Scriptics' TclPro Scriptics offers a commercial development environment for Tcl called TclPro. TclPro features an extended Tcl platform and a set of development tools. The Tcl platform includes the popular [incr Tcl], Expect, and TclX extensions. These extensions and Tcl/Tk are distributed in source and binary form for Windows and a variety of UNIX platforms. There is an evaluation copy of TclPro on the CD-ROM. The TclPro distribution includes a copy of Tcl/Tk and the extensions that you can use for free. However, you will need to register at the Scriptics web site to obtain an evaluation license for the TclPro development tools. Please visit the following URL: http://www.scriptics.com/registration/welchbook.html
The current version of TclPro contains these tools: TclPro Debugger TclPro Debugger provides a nice graphical user interface with all the features you expect from a traditional debugger. You can set breakpoints, single step, examine variables, and look at the call stack. It understands a subtle issue that can arise from using the update command: nested call stacks. It is possible to launch a new Tcl script as a side effect of the update command, which pushes the current state onto the execution stack. This shows up clearly in the debugger stack trace. It maintains project state, so it will remember breakpoint settings and other preference items between runs. One of the most interesting features is that it can debug remotely running applications. I use it regularly to debug Tcl code running inside the Tcl Web Server. TclPro Checker TclPro Checker is a static code checker. This is a real win for large program development. It examines every line of your program looking for syntax errors and dubious coding practices. It has detailed knowledge of Tcl, Tk, Expect, [incr Tcl], and TclX commands and validates your use of them. It checks that you call Tcl procedures with the correct number of arguments, and can cross-check large groups of Tcl files. It knows about changes between Tcl versions, and it can warn you about old code that needs to be updated. TclPro Compiler TclPro Compiler is really just a reader and writer for the byte codes that the Tcl byte-code compiler generates internally. It lets you precompile scripts and save the results, and then load the byte-code later instead of raw source. This provides a great way to hide your source code, if that is important to you. It turns out to save less time than you might think, however. By the time it reads the file from disk, decodes it, and builds the necessary Tcl data structures, it is not much faster than reading a source file and compiling it on the fly. TclPro Wrapper TclPro Wrapper assembles a collection of Tcl scripts, data files, and a Tcl/Tk interpreter into a single executable file. This makes distribution of your Tcl application as easy as giving out one file. The Tcl C library has been augmented with hooks in its file system access routines so that a wrapped application can look inside itself for files. The rule is that if you use a relative pathname (i.e., lib/myfile.dat), then the wrapped application will look first inside itself for the file. If the file is not found, or if the pathname is absolute (e.g., /usr/local/lib/myfile.dat), then Tcl looks on your hard disk for the file. The nice thing about TclPro Wrapper is that it handles all kinds of files, not just Tcl source files. It works by concatenating a ZIP file onto the end of a specially prepared Tcl interpreter. TclPro comes with pre-built interpreters that include Expect, [incr Tcl], and TclX, or you can build your own interpreter that contains custom C extensions. |
