2)\\$3
.\"" fix emacs highlighting
.el (\\*(lq\\$1\\*(rq\\$2)\\$3
..
.\"	# QR - quoted range
.de QR
.ie '\\*(lq'"' ``\\$1''\\-``\\$2''\\$3
.\"" fix emacs highlighting
.el \\*(lq\\$1\\*(rq\\-\\*(lq\\$2\\*(rq\\$3
..
.\"	# MT - "empty" string
.de MT
.QW ""
..
.BS
'\" Note:  do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below!
.SH NAME
tclsh \- Simple shell containing Tcl interpreter
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBtclsh\fR ?\fB\-encoding \fIname\fR? ?\fIfileName arg arg ...\fR?
.BE
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
\fBTclsh\fR is a shell-like application that reads Tcl commands
from its standard input or from a file and evaluates them.
If invoked with no arguments then it runs interactively, reading
Tcl commands from standard input and printing command results and
error messages to standard output.
It runs until the \fBexit\fR command is invoked or until it
reaches end-of-file on its standard input.
If there exists a file \fB.tclshrc\fR (or \fBtclshrc.tcl\fR on
the Windows platforms) in the home directory of
the user, interactive \fBtclsh\fR evaluates the file as a Tcl script
just before reading the first command from standard input.
.SH "SCRIPT FILES"
.PP
If \fBtclsh\fR is invoked with arguments then the first few arguments
specify the name of a script file, and, optionally, the encoding of
the text data stored in that script file. Any additional arguments
are made available to the script as variables (see below).
Instead of reading commands from standard input \fBtclsh\fR will
read Tcl commands from the named file;  \fBtclsh\fR will exit
when it reaches the end of the file.
The end of the file may be marked either by the physical end of
the medium, or by the character,
.QW \e032
.PQ \eu001a ", control-Z" .
If this character is present in the file, the \fBtclsh\fR application
will read text up to but not including the character.  An application
that requires this character in the file may safely encode it as
.QW \e032 ,
.QW \ex1A ,
or
.QW \eu001a ;
or may generate it by use of commands such as \fBformat\fR or \fBbinary\fR.
There is no automatic evaluation of \fB.tclshrc\fR when the name
of a script file is presented on the \fBtclsh\fR command
line, but the script file can always \fBsource\fR it if desired.
.PP
If you create a Tcl script in a file whose first line is
.PP
.CS
\fB#!/usr/local/bin/tclsh\fR
.CE
.PP
then you can invoke the script file directly from your shell if
you mark the file as executable.
This assumes that \fBtclsh\fR has been installed in the default
location in /usr/local/bin;  if it is installed somewhere else
then you will have to modify the above line to match.
Many UNIX systems do not allow the \fB#!\fR line to exceed about
30 characters in length, so be sure that the \fBtclsh\fR
executable can be accessed with a short file name.
.PP
An even better approach is to start your script files with the
following three lines:
.PP
.CS
\fB#!/bin/sh
# the next line restarts using tclsh \e
exec tclsh "$0" ${1+"$@"}\fR
.CE
.PP
This approach has three advantages over the approach in the previous
paragraph.  First, the location of the \fBtclsh\fR binary does not have
to be hard-wired into the script:  it can be anywhere in your shell
search path.  Second, it gets around the 30-character file name limit
in the previous approach.
Third, this approach will work even if \fBtclsh\fR is
itself a shell script (this is done on some systems in order to
handle multiple architectures or operating systems:  the \fBtclsh\fR
script selects one of several binaries to run).  The three lines
cause both \fBsh\fR and \fBtclsh\fR to process the script, but the
\fBexec\fR is only executed by \fBsh\fR.
\fBsh\fR processes the script first;  it treats the second
line as a comment and executes the third line.
The \fBexec\fR statement cause the shell to stop processing and
instead to start up \fBtclsh\fR to reprocess the entire script.
When \fBtclsh\fR starts up, it treats all three lines as comments,
since the backslash at the end of the second line causes the third
line to be treated as part of the comment on the second line.
.PP
You should note that it is also common practice to install tclsh with
its version number as part of the name.  This has the advantage of
allowing multiple versions of Tcl to exist on the same system at once,
but also the disadvantage of making it harder to write scripts that
start up uniformly across different versions of Tcl.
.SH "VARIABLES"
.PP
\fBTclsh\fR sets the following global Tcl variables in addition to those
created by the Tcl library itself (such as \fBenv\fR, which maps
environment variables such as \fBPATH\fR into Tcl):
.TP 15
\fBargc\fR
.
Contains a count of the number of \fIarg\fR arguments (0 if none),
not including the name of the script file.
.TP 15
\fBargv\fR
.
Contains a Tcl list whose elements are the \fIarg\fR arguments,
in order, or an empty string if there are no \fIarg\fR arguments.
.TP 15
\fBargv0\fR
.
Contains \fIfileName\fR if it was specified.
Otherwise, contains the name by which \fBtclsh\fR was invoked.
.TP 15
\fBtcl_interactive\fR
.
Contains 1 if \fBtclsh\fR is running interactively (no
\fIfileName\fR was specified and standard input is a terminal-like
device), 0 otherwise.
.SH PROMPTS
.PP
When \fBtclsh\fR is invoked interactively it normally prompts for each
command with
.QW "\fB% \fR" .
You can change the prompt by setting the global
variables \fBtcl_prompt1\fR and \fBtcl_prompt2\fR.  If variable
\fBtcl_prompt1\fR exists then it must consist of a Tcl script
to output a prompt;  instead of outputting a prompt \fBtclsh\fR
will evaluate the script in \fBtcl_prompt1\fR.
The variable \fBtcl_prompt2\fR is used in a similar way when
a newline is typed but the current command is not yet complete;
if \fBtcl_prompt2\fR is not set then no prompt is output for
incomplete commands.
.SH "STANDARD CHANNELS"
.PP
See \fBTcl_StandardChannels\fR for more explanations.
.SH ZIPVFS
.PP
When a zipfile is concatenated to the end of a \fBtclsh\fR, on
startup the contents of the zip archive will be mounted as the
virtual file system /zvfs. If a top level directory tcl8.6 is
present in the zip archive, it will become the directory loaded
as env(TCL_LIBRARY). If a file named \fBmain.tcl\fR is present
in the top level directory of the zip archive, it will be sourced
instead of the shell's normal command line handing.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
auto_path(3tcl), encoding(3tcl), env(3tcl), fconfigure(3tcl)
.SH KEYWORDS
application, argument, interpreter, prompt, script file, shell