[TCLCORE] Tcl Modules, hidden features of?

[Lars H. <Lar...@re...>]

Looking into tm.tcl, I've encountered two features which seem to be 
documented neither in the tm.n manpage nor in the Tcl module TIPs.

In the manpage, it says:

   For a module file *MF* the /index script/ is always:

     package ifneeded *PNAME PVERSION* [list source *MF*]

But looking in the actual definition of ::tcl::tm::UnknownHandler, one 
finds it is rather:

     package ifneeded $pkgname $pkgversion \
	"[::list package provide $pkgname $pkgversion];[::list source 
-encoding utf-8 $file]"


I.e.,
  1. Tcl Modules don't have to contain a [package provide], and
  2. the encoding is always utf-8 (rather than [encoding system],
     as an unqualified [source] would imply).

Both seem like Good Ideas to me, but when were they decided (and why 
aren't they in the docs)? For example http://wiki.tcl.tk/25702 (even if 
that could be regarded as not so good advice) would have been much 
simpler, had the original contributor known that the [package provide] 
was unnecessary.

Lars Hellström