SaveTCL input Entry in a file and later load it - tcl

Question

I have developed a TCL UI with couple of inputs needs to be entered by user. First time user will enter all files path but then i wanted to save the user defined entries in a file and then later load it.
Saving is fine... i think of saving all these variables in a file, but loading it from a file needs a mapping, how it can be done ?
Any example will be helpful

Answer 1

If you have the flexibility to define the format of the file where the contents will be stored, I'd recommend storing the contents in a way such that reading/writing maps to the keys and is order independent. This will allow you to update your UI to add/delete input fields without worrying about the order in which they are captured in the file.
For e.g., your file format could be something this:
Top Directory: <value>
LEF File: <value>
.
.
.
You'll have to carefully choose a separator between the key (label) and the value.
If this is going to be used in TCL always, you can make it simpler by storing an array in a file. This'll also speed up when you load the file to populate the entries in the UI. For e.g., your file format could be something this:
set inputFields("Top Directory") <value>
set inputFields("LEF File") <value>

Answer 2

I achieved this by following code, though not very optimized.
First i am saving a input file with variable values and then reading them in same order.
proc save_input_entries {} {
global ENTRYfilename ENTRYfilename2 ENTRYfilename3 ENTRYfilename4 ENTRYfilename5 ENTRYfilename6 ENTRYfilename7 ENTRYfilename8 ENTRYfilename9 ENTRYfilename10 ENTRYfilename11 ENTRYfilename12 ENTRYfilename13 ENTRYfilename14 ENTRYfilename15 ENTRYfilename16 ENTRYfilename17 topdir corner_dir corner_name
set filename Input_entries.txt
set fileId [open $filename "w"]
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename3
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename4
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename5
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename7
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename8
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename15
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename14
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename16
puts $fileId $ENTRYfilename17
close $fileId
}
proc load_input_entries {} {
global ENTRYfilename ENTRYfilename2 ENTRYfilename3 ENTRYfilename4 ENTRYfilename5 ENTRYfilename6 ENTRYfilename7 ENTRYfilename8 ENTRYfilename9 ENTRYfilename10 ENTRYfilename11 ENTRYfilename12 ENTRYfilename13 ENTRYfilename14 ENTRYfilename15 ENTRYfilename16 ENTRYfilename17
set fp [open Input_entries.txt]
set stuff [read $fp]
set lines [split $stuff "\n"]
set ENTRYfilename [lindex $lines 0]
set ENTRYfilename3 [lindex $lines 1]
set ENTRYfilename4 [lindex $lines 2]
set ENTRYfilename5 [lindex $lines 3]
set ENTRYfilename7 [lindex $lines 4]
set ENTRYfilename8 [lindex $lines 5]
set ENTRYfilename15 [lindex $lines 6]
set ENTRYfilename14 [lindex $lines 7]
set ENTRYfilename16 [lindex $lines 8]
set ENTRYfilename17 [lindex $lines 9]
}