[TCLCORE] Initialize all vars or rely on info exists?

[Anonymous R. (austria) <mix...@re...>]

Hi I posted this to comp.lang.tcl but haven't gotten any replies. Maybe this
list would be a better place to ask?

My question is is it better to initialize all variables in a script whether
they might be used or not or better to test with info exists?

I am scanning some text and variables only get created if specific patterns
match. I found out if I test a variable that didn't get created for the
empty string the script gets an error. Ok. I "solved" this by doing set for
all the possibly used variables to the empty string "". Looking a bit
further I see I could use info exists. Tcl noob as I am, I don't know
whether info exists is preferable or initializing lots of variables that may
not be used is better.

I don't mind the memory consumption of creating variables that might not be
used. The question is whether there's any benefit in Tcl to defining
variables that might not be used and if that is the right way to do this in
Tcl or should I use info exists? I would prefer to do it idiomatically, with
a priority on clarity and then performance and then storage consumption in
that order. Of course I want to do it like a Tcler.  In the last few days
since I posted I switched to using info exists I hope that is the better
way. Thanks guys.