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Tcl(3tcl) Tcl Built-In Commands Tcl(3tcl) 





NAME


Tcl - Tool Command Language






SYNOPSIS


Summary of Tcl language syntax.








DESCRIPTION


The following rules define the syntax and semantics of the Tcl
    language:



  
[1] Commands.

  
A Tcl script is a string containing one or more commands. Semi-colons and
      newlines are command separators unless quoted as described below. Close
      brackets are command terminators during command substitution (see below)
      unless quoted.

  
[2] Evaluation.

  
A command is evaluated in two steps. First, the Tcl interpreter breaks the
      command into words and performs substitutions as described below.
      These substitutions are performed in the same way for all commands.
      Secondly, the first word is used to locate a routine to carry out the
      command, and the remaining words of the command are passed to that
      routine. The routine is free to interpret each of its words in any way it
      likes, such as an integer, variable name, list, or Tcl script. Different
      commands interpret their words differently.

  
[3] Words.

  
Words of a command are separated by white space (except for newlines,
      which are command separators).

  
[4] Double quotes.

  
If the first character of a word is double-quote (“"”)
      then the word is terminated by the next double-quote character. If
      semi-colons, close brackets, or white space characters (including
      newlines) appear between the quotes then they are treated as ordinary
      characters and included in the word. Command substitution, variable
      substitution, and backslash substitution are performed on the characters
      between the quotes as described below. The double-quotes are not retained
      as part of the word.

  
[5] Argument expansion.

  
If a word starts with the string “{*}” followed by a
      non-whitespace character, then the leading “{*}” is removed
      and the rest of the word is parsed and substituted as any other word.
      After substitution, the word is parsed as a list (without command or
      variable substitutions; backslash substitutions are performed as is normal
      for a list and individual internal words may be surrounded by either
      braces or double-quote characters), and its words are added to the command
      being substituted. For instance, “cmd a {*}{b [c]} d {*}{$e f {g
      h}}” is equivalent to “cmd a b {[c]} d {$e} f {g
    h}”.

  
[6] Braces.

  
If the first character of a word is an open brace (“{”) and
      rule [5] does not apply, then the word is terminated by the matching close
      brace (“}”). Braces nest within the word: for each
      additional open brace there must be an additional close brace (however, if
      an open brace or close brace within the word is quoted with a backslash
      then it is not counted in locating the matching close brace). No
      substitutions are performed on the characters between the braces except
      for backslash-newline substitutions described below, nor do semi-colons,
      newlines, close brackets, or white space receive any special
      interpretation. The word will consist of exactly the characters between
      the outer braces, not including the braces themselves.

  
[7] Command substitution.

  
If a word contains an open bracket (“[”) then Tcl performs
      command substitution. To do this it invokes the Tcl interpreter
      recursively to process the characters following the open bracket as a Tcl
      script. The script may contain any number of commands and must be
      terminated by a close bracket (“]”). The result of the
      script (i.e. the result of its last command) is substituted into the word
      in place of the brackets and all of the characters between them. There may
      be any number of command substitutions in a single word. Command
      substitution is not performed on words enclosed in braces.

  
[8] Variable substitution.

  
If a word contains a dollar-sign (“$”) followed by one of
      the forms described below, then Tcl performs variable
      substitution: the dollar-sign and the following characters are
      replaced in the word by the value of a variable. Variable substitution may
      take any of the following forms:







  
$name

  
Name is the name of a scalar variable; the name is a sequence of
      one or more characters that are a letter, digit, underscore, or namespace
      separators (two or more colons). Letters and digits are only the
      standard ASCII ones (0–9, A–Z
      and a–z).

  
$name(index)

  
Name gives the name of an array variable and index gives the
      name of an element within that array. Name must contain only
      letters, digits, underscores, and namespace separators, and may be an
      empty string. Letters and digits are only the standard ASCII ones
      (0–9, A–Z and
      a–z). Command substitutions, variable substitutions,
      and backslash substitutions are performed on the characters of
      index.

  
${name}

  
Name is the name of a scalar variable or array element. It may
      contain any characters whatsoever except for close braces. It indicates an
      array element if name is in the form
      “arrayName(index)” where
      arrayName does not contain any open parenthesis characters,
      “(”, or close brace characters,
      “}”, and index can be any sequence of
      characters except for close brace characters. No further substitutions are
      performed during the parsing of name.




There may be any number of variable substitutions in a single
    word. Variable substitution is not performed on words enclosed in
  braces.


Note that variables may contain character sequences other than
    those listed above, but in that case other mechanisms must be used to access
    them (e.g., via the set command's single-argument form).





  
[9] Backslash substitution.

  
If a backslash (“\”) appears within a word then backslash
      substitution occurs. In all cases but those described below the
      backslash is dropped and the following character is treated as an ordinary
      character and included in the word. This allows characters such as double
      quotes, close brackets, and dollar signs to be included in words without
      triggering special processing. The following table lists the backslash
      sequences that are handled specially, along with the value that replaces
      each sequence.







  

  
Audible alert (bell) (Unicode U+000007).

  

  
Backspace (Unicode U+000008).

  

  
Form feed (Unicode U+00000C).

  

  
Newline (Unicode U+00000A).

  

  
Carriage-return (Unicode U+00000D).

  

  
Tab (Unicode U+000009).

  

  
Vertical tab (Unicode U+00000B).

  
\<newline>whiteSpace

  
A single space character replaces the backslash, newline, and all spaces
      and tabs after the newline. This backslash sequence is unique in that it
      is replaced in a separate pre-pass before the command is actually parsed.
      This means that it will be replaced even when it occurs between braces,
      and the resulting space will be treated as a word separator if it is not
      in braces or quotes.

  
\\

  
Backslash (“\”).

  

  
The digits ooo (one, two, or three of them) give a eight-bit octal
      value for the Unicode character that will be inserted, in the range
      000–377 (i.e., the range U+000000–U+0000FF).
      The parser will stop just before this range overflows, or when the maximum
      of three digits is reached. The upper bits of the Unicode character will
      be 0.

  

  
The hexadecimal digits hh (one or two of them) give an eight-bit
      hexadecimal value for the Unicode character that will be inserted. The
      upper bits of the Unicode character will be 0 (i.e., the character will be
      in the range U+000000–U+0000FF).

  

  
The hexadecimal digits hhhh (one, two, three, or four of them) give
      a sixteen-bit hexadecimal value for the Unicode character that will be
      inserted. The upper bits of the Unicode character will be 0 (i.e., the
      character will be in the range U+000000–U+00FFFF).

  

  
The hexadecimal digits hhhhhhhh (one up to eight of them) give a
      twenty-one-bit hexadecimal value for the Unicode character that will be
      inserted, in the range U+000000–U+10FFFF. The parser will stop just
      before this range overflows, or when the maximum of eight digits is
      reached. The upper bits of the Unicode character will be 0.






The range U+00D800–U+00DFFF is reserved for surrogates,
    which are illegal on their own. Therefore, such sequences will result in the
    replacement character U+FFFD. Surrogate pairs should be encoded as single
    \Uhhhhhhhh character.




Backslash substitution is not performed on words enclosed in
    braces, except for backslash-newline as described above.





  
[10] Comments.

  
If a hash character (“#”) appears at a point where Tcl is
      expecting the first character of the first word of a command, then the
      hash character and the characters that follow it, up through the next
      newline, are treated as a comment and ignored. The comment character only
      has significance when it appears at the beginning of a command.

  
[11] Order of substitution.

  
Each character is processed exactly once by the Tcl interpreter as part of
      creating the words of a command. For example, if variable substitution
      occurs then no further substitutions are performed on the value of the
      variable; the value is inserted into the word verbatim. If command
      substitution occurs then the nested command is processed entirely by the
      recursive call to the Tcl interpreter; no substitutions are performed
      before making the recursive call and no additional substitutions are
      performed on the result of the nested script.






Substitutions take place from left to right, and each substitution
    is evaluated completely before attempting to evaluate the next. Thus, a
    sequence like






set y [set x 0][incr x][incr x]




will always set the variable y to the value,
  012.





  
[12] Substitution and word boundaries.

  
Substitutions do not affect the word boundaries of a command, except for
      argument expansion as specified in rule [5]. For example, during variable
      substitution the entire value of the variable becomes part of a single
      word, even if the variable's value contains spaces.








KEYWORDS


backslash, command, comment, script, substitution, variable







  

    8.6
    Tcl