Exercises, examples and other material relating to training module T206. This topic is presented on public courses Learning to program in Tcl, Tcl Programming, Tcl Programming

A variable might contain a series of words and, if it does, it can be treated in a special way, as a list through which your program can iterate. This module describes how such lists are handled, and goes on to cover list-related commands. Several sample programs show you how to make best use of lists.

Articles and tips on this subject		updated
4455	Working out distance between places, using OS grid references and a program in Tcl In Great Britain, locations have Ordnance Survey grid reference positions which place them to within 100 metres. Our training centre / hotel is at ST907633 - that's   100 km square ST   90.7 km into that square from the west side   63.3 km into that squate from the south ...	2015-03-11
4454	Everything is a string - even a list Almost all variables in Tcl are held as strings ... if you use integers and stirings in calculations such as expr and incr. the strings are converted back and forth intergally. Lists, too, are held as strings of characters in which chunks of string are counted / taken out as being elements in the list. ...	2015-03-11
4209	Lists in Tcl - fundamentals in a commented source code example When I'm writing code demonstrations during class, they usually start off tidy and then get a bit scruffy as I add things in to answer delegate questions. For once last week, a Tcl list demonstration didn't get too untidy, so I give it you here with comments about what each few lines does.   # ...	2013-11-19
3618	lists and struct::list in Tcl - Introduction to struct::list and examples In addition to the built in list commands, Tcl (since release 8.4) has been shipped with an additional struct::list package which includes additional procs (commands) you can use for manipulating lists. ::struct::list longestCommonSubsequence sequence1 sequence2 ?maxOccurs? ::struct::list longestCommonSubsequence2 ...	2012-02-18 (longer)
3582	Tcl collections - lists, dicts and array In Tcl, almost all variables are what is described as "pure" - which means that they hold data as strings of text which can be passed, substituted with a $ prefix, etc. Special interpretation on pure variables allows them to be treated as: • integers • floats • lists • dicts • ...	2012-01-28
3583	Expanding a list of parameters in Tcl - {*} and eval In Tcl commands, parameters are separated by spaces, just like Tcl lists are. So it would sometimes be very useful to be able to write   set action {piemiddle apple}   set $action to take a list of parameters from a Tcl list - in this case setting the "piemiddle" variable to the ...	2012-01-28
3415	User defined sorting and other uses of callbacks in Tcl and Tk When I output a table of results, I usually want it to be sorted in some way. In Tcl, I can use lsort to sort a list - there's an example of it running in a default way [here]. However, there's often a need to order records according to a non-default algorithm, and there are switches such as -integer ...	2011-09-02
3394	The difference between lists and strings - Tcl There's not much difference between lists and strings in Tcl. In fact a list is just a string in a particular format, and if you split a string that contains just letters and spaces into a "list" you may not change anything AT ALL. Which means that if you make a coding error you may not spot it until ...	2011-08-16
3285	Extracting data from a string / line from file - Tcl I never cease to be amazed at the number of different ways that data can be encoded into simple test lines ... and how the various languages that we teach can be used to manipulate / extract pertinent information. Today, on a Tcl Course, I was presented with data in this form:   T/N/R/Brother/Sister/Mum/Bob.txt/Esmerelda.txt/Sophie.txt The ...	2011-05-10
1282	Stringing together Tcl scripts If you have a series of Tcl scripts that you want to run in a sequence, you can call all of them up in a master script using a series of source commands. This command switches input from the current script (sources) to the new source given as if the text of the sourced file was copied in to the original ...	2011-03-01
463	Splitting the difference Perl's split function takes a string of text, and divides it up at a delimiter of your choice into a list of shorter strings ... it's one of the "power tool" functions of Perl and a vital part of the language. So how come that you can write a Tcl program and use its version of split - or omit the split ...	2011-03-01
2468	What are Tcl lists? In Tcl, all variables (except 'arrays') are held as strings of text - and that includes lists. A list is a string which is treated as a collection of individual words, space separated, and you can then select individual words by their word number. And this means that if you have a simple, space separated ...	2009-10-24
2472	split and join in tcl and expect Split and join in most languages convert strings of text into arrays / lists / collections of other sorts. But in Tcl, all variables are held as strings, so are split and join actually needed? If you're working with a collection of single words - no embedded spaces, no special characters, space delimited, ...	2009-10-23
1601	Replacing the last comma with an and If I have a list, I'm likely to want to present it comma separated for the most part, but with the word "and" between the last two elements. "Cambridge, the M11, the M25, the M4, the A361 and Melksham" for example. Lists or arrays can be joined in almost any language with a function called join or ...	2008-04-04
1405	Sorting in Tcl - lists and arrays Tcl's lsort command lets you sort a list - and that can be a list of the keys of an array. You can't sort the array, but once you have the list of keys you can sort that and use it to iterate through the array in any order that you like. As everything (except an array) is a string in Tcl, when you ...	2007-10-25
1402	Tcl - append v lappend v concat Should you use append, lappend or even concat to add to variable in Tcl? append puts one string directly on the end of another, without adding any extra characters beyond those in the incoming variables. lappend treats the target string as a list, and will usually add an extra space on the end of it ...	2007-10-23
1334	Stable sorting - Tcl, Perl and others Have you come across a STABLE sort? A Stable sort is one in which all the incoming elements which evaluate to an equal value when tested for sorting purposes remain in the same order in the output as they were in the input. Perhaps I had better give you an example. I have a log file and there's a ...	2007-09-07
1283	Generating traffic for network testing "Why do you have a random number generator in a scientific language" ask some newcomers to the world of programming ... "shouldn't programming be an exact science?". Well yes, and no. It turns out that a random number generator is exceedingly useful in some instances. Here's a real, live example ...	2007-07-29
781	Tcl - lappend v concat In Tcl, you can use the lappend command to add items on to a list, but it doesn't always do exactly what you wish it to. Let's say that I've got two lists - the first containing the early courses of a meal, and the second containing the latter courses. If I append the second list to the first, the ...	2006-06-27
144	Tcl sandwich - lists in Tcl In Tcl, a list is simply a string that's held in the same format (i.e. with the same delimiters and protection) as a series of parameters to a Tcl command. The split command (which does a great deal in languages such as Perl and PHP) really does little more than change the delimiters if need be, and ...	2006-06-05

acr2	Treating lines of data read from file as a list
arx	how an lsort callback works
days	A list of days
distance_between	Finding distances between places base on OS grid references
dt4u	extract field pairs from lines
expand	Handling a list of command parameters
fido	Open and read a file line by line
growth	station growth program
liimp	List basics in a nutshell
os_letters.txt	Easting and Northing additions for OS grid references
pk4.tcl	Generate a series packet sizes for network testing
slist	list manipulation with struct::list
stdlook	Look up Florida dialling codes