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Ticket UUID: ef7042075cfd6c029435e6c37ff161190d98c80d
Title: tcl::build-info not documented
Type: Bug Version: 9.0
Submitter: apnadkarni Created on: 2024-10-17 14:34:45
Subsystem: - New Builtin Commands Assigned To: jan.nijtmans
Priority: 5 Medium Severity: Important
Status: Open Last Modified: 2025-06-26 13:51:22
Resolution: None Closed By: nobody
    Closed on:
Description:
The tcl::build-info command does not seem to be documented. Is this intentional or a documentation bug?
User Comments: jan.nijtmans added on 2025-06-26 13:51:22:

Any more suggestions?


jan.nijtmans added on 2025-06-26 13:43:20:

[617a33d53c6d36ea]. Better?


apnadkarni added on 2025-06-26 13:13:15:
Thanks for documenting this. One addition I might suggest is to clarify behavior when a field is not present. Is an error raised or an empty string returned? Are all fields always guaranteed to be present?

jan.nijtmans added on 2025-06-26 08:48:21:

Yes, it helps. Thanks! [5b4016f314039751


dkf added on 2025-06-26 08:16:24:

Good idea to document this. I approve! Review of the candidate manpage follows:

I'm wondering whether the SYNOPSIS is too busy.

Perhaps it would be better as just this:

\fB::tcl::build-info\fR ?\fIfield\fR?

That says you the command has one optional argument, field, and that's basically all that it needs to say.

I guess the DESCRIPTION should then be:

This command provides a way to retrieve information about how Tcl was built.
Without a \fIfield\fR, the command returns the Tcl patchlevel, followed
by the '\fB+\fR'-sign, followed by the fossil commit-id followed by a list of
dot-separated tags. If a \fIfield\fR is given, this command extracts that
field as described below. For official Tcl releases, the \fIfield\fRs are:

The remaining parts of the manual page look fine. Perhaps we ought to add more references into the SEE ALSO section? (platform(n) and tcl_platform(n)/tclvars(n) would be my candidates.)

If you don't change the SYNOPSIS as suggested, at least remove the ? from the first line of it; the subsequent lines make it unnecessary in that case and it's technically ambiguous according to our simple command syntax rules.

Do as you will with the review, but I hope it helps.


jan.nijtmans added on 2025-06-26 07:36:43:

First shot [e6214ce124f431a4|here]


apnadkarni added on 2025-06-19 05:48:27:
@jan.nijtmans since you wrote TIP 599 and the implementation, can you please document tcl::build-info in the manpages?

jan.nijtmans added on 2024-10-18 15:25:06:

Let's document it