Tcl Library Source Code

Files in the top-level directory of check-in e3475de99399b361

RCS: @(#) $Id: README,v 1.9 2007/08/30 17:24:13 andreas_kupries Exp $

Welcome to the Tcllib, the Tcl Standard Library.  This package is
intended to be a collection of Tcl packages that provide utility
functions useful to a large collection of Tcl programmers.

The home web site for this code is http://core.tcl.tk/tcllib/ .
At this web site, you will find mailing lists, web forums, databases
for bug reports and feature requests, the CVS repository (browsable on
the web, or read-only accessible via CVS ), and more.

The structure of the tcllib source hierarchy is:

tcllib
 +- modules
     +- <module1>
     +- <module2>
     +- ...


The install hierarchy is:

.../lib/tcllib
        +- <module1>
        +- <module2>
        +- ...

There are some base requirements that a module must meet before it
will be added to tcllib:

* the module must be a proper Tcl package
* the module must use a namespace for its commands and variables
* the name of the package must be the same as the name of the
  namespace
* the module must reside in a subdirectory of the modules directory in
  the source hierarchy, and that subdirectory must have the same name
  as the package and namespace
* the module must be released under the BSD License, the terms of
  which can be found in the toplevel tcllib source directory in the file
  license.terms
* the module should have both documentation ([*]) and a test suite
  (in the form of a group of *.test files in the module directory).

  [*] Possible forms: doctools, TMML/XML, nroff (man), or HTML.
      The first format is the most preferred as it can be processed with
      tools provided by tcllib itself (See module doctools). The first
      two are preferred in general as they are semantic markup and thus
      easier to convert into other formats.

* the module must have either documentation or a test suite.  It can
  not have neither.
* the module should adhere to Tcl coding standards

When adding a module to tcllib, be sure to add it to the files listed below.

* installed_modules.tcl

  contains a table listing all modules to be installed, modules
  excluded, and names the actions to be taken during installation
  of each module. Add a line to this table naming your module and
  its actions.

  Three actions have to be specified, for the package itself, its
  documentation, and the examples demonstrating it.

  The _null action can be used everywhere and signals that there is
  nothing to do. Although it is possible to use it for the package
  action it does make no sense there, as that means that no package
  code is installed.

  Other package actions are _tcl, _tci, and _text. The first causes
  the installer to copy all .tcl files from the source directory for
  the module into the appropriate module directory. _tci does all that
  and also expects a tclIndex file to copy. _tex is like _tcl, however
  it also copies all .tex files found in the source directory for the
  module.

  There is currently only one true documentation action. This action
  is _doc. It converts all documentation in doctools format into the
  format chosen by the user for installation and copies the result
  into the appropriate directory.

  There is currently one true action for examples, _exa. It copies all
  files in the source directory for examples into the directory chosen
  by the user as destination for examples.

Each module source directory should have no subdirectories (other than
the CVS directory), and should contain the following files:

* source code		*.tcl
* package index		pkgIndex.tcl
* tests			*.test
* documentation		*.man, *.n, *.xml

If you do not follow this directory structure, the tcllib Makefile
will fail to locate the files from the new module.