TCL Checking Environment Variables - tcl

So I have been trying to find an answer for this for a bit and could not find the answer on the internet. I need to check to see if an environment variable exists. I thought I had the right code but it keeps returning false.
if { [info exists ::env(USER)] } {
RAT::LogMsg INFO "Found USER"
} else {
RAT::LogMsg INFO "Nope!"
}
Any ideas?

You might want to check what environment variables are actually set; I don't think that USER is one of the guaranteed ones.
RAT::LogMsg INFO "Got these env-vars: [lsort [array names ::env]]"
If puts stdout works in your environment, you can try doing:
parray ::env
(The parray command is a procedure that pretty-prints an array.)
To get the current username reliably, check out the tcl_platform array's user element. That array is generated internally by Tcl (well, with probes to relevant basic OS APIs) instead of by looking at environment variables, and that particular element is always present back at least as far as Tcl 8.4.
RAT::LogMsg INFO "Username is $::tcl_platform(user)"
I've just noticed that the documentation is wrong: it says that the user element comes from USER and/or LOGNAME environment variables. It doesn't, and doesn't in at least 8.5 and 8.6. (And it's definitely my mistake. I forgot to update the code when I fixed this. Ooops!)

You have the right code, test in tclsh:
% if {[info exists ::env(USER)]} {puts "found $::env(USER)"}
found strobel
%
The problem must be in your environment.

Related

Triggering an error on unsetting a traced variable

I'm trying to create some read-only variables to use with code evaluated in a safe interp. Using trace, I can generate an error on attempts to set them, but not when using unset:
% set foo bar
bar
% trace add variable foo {unset write} {apply {{var _ op} { error "$var $op trace triggered" }}}
% set foo bar
can't set "foo": foo write trace triggered
% unset foo
%
Indeed, I eventually noticed the documentation even says in passing:
Any errors in unset traces are ignored.
Playing around with different return codes, including custom numbers, they all seem to be ignored. It doesn't trigger an interp bgerror handler either. Is there any other way to raise an error for an attempt to unset a particular variable?
There really isn't. The key problem is that there are times when Tcl is going to unset a variable when that variable really is going to be deleted because its containing structure (a namespace, stack frame or object, and ultimately an interpreter) is also being deleted. The variable is doomed at that point and user code cannot prevent it (except by the horrible approach of never returning from the trace, of course, which infinitely postpones the death and puts everything in a weird state; don't do that). There's simply nowhere to resurrect the variable to. Command deletion traces have the same issue; they too can be firing because their storage is vanishing. (TclOO destructors are a bit more protected against this; they try to not lose errors — there's even pitching them into interp bgerror as a last resort — but still can in some edge cases.)
What's more, there's currently nothing in the API to allow an error message to bubble out of the process of deleting a namespace or call frame. I think that would be fixable (it would require changing some public APIs) but for good reasons I think the deletion would still have to happen, especially for stack frames. Additionally, I'm not sure what should happen when you delete a namespace containing two unset-traced variables whose traces both report errors. What should the error be? I really don't know. (I know that the end result has to be that the namespace is still gone, FWIW, but the details matter and I have no idea what they should be.)
I'm trying to create some read-only variables to use with code evaluated
Schelte and Donal have already offered timely and in-depth feedback. So what comes is meant as a humble addition. Now that one knows that there variables traces are executed after the fact, the below is how I use to mimick read-only (or rather keep-re_setting-to-a-one-time-value) variables using traces (note: as Donal explains, this does not extend to proc-local variables).
The below implementation allows for the following:
namespace eval ::ns2 {}
namespace eval ::ns1 {
readOnly foo 1
readOnly ::ns2::bar 2
readOnly ::faz 3
}
Inspired by variable, but only for one variable-value pair.
proc ::readOnly {var val} {
uplevel [list variable $var $val]
if {![string match "::*" $var]} {
set var [uplevel [list namespace which -variable $var]]
}
# only proceed iff namespace is not under deletion!
if {[namespace exists [namespace qualifiers $var]]} {
set readOnlyHandler {{var val _ _ op} {
if {[namespace exists [namespace qualifiers $var]]} {
if {$op eq "unset"} {
::readOnly $var $val
} else {
set $var $val
}
# optional: use stderr as err-signalling channel?
puts stderr [list $var is read-only]
}
}}
set handlerScript [list apply $readOnlyHandler $var $val]
set traces [trace info variable $var]
set varTrace [list {write unset} $handlerScript]
if {![llength $traces] || $varTrace ni $traces} {
trace add variable $var {*}$varTrace
}
}
}
Some notes:
This is meant to work only for global or otherwise namespaced variables, not for proc-local ones;
It wraps around variable;
[namespace exists ...]: These guards protect from operations when a given parent namespace is currently under deletion (namespace delete ::ns1, or child interp deletion);
In the unset case, the handler script re-adds the trace on the well re-created variable (otherwise, any subsequent write would not be caught anymore.);
[trace info variable ...]: Helps avoid adding redundant traces;
[namespace which -variable]: Makes sure to work on a fully-qualified variable name;
Some final remarks:
Ooo, maybe I can substitute the normal unset for a custom version and
do the checking in it instead of relying on trace
Certainly one option, but it does not give you coverage of the various (indirect) paths of unsetting a variable.
[...] in a safe interp.
You may want to interp alias between a variable in your safe interp to the above readOnly in the parent interp?

How to access VHDL signal attributes in ModelSim via TCL?

I am developing a CPU in VHDL. I am using ModelSim for simulation and testing. In the simulation script I load a program from a binary file to the instruction memory. Now I want to automatically check if the program fits into memory and abort simulation if it doesn't. Since the memory is basically an array of std_logic_vectors, all I would have to do is read the corresponding signal attribute for use in a comparison. My problem is: How do I access a VHDL signal attribute in TCL inside ModelSim?
The closest I have gotten so far is to use the describe command:
describe sim/:tb:uut:imem:mem_array
which prints something like
# Array(0 to 255) [length 256] of
# Array(31 downto 0) [length 32] of
# VHDL standard subtype STD_LOGIC
Now, of course I could parse the length out of there via string operations. But that would not be a very generic solution. Ideally I would like to have something like this:
set mem_size [get_attribute sim/:tb:uut:imem:mem_array'length]
I have searched stackoverflow, googled up and down and searched through the commands in the command reference manual, but I could not find a solution. I am confident there must be a rather easy solution and I just lack the proper wording to successfully search for it. To me, this doesn't look overly specific and I am sure this could come in hand on many occasions when automating design testing. I am using version 10.6.
I would be very grateful if an experienced ModelSim user could help me out.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Tcl expert, so there's probably a more optimized solution out there.
There's a command called examine that you can use to get the value of obejcts.
I created a similar testbench here with a 256 x 32 array, the results were
VSIM> examine -radix hex sim/:tb:uut:imem:mem_array
# {32'hXXXXXXXX} {32'hXXXXXXXX} {32'hXXXXXXXX} {32'hXXXXXXXX} {32'hXXXXXXXX} ...
This is the value of sim/:tb:uut:imem:mem_array at the last simulation step (i.e.,
now).
The command return a list of values for each match (you can use wildcards), so
in our case, it's a list with a single item. You can get the depth by counting
the number of elements it returns:
VSIM> llength [lindex [examine sim/:tb:uut:imem:mem_array] 0]
# 256
You can get the bit width of the first element by using examine -showbase -radix hex,
which will return 32'hFFFFFFFF, where 32'h is the part you want to parse. Wrapping
that into a function would look like
proc get_bit_width { signal } {
set first_element [lindex [lindex [examine -radix hex -showbase $signal] 0] 0]
# Replace everything after 'h, including 'h itself to return only the base
return [regsub "'h.*" $first_element ""]
}
Hope this gives some pointers!
So, I actually found an easy solution. While further studying of the command reference manual brought to light that it is only possible to access a few special signal attributes and length is not one of them, I noticed that ModelSim automatically adds a size object to its object database for the memory array. So I can easily use
set ms [examine sim/:tb:uut:imem:mem_array_size]
to obtain the size and then check if the program fits.
This is just perfect for me, elegant and easy.

invalid command name "2001:172:16:21::36"

I need to assign my final variable with the following string UDP6:[2001:172:16:21::36]
set ipAddr1 "UDP6,2001:172:16:21::36"
set ipAddrArr [split $ipAddr1 ","]
set ipAddrArr11 [lindex $ipAddrArr 0]
set ipAddrArr12 [lindex $ipAddrArr 1]
set tmp ":\["
set ipAddr1Part [join "$ipAddrArr11 $ipAddrArr12" $tmp]
set tmp1 "]"
set ipAddrFinal [join "$ipAddr1Part$tmp1"]
When I run the tcl script, it gives invalid command name as 2001:172:16:21::36.
I have printed ipAddrFinal value , it gives the expected one UDP6:[2001:172:16:21::36]
pls help me out? what am I missing
The script as you have written it works fine; it assigns the string UDP6:[2001:172:16:21::36] to the variable ipAddrFinal. However, since it contains characters that are Tcl metacharacters in some contexts, I suspect that you are then using the string in an unsafe way, most likely with eval or possibly with subst or uplevel. If you look at the stack trace of the error (in the errorInfo global variable by default) you should be told pretty exactly where the offending code is; it might give a few places you need to look, but it usually isn't too hard to hunt down where the problem originates from.
If your problem comes from uplevel, you are probably going to need to use list to construct a command; 99.99% of all problems with uplevel are handled that way. If your problems come from eval, the chance's good that you need to switch to using expansion syntax. If your problems come from subst or are otherwise still deeply confusing, check back with us (with your stack trace if you are not sure where the problem is coming from).
Example of a fix for eval:
Change:
set action "puts \"IP\\ address\\ is\\ $ipAddrFinal\""
eval $action
to:
set action [list puts "IP address is $ipAddrFinal"]
{*}$action
NB: The error from doing the eval is a reasonable example too:
invalid command name "2001:172:16:21::36"
while executing
"2001:172:16:21::36"
("eval" body line 1)
invoked from within
"eval $action"
Note that it says that it's in an eval, and that points squarely to unsafe script construction. The list command does safe script construction as one of its bonus superpowers.

Procedure tracking in log with proc renaiming

I have a custom test tool written in tcl and bash (mainly in tcl, some initial config and check were done by bash). It isn't have an exact starting point, the outside bash (and sometimes the application which is tested) call specific functions which they find with a "tclIndex" file, created by auto_mkindex.
This tool create a log file, with many "puts" function, which is directed to the file location.
Most of the functions have a "trackBegin" function call at the beginning, and one "trackEnd" function at the end of it. These two get the functions name as parameter. This help us to track where is the problem.
Sadly, this tracker was forgotten in some modification in the near past, and its not even too reliable because its not going to track if there is any abnormal exit in the function. Now, i tried to remove all of them, and create a renamed _proc to override the original and place this two tracker before and after the execution of the function itself.
But i have a lots of error (some i solved, but i dont know its the best way, some are not solved at all, so i'm stuck), these are the main ones:
Because there is no exact entry point, where should i define and how, this overrided proc, to work on all of the procedures in this execution? Some of my files had to be manually modified to _proc to work (mostly the ones where there are code outside the procedures and these files as scripts were called, not functions through the tclIndex, the function called ones are all in a utils folder, and only there, maybe it can help).
In the tracker line i placed a "clock" with format, and its always cause abnormal exit.
I had problems with the returned values (if there was one, and some time when there isn't). Even when that was a return, or Exit.
So my question is in short:
How can i solve an overrided proc function, which will write into a logfile a "begin" and "end" block before and after the procedure itself (The log file location was gained from the bash side of this tool), when there is no clear entry point in this tool for the tcl side, and use an auto_mkindex generated procedure index file?
Thanks,
Roland.
Untested
Assuming your bash script does something like
tclsh file.tcl
You could do
tclsh instrumented.tcl file.tcl
where instrumented.tcl would contain
proc trackBegin {name} {...}
proc trackEnd {name output info} {...}
rename proc _proc
_proc proc {name args body} {
set new_body [format {
trackBegin %s
catch {%s} output info
trackEnd %s $output $info
} $name $body $name]
_proc $name $args $new_body
}
source [lindex $argv 0]
See the return and catch pages for what to do with the info dictionary.
You'll have to show us some of your code to provide more specific help, particularly for your clock error.
I'd be tempted to use execution tracing for this, with the addition of the execution tracing being done in an execution trace on proc (after all, it's just a regular Tcl command). In particular, we can do this:
proc addTracking {cmd args} {
set procName [lindex $cmd 1]
uplevel 1 [list trace add execution $procName enter [list trackBegin $procName]]
uplevel 1 [list trace add execution $procName leave [list trackEnd $procName]]
}
proc trackBegin {name arguments operation} {
# ignore operation, arguments might be interesting
...
}
proc trackEnd {name arguments code output operation} {
# ignore operation, arguments might be interesting
...
}
trace add execution proc leave addTracking
It doesn't give you quite the same information, but it does allow you to staple code around the outside non-invasively.

"info command rtExMath" in Tk with vtk

I am new for Tcl/Tk. I am using vtk with Tk command window for running vtk tcl/tk examples. Here is a code which include Tk expression as condition of if and I am not getting it.
if { [info command rtExMath] != "" } {
##Do something related VTK
}
I have explored info of Tk but there is a combination with keyword command and also no any good explanation I found for rtExMath.
Please explain me above.
The info commands command (info command is just an unambiguous prefix) returns a list of all commands, or a list of all commands that match the given glob pattern. In the case you're looking at, the glob pattern is actually going to be a string-equality check (and is even optimised to such internally); there's no glob metacharacters in it. The result of that is that [info command rtExMath] != "" is a condition that is true exactly when the command rtExMath exists.
Tcl itself does not define any command called rtExMath; I conclude that it must be part of some specialist extension or application. However, Googling makes me suspect that it is actually a somewhat-standard name for an instance of the vtkMath class in Vtk, but I don't really know for sure. (I'm guessing that the binding of that class to Tcl was done by SWIG…)