A free collection of Tcl packages
tcllib is a free development tool that lets you access various packages and modules for the Tcl programming language. As a collection of utility modules for Tcl, this software offers a wide variety of functionalities that can greatly aid you. It also saves you much time since you don’t need to compile or install these modules separately. Both beginner and advanced users are welcome to consult its extensive online documentation, too.
A general-purpose library
Tcl is an open-source general-purpose dynamic programming language designed to be easy to use but quite versatile in its features. It’s a compact cross-platform software that supports multiple programming paradigms and operating systems, and is commonly embedded into C-based applications. It’s often used in both its full form and in several other small-footprint versions due to its small size. However, it’s still similar to other programming languages and requires some modules.
Fortunately, you don’t have to install many of them one by one. You can simply use tcllib, which is a Tcl-only library that contains various modules and packages all written entirely in that programming language. These modules were designed to be stable standalone tools with little to no binary dependencies and are quite useful in different areas. Their functions can range from standard data structure implementation to common networking protocol implementation.
Some of the modules included in this distribution are a command-line argument processor, common math functions, FTP servers, different types of counters, and encoders. Since Tcl is usually embedded in C software, some packages also have high-performance implementations written in C. There are CVS modules, as well, which are for BWidgets, tclbench, mclistbox, tclapps, and tklib. There’s not a lot of drawbacks to using this library but you may encounter some missing packages.
A must-have module library
Overall, tcllib is a highly-recommended software thanks to its reliable standalone tools that greatly expand Tcl’s functionality. Much of its collection are commonly-used functions and packages that you don’t need to find on your own. Beginner users may find it tricky to work with at first if they’re not exposed to Tcl much yet, but the online documentation can easily bridge that gap. You just need to deal with the rare occurrence of packages missing.
