tcl-core — Tcl Core Team discussions about Tcl development

[TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 RELEASED

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Announcement
December 23, 2008

The Tcl Core Team is pleased to announce the 8.6b1 releases of the Tcl
dynamic language and the Tk toolkit.  This is the first beta release
of Tcl/Tk 8.6.  More details can be found below.  We would like to
express our gratitude to all those who submit bug reports and patches.
This information is invaluable in enabling us to identify and eliminate
problems in the core.

Where to get the new releases:
------------------------------

Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 sources are freely available as open source from the
Tcl Developer Xchange web site at:

         http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.6.html

This web page also contains additional information about the releases,
including new features and notes about installing and compiling the
releases.  Sources are always available from the Tcl SourceForge
project's file distribution area:

         http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=10894

Binaries for most major platforms are available from:

         http://www.activestate.com/Tcl

For additional information:
---------------------------

Please visit the Tcl Developer Xchange web site:

         http://www.tcl.tk/

This site contains a variety of information about Tcl/Tk in general, the
core Tcl and Tk distributions, Tcl development tools, and much more.

Summary of Changes since Tcl/Tk 8.6a3:
--------------------------------------

The following were the main changes in Tcl/Tk 8.6b1.  A complete list
can be found in the changes file at the root of the source tree.  The
more complete ChangeLog is also included with each source release.

This is a beta release of 8.6.  The beta designation means that the
feature set for 8.6 is believed to be complete, and the focus is now
on testing and bug fixing moving quickly toward an 8.6.0 release.
All relevant bug fixes (and some more) up to and including 8.5.6 changes
are included in 8.6b1.  This release is a development release, and should
only be considered for deployment use after considerable testing.

    * [TIP 329] New commands: [try], [throw]

    * [TIP 234] New command: [zlib]

    * [TIP 343] Enhanced commands: [format], [scan] add %b specifier.

    * [TIP 332] Enhanced command: [close $chan read|write].

    * New widget: [ttk::spinbox].

    * [TIP 210] New subcommand: [file tempfile].

    * [TIP 321] New subcommand: [tk busy].

    * [TIP 324] New subcommand (dialog box): [tk fontchooser].

    * [TIP 97] New subcommands: [$canvas imove], [$canvas rchars].

    * [TIP 341] Enhanced subcommand: [dict filter] takes multiple patterns.

    * [TIP 119] New canvas option: -angle for text items.

    * [TIP 197] New text option: -insertunfocussed.

    * New ttk theme: vista -- uses new "hover" state.

    * [TIP 308] New package: tdbc 1.0b1 .

    * [TIP 322] New routines: Tcl_NR*(): non-recursive eval for extensions.

    * [TIP 336] New routines: Tcl_*ErrorLine().
         *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY in interp->errorline access ***
         *** Define USE_INTERP_ERRORLINE for legacy code support ***

    * [TIP 307] New routine: Tcl_TransferResult().

    * [TIP 335] New routine: Tcl_InterpActive().

    * [TIP 337] New routine: Tcl_BackgroundException().

    * [TIP 338] New routines: Tcl_*StartupScript()
         *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY for callers of Tcl*Startup*() ***

    * New feature: build script support for bundled packages.

    * System encoding during initialization now iso8859-1, not identity.
         *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    * [oo::define] revised context for name resolution, includes caller.
         *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY with earlier TclOO ***

    * [event generate] support for <Focus*> events.

    * Fixed broken [for $start $end $incr continue].

    * New demos: ctext.tcl, fontchoose.tcl .

--
Tcl Core Team and Maintainers
Don Porter, Tcl Core Release Manager


-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

[TCLCORE] Tk 8.5.6 Release Candidate

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

At my request, Joe English was able to deliver a few bugfix backports
for Tk 8.5.6.  This leads to an RC1 for Tk 8.5.6, now at

ftp://ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/tcl8_5/

The RC0 files for Tcl and html are still current.

Still anticipate making these real tomorrow just after 8.6b1.

-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

[TCLCORE] Tcl 8.6b1 Release Candidate

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

I've now posted RC2 for Tcl 8.6b1 at

ftp://ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/tcl8_6/

It includes more improvements to the build machinery.

The Tk and "html" distributions have not changed.  RC1 for them are
still in place for testing.

I expect these files will be promoted and released as 8.6b1 tomorrow.

-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

[TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Draft Release Notes

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

Please review the notes at

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=10894&release_id=648748

and report any additions or corrections to me.

-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.5.6 Draft Release Notes

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

Donald G Porter wrote:
> Please review the notes at
> http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=10894&release_id=648748

Oops.  Put the 8.5.6 notes on the 8.6b1 page.

Please review those notes here instead:

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=10894&release_id=648953

-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

[TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.5.6 Draft Release Notes

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

Please review the notes at

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?group_id=10894&release_id=648748

and report any additions or corrections to me.


-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

[TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.5.6 Release Candidates

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

now available for testing at

ftp://ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/tcl8_5/

-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Kevin K. <ke...@ac...>]

Adam Williamson:
>>> Just one question about the tdbc thing: it's installed
>>> in /usr/lib/tdbc1.0b1 but includes a tdbcConfig.sh file whose contents
>>> implies it may be used as a directly linked library. In this usage case,
>>> how do you expect the app that links against it to be able to find it?
>>> Subdirectories of /usr/lib are not usually in ld's path.

Joe English:
>> Tcl applications and extensions will not normally link against
>> libtdbc directly [*].  Normally, Tcl applications dynamically
>> load the *.so file, and extensions link against the lib*stub.a file.

Adam Williamson:
> Yes, this I know. However, look at tdbcConfig.sh:
> 
> TDBC_LIB_SPEC="-L/usr/lib -ltdbc1.0b1"
> TDBC_STUB_LIB_SPEC="-L/usr/lib -ltdbcstub1.0b1"
> 
> The second is for linking against the stub lib, obviously. However, the
> first isn't. It would link against the .so file, the 'plugin'.
> 
> If this should never ever happen, by policy, then tdbc should not
> include a provision for it to happen.

"Should never ever happen, by policy" is too strong a phrase
for what's going on.  "Shouldn't happen in a regular old binary
distribution" is closer to the truth.  There are a few people
who, for special purposes, build their own applications that
link everything statically. To do this, they configure Tcl
and all needed extensions --disable-shared, and then concoct
a link unit that includes Tcl and all necessary extensions
as static libraries. The only case where <module>_LIB_SPEC
would be needed is to support such a build. It appears that
TEA's configurator fills in <module>_LIB_SPEC in all cases,
but actually tries to build and install the library only in
a --disable-shared build.

I actually haven't yet tested a --disable-shared build of
TDBC, partly because it's not something that I expect downstream
distributors to do. A fully-static build of Tcl is an unusual
beast, and those who embed Tcl in this fashion are using
self-built libraries the whole way, and used to needing a
certain amount of tinkering when moving to a new release.

I'm far from convinced that there is actually going to
be any downstream demand for a --disable-shared version of
tdbc, and if we have to fix TEA to make it work, it's
probably best to cross that bridge when we come to it.

[some additional dialog snipped... leading up to a question
about the correct installation path for tdbcConfig.sh]

> Yes, I noticed that. =) I should ask the Fedora guy to clarify it. I
> guess it should be in /usr/lib, otherwise I'm not sure whatever wants to
> use it would be able to find it.
> 
>> and "TEA"
>> doesn't have any clear guidelines about this either.
>> Probably safest to leave it in the package directory, i.e.,
>> %{tcl_sitearch}/%{name}%{version}/, for now.
> 
> See above...this is probably 'right', but I'm not sure it'd work. Do we
> have any test case apps that actually use tdbc so I can see what they
> do?

The prototypical user of tdbc at this point is the tdbc::odbc
bridge, which you can find in the upstream tdbc repository at
<URL:http://tdbc.tcl.tk/>.  I'm all for figuring out The Right Thing
for TEA to handle cross-package dependencies. I seem to recall
that the TEA_PATH_CONFIG and TEA_LOAD_CONFIG autoconf macros,
which are there for the purpose, didn't actually *work* in all
cases, and that some builds needed to resort to --with-tdbc=
and --with-tcloo= to get them right.

Fortunately, cross-package dependencies at the binary level
are rare. Most Tcl packages interact only at the script level,
and only a handful even export Stubs. So there shouldn't be
a ton of tinkering in dependent packages to fix this.

-- 
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin

Re: [TCLCORE] [Tcl-bugs] tcl-cvs: "tdbc/win makefile.vc nmakehlp.c rules.vc tdbc.rc" modified

[Jan N. <nij...@us...>]

Every time I see this, or every time when 2 or 3 almost
identicalmails appear in the Tcl-bugs mailing list just
because the modified files span multiple directories,
I am thinking aloud: It's time that Tcl (and Tk) switch
to use subversion in stead of CVS. Did that
successfully with tkImg. And the same when
the pkgs directory was introduced and everyone who
wanted to see it had to do a fresh checkout in order
to see this directory......

(Actually, I don't think that it's questionable that Tcl
and Tk one day will switch to another VCS -
Subversion or another one - it's just a matter
of finding a suitable time to do it)

Regards,
        Jan Nijtmans

2008/12/22 Pat Thoyts <pat...@us...>:
> Update of /cvsroot/tcl/tdbc/win
> In directory ddv4jf1.ch3.sourceforge.com:/tmp/cvs-serv24878/win
>
> Modified Files:
>        makefile.vc nmakehlp.c rules.vc tdbc.rc
> Log Message:
> Fixed line endings

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Adam W. <awi...@ma...>]

On Sun, 2008-12-21 at 11:17 -0800, Joe English wrote:
> Adam Williamson wrote:
> > [re: Tcl8.6b1RC0]
> >
> > Just one question about the tdbc thing: it's installed
> > in /usr/lib/tdbc1.0b1 but includes a tdbcConfig.sh file whose contents
> > implies it may be used as a directly linked library. In this usage case,
> > how do you expect the app that links against it to be able to find it?
> > Subdirectories of /usr/lib are not usually in ld's path.
> 
> Tcl applications and extensions will not normally link against
> libtdbc directly [*].  Normally, Tcl applications dynamically
> load the *.so file, and extensions link against the lib*stub.a file.

Yes, this I know. However, look at tdbcConfig.sh:

TDBC_LIB_SPEC="-L/usr/lib -ltdbc1.0b1"
TDBC_STUB_LIB_SPEC="-L/usr/lib -ltdbcstub1.0b1"

The second is for linking against the stub lib, obviously. However, the
first isn't. It would link against the .so file, the 'plugin'.

If this should never ever happen, by policy, then tdbc should not
include a provision for it to happen.

> [*] Note to KBK -- if I got that wr
> There should be two libraries:
> 
>     lib/tdbc1.0b1/libtdbc1.0b1.so
>     lib/tdbc1.0b1/libtdbcstub1.0b1.a
> 
> The first one (the .so) is dynamically loaded by tclsh
> and other Tcl applications by [package require tdbc].
> It's not intended to be linked against directly --
> it's a "plugin", not a "library" -- so according
> to [1] (section "no dlopen()'d libraries in %{_libdir}")
> it should be installed at:

See above.

> The Fedora/Mandriva Tcl packaging policy doesn't say where
> fooConfig.sh files should be installed, 

Yes, I noticed that. =) I should ask the Fedora guy to clarify it. I
guess it should be in /usr/lib, otherwise I'm not sure whatever wants to
use it would be able to find it.

> and "TEA"
> doesn't have any clear guidelines about this either.
> Probably safest to leave it in the package directory, i.e.,
> %{tcl_sitearch}/%{name}%{version}/, for now.

See above...this is probably 'right', but I'm not sure it'd work. Do we
have any test case apps that actually use tdbc so I can see what they
do?

> Adam, could you post your patches to the SF bug tracker,
> so that those responsible for maintaining "TEA" can get
> a better look at what sorts of things need to be patched?

I'll try to get to it.

> (The Fedora/Mandriva policy is a sensible one; Debian
> and Suse do similar things; and I think the *BSDs do so
> as well.  This really ought to be better supported by
> "TEA" out of the box.)

Yes, but it would require a lot of changes. Almost no Tcl extensions are
set up to be installed this way out of the box. Both MDV and Fedora have
a ton of patches for this.
-- 
adamw

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Joe E. <jen...@fl...>]

Adam Williamson wrote:
> [re: Tcl8.6b1RC0]
>
> Just one question about the tdbc thing: it's installed
> in /usr/lib/tdbc1.0b1 but includes a tdbcConfig.sh file whose contents
> implies it may be used as a directly linked library. In this usage case,
> how do you expect the app that links against it to be able to find it?
> Subdirectories of /usr/lib are not usually in ld's path.

Tcl applications and extensions will not normally link against
libtdbc directly [*].  Normally, Tcl applications dynamically
load the *.so file, and extensions link against the lib*stub.a file.

[*] Note to KBK -- if I got that wrong, holler!  Because if
    that's not the case, there is a serious, serious problem
    with the shared library naming conventions.

> For MDV I patched tdbc up quite a bit to comply with the Fedora /
> Mandriva policy, which requires the library itself and the tdbcConfig.sh
> file to go into /usr/lib , while the pkgIndex.tcl and tdbc.tcl files go
> to /usr/lib/tcl8.6/tdbc1.0b1 , but that's not strictly relevant to
> upstream. Doing it that way, though, it should actually work if an app
> wants to link directly against tdbc as a library.

There should be two libraries:

    lib/tdbc1.0b1/libtdbc1.0b1.so
    lib/tdbc1.0b1/libtdbcstub1.0b1.a

The first one (the .so) is dynamically loaded by tclsh
and other Tcl applications by [package require tdbc].
It's not intended to be linked against directly --
it's a "plugin", not a "library" -- so according
to [1] (section "no dlopen()'d libraries in %{_libdir}")
it should be installed at:

    %{tcl_sitearch}/tdbc1.0b1/libtdbc1.0b1.so.

The second one (the .a) is the stub library, and *is*
intended to be linked against (by dependent extensions).
If I understand [1] correctly, that means it should be
part of the "-devel" package along with tdbcConfig.sh,
and installed at:

    %{libdir}/libtdbcstub1.0b1.a

The Fedora/Mandriva Tcl packaging policy doesn't say where
fooConfig.sh files should be installed, and "TEA"
doesn't have any clear guidelines about this either.
Probably safest to leave it in the package directory, i.e.,
%{tcl_sitearch}/%{name}%{version}/, for now.

Adam, could you post your patches to the SF bug tracker,
so that those responsible for maintaining "TEA" can get
a better look at what sorts of things need to be patched?

(The Fedora/Mandriva policy is a sensible one; Debian
and Suse do similar things; and I think the *BSDs do so
as well.  This really ought to be better supported by
"TEA" out of the box.)



--Joe English

  jen...@fl...

[1] <URL: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Tcl_packaging_policy >

[TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidate

[<dg...@ni...>]

A number of problems with the build scripts
on various platforms have been corrected.
The RC1 tarballs are now at

ftp://ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/tcl8_6/

The changes file updates are also complete,
so unless there are more really big troubles
uncovered, I'll promote these to become
8.6b1, probably on Tuesday.

DGP

[TCLCORE] Further development of LibTomMath (Was: Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates)

[<bo...@ma...>]

Hi there,

I'm new to the list, and may be I'm in the wrong place, if so, please tell
me.

> You wrote:
>
> **	And libtomath is an integral part of the core. We use only the
> 	sources coming with Tcl, never look for a system library, and,
> 	most important I believe, we have AFAIK forked the sources. IIRC
> 	Kevin said something to the effect that our libtommath contains
> 	a number of changes which are not in the original libtommath.
> 	IIRC the changes were given to the upstream maintainer, but
> 	rejected.

AFAIK upstream maintainer is not developing the library any more (last
minor update was December 2006). I was experimenting a bit with with Toom
multiplication and squaring using somehow more efficient sequences I
recently published ( http://ln.bodrato.it/FasterToomConvolution_pdf ).
The new code (a couple of small files) I wrote seems to be much more
efficient than the one contained in libtommath, and it should be as
portable and as readable as the original.
Are you interested in testing and maybe consider including my code in some
future releases?

Let me know,
Marco

-- 
http://bodrato.it/

Re: [TCLCORE] Consistancy in contributed packages (Was: Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates)

[Arnulf W. <ar...@wi...>]

Am Samstag, 20. Dezember 2008 09:33:21 schrieb Jan Nijtmans:
> 2008/12/19 Andreas Kupries <and...@ac...>:
> >> Questions (that I may better understand...):
> >> - Why is zlib under compat/, libtommath under /, and tdbc under pkgs?
> >> Shouldn't these have very similar treatment in the location in the
> >> source tree?
>
> How about TclOO and tclZlib.c? I was wondering if they wouln't not be
> served better ad contributed package. Yes, we want to make sure
> that every Tcl distrubition has it, just like tdbc. TclOO is integrated
> in the core, it doesn't need a package require, but provides it's own
> package name and version. tclZlib.c is integrated in the core but
> completely independant. It could easiliy be converted to have it's
> own stub table, and be regarded as a separate extension.
>
> Not mentioning the package names. When adding Itcl to the
> contributed packages, then we will have two official bundled
> packages, "tdbc" and "Itcl". Is it wise to keep the character
> casing different, or should we simply provide "itcl" as well?

the beta release of itcl4.0 is named "itcl" already to be consistent
with [package require itcl]

Arnulf
>
> I think it is worth to consider this. (zlib itself and libtommath
> have a clear explanation why they cannot be contributed
> packages, I agree with Andreas about those two)
>
> Regards,
>           Jan Nijtmans
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--- _______________________________________________
> Tcl-Core mailing list
> Tcl...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-core

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[<dg...@ni...>]

Quoting "Adam Williamson" <awi...@ma...>:
> Just one question about the tdbc thing: ...

Please report the issue to the tdbc project,
http://tdbc.tcl.tk/ as something to be addressed
in a future release.

DGP

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Adam W. <awi...@ma...>]

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 13:44 -0500, Donald G Porter wrote:
> You will now find RC0 release candidate distributions for Tcl/Tk 8.6b1
> at ftp://ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/tcl8_6/ .
> 
> These will not be the actual 8.6b1 release.  At a minimum, I need to
> make updates to the "changes" files.  However, I wanted to get the
> code files themselves out for test builds.
> 
> I don't plan to hold actual release of 8.6b1 just for discovered bugs,
> but if there's some total failure to build on some platform or in some
> configuration, lets please find and fix that.

Builds and runs fine as MDV Cooker package, in a cursory test.

Just one question about the tdbc thing: it's installed
in /usr/lib/tdbc1.0b1 but includes a tdbcConfig.sh file whose contents
implies it may be used as a directly linked library. In this usage case,
how do you expect the app that links against it to be able to find it?
Subdirectories of /usr/lib are not usually in ld's path.

For MDV I patched tdbc up quite a bit to comply with the Fedora /
Mandriva policy, which requires the library itself and the tdbcConfig.sh
file to go into /usr/lib , while the pkgIndex.tcl and tdbc.tcl files go
to /usr/lib/tcl8.6/tdbc1.0b1 , but that's not strictly relevant to
upstream. Doing it that way, though, it should actually work if an app
wants to link directly against tdbc as a library.
-- 
adamw

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Pat T. <pat...@us...>]

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Twylite wrote:
> 
> Problems:
> - It is not possible to build TDBC on Windows in a pure-MS environment 
> (i.e. you need msys or cygwin to run configure).  I think this is a problem.

Give us a chance. It went into CVS about a day ago. I worked on doing
the NMAKE stuff last night and I'll likely get it committed today.
Maybe. Depending on Christmas preparations and stuff.

Pat Thoyts
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Re: [TCLCORE] Consistancy in contributed packages (Was: Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates)

[Jan N. <jan...@gm...>]

2008/12/20 Donal K. Fellows <don...@ma...>:
> Donal K. Fellows wrote:
>>
>> TclOO is deeply entwined into Tcl, and likely to become even more so.
> And I forgot the main point of the message! It only exports a package
> for compatibility with the standalone code that works with 8.5.

OK, that's a clear answer. providing "TclOO" is just like an
'undocumented feature'.    :-)

However, I was talking about tclZlib.c, so the wrapper around zlib,
not zlib itself. Anyway, I'm not suggesting to change anything now
either, it's not worth delaying Tcl 8.6 for that.

Regards,
      Jan Nijtmans

Re: [TCLCORE] Consistancy in contributed packages (Was: Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates)

[Donal K. F. <don...@ma...>]

Donal K. Fellows wrote:
> TclOO is deeply entwined into Tcl, and likely to become even more so.

And I forgot the main point of the message! It only exports a package
for compatibility with the standalone code that works with 8.5.

Donal.

Re: [TCLCORE] Consistancy in contributed packages (Was: Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates)

[Donal K. F. <don...@ma...>]

Jan Nijtmans wrote:
> 2008/12/19 Andreas Kupries <and...@ac...>:
>>> Questions (that I may better understand...):
>>> - Why is zlib under compat/, libtommath under /, and tdbc under pkgs?
>>> Shouldn't these have very similar treatment in the location in the
>>> source tree?
> 
> How about TclOO and tclZlib.c? I was wondering if they wouln't not be
> served better ad contributed package. Yes, we want to make sure
> that every Tcl distrubition has it, just like tdbc. TclOO is integrated
> in the core, it doesn't need a package require, but provides it's own
> package name and version. tclZlib.c is integrated in the core but
> completely independant. It could easiliy be converted to have it's
> own stub table, and be regarded as a separate extension.

TclOO is deeply entwined into Tcl, and likely to become even more so.

The zlib distribution is purely there for compatibility. Our config code
really prefers the system version if that is available. OK, on Windows
we don't even check for a system version at the moment as I'm fairly
sure that Win doesn't provide one. (Am I wrong? If it's only on some
versions, then we'll probably still have to keep doing an unconditional
build of the compat code.)

I've had reports that there are problems with the msys build. I'll sort
them out later today (using techniques I've devised when working on the
Unix build rules).

Donal.

[TCLCORE] Consistancy in contributed packages (Was: Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates)

[Jan N. <jan...@gm...>]

2008/12/19 Andreas Kupries <and...@ac...>:
>
>> Questions (that I may better understand...):
>> - Why is zlib under compat/, libtommath under /, and tdbc under pkgs?
>> Shouldn't these have very similar treatment in the location in the
>> source tree?

How about TclOO and tclZlib.c? I was wondering if they wouln't not be
served better ad contributed package. Yes, we want to make sure
that every Tcl distrubition has it, just like tdbc. TclOO is integrated
in the core, it doesn't need a package require, but provides it's own
package name and version. tclZlib.c is integrated in the core but
completely independant. It could easiliy be converted to have it's
own stub table, and be regarded as a separate extension.

Not mentioning the package names. When adding Itcl to the
contributed packages, then we will have two official bundled
packages, "tdbc" and "Itcl". Is it wise to keep the character
casing different, or should we simply provide "itcl" as well?

I think it is worth to consider this. (zlib itself and libtommath
have a clear explanation why they cannot be contributed
packages, I agree with Andreas about those two)

Regards,
          Jan Nijtmans

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Andreas K. <and...@ac...>]

> Questions (that I may better understand...):
> - Why is zlib under compat/, libtommath under /, and tdbc under pkgs?  
> Shouldn't these have very similar treatment in the location in the 
> source tree?

While similar they are different. My understanding is this:

**	tdbc is a bundled package. It is maintained externally, and
	we distribute it only. Therefore  pkgs/

**	The zlib sources are 'only' a fallback to use when no usable
	system zlib library was found, or if explicitly requested (static
	linking). Therefore compat/, where we have other fallback files,
	mainly headers.

**	And libtomath is an integral part of the core. We use only the
	sources coming with Tcl, never look for a system library, and,
	most important I believe, we have AFAIK forked the sources. IIRC
	Kevin said something to the effect that our libtommath contains
	a number of changes which are not in the original libtommath.
	IIRC the changes were given to the upstream maintainer, but
	rejected.


> - Does tdbc build and install automatically as part of a standard Tcl 
> build on other platforms (incl. Win + cygwin)?  If not, shouldn't this 
> be the case?
> 
> Regards,
> Twylite
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Tcl-Core mailing list
> Tcl...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-core

Re: [TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Twylite <tw...@cr...>]

Hi,
> I don't plan to hold actual release of 8.6b1 just for discovered bugs,
> but if there's some total failure to build on some platform or in some
> configuration, lets please find and fix that.
Win XP SP3:
- builds with MSVC 2008, runs without crashing, fails 4 tests.
- builds with MSVC 6, runs without crashing, fails 5 tests.

Problems:
- It is not possible to build TDBC on Windows in a pure-MS environment 
(i.e. you need msys or cygwin to run configure).  I think this is a problem.

Questions (that I may better understand...):
- Why is zlib under compat/, libtommath under /, and tdbc under pkgs?  
Shouldn't these have very similar treatment in the location in the 
source tree?
- Does tdbc build and install automatically as part of a standard Tcl 
build on other platforms (incl. Win + cygwin)?  If not, shouldn't this 
be the case?

Regards,
Twylite

Re: [TCLCORE] musings about tclkit

[Pat T. <pat...@us...>]

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Rene Zaumseil wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> jcw has give us the great opportunity to run the complete
> tcl and tk environment with only one file: tclkits.
> 
> Now it seems he has abandoned the further development.
> http://groups.google.com/group/vlerq/msg/85a1191cc66bd97c
> 

I've been maintaining the sources in his svn tree for the last year or
so. I've kept vqtcl and kitgen buildable as 8.6 changes have affected
things. I'm unclear as to what you are missing in terms of maintenance
unless you are obtaining code from the wrong place.

kitgen: svn://svn.equi4.com/kitgen/trunk
vqtcl:  svn://svn.equi4.com/vlerq/branches/v4/tcl
mk:     svn://svn.equi4.com/metakit/trunk
sdx:    svn://svn.equi4.com/sdx/trunk

Pat Thoyts
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[TCLCORE] Tcl/Tk 8.6b1 Release Candidates

[Donald G P. <dg...@ni...>]

You will now find RC0 release candidate distributions for Tcl/Tk 8.6b1
at ftp://ftp.tcl.tk/pub/tcl/tcl8_6/ .

These will not be the actual 8.6b1 release.  At a minimum, I need to
make updates to the "changes" files.  However, I wanted to get the
code files themselves out for test builds.

I don't plan to hold actual release of 8.6b1 just for discovered bugs,
but if there's some total failure to build on some platform or in some
configuration, lets please find and fix that.

-- 
| Don Porter          Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division |
| don...@ni...             Information Technology Laboratory |
| http://math.nist.gov/~DPorter/                                  NIST |
|______________________________________________________________________|