Re: [tcltk-perl] why autoloading in Tcl/Tk do not work from Tcl::Tk?

[Jeff H. <je...@ac...>]

Vadim Konovalov wrote:
> Does anyone has an idea why autoloading does not fully functioning when
> Tcl/Tk is used from Perl?
> 
> As an example,
>      $interp->call('tk_setPalette', $color);
> does not work: it fails to find tk_setPalette procedure
> 
> But following works:
>      $interp->Eval('tk_setPalette '.$color);
> 
> and once that code is executed previous piece of code also works properly.

The eval goes through a different path that will invoke the
unknown mechanism (which handles auto-loading), whereas the
icall function as written only ever invokes a command if it
already exists - it does NOT allow for autoloading.

This is the crux of the difference between the pre-existing
icall function and the alternative that I wrote (but is not
used by default).  See the comments in the C code.  Perhaps
you do want to use my icall function by default instead?

Other things you miss are command tracing and async checks.
The current icall function to the lowest level to make its
calls, which may be desired ... but perhaps we should make
them 2 alternate functions, with the default 'icall' being
my alternative function, and 'invoke' being the current
'icall'?

BTW, I would also like to see a core 'catch' function, for
handling Tcl calls that may well error in a more perl-ish
integrated way.

-- 
     Jeff Hobbs, The Tcl Guy
     http://www.ActiveState.com/, a division of Sophos