How can I avoid an error: No such environment variable? - tcl

In my code I am using environment variables, but if it (env.var) doesn't exist, I get the error message NAME_ENV_VAR: no such variable, and my script stops executing.
For example, in the line
myeval $env($File)
I receive an error:
can't read "env(NIKE_TECH_DIR)": no such variable
while executing
"myeval $env($File)"
(procedure "chooseRelevantFiles" line 39)
invoked from within
"chooseRelevantFiles $::GlobalVars::reqStage"
(file "/vobs/tavor/src/Scripts/ReproduceBug.tcl" line 575)
How can I avoid this error and go on to execute my script?

You could test with info exists and use a default if the environment variable is not set, eg.
if {[info exists env($File)]} {
set filename $env($File)
} else {
set filename /some/default/path
}
myeval $filename

catch the error then you can do something with it (e.g. log it for later, or use a fall back value) and proceed with your script
e.g.
if {[catch {myeval $env($File)} result]} {
lappend log $result
}
#other stuff

To check for of an array element like global env array, don't use [info exists $env(VAR)].
Instead, you should use:
if { [ array names env VAR ] != "" } {
puts "\nVAR exists and its value is $env(VAR)\n"
}

Related

Tcl: how does this proc return a value?

I'm modifying the code below, but I have no idea how it works - enlightenment welcome. The issue is that there is a proc in it (cygwin_prefix) which is meant to create a command, by either
leaving a filename unmodified, or
prepending a string to the filename
The problem is that the proc returns nothing, but the script magically still works. How? Specifically, how does the line set command [cygwin_prefix filter_g] actually manage to correctly set command?
For background, the script simply execs filter_g < foo.txt > foo.txt.temp. However, historically (this no longer seems to be the case) this didn't work on Cygwin, so it instead ran /usr/bin/env tclsh filter_g < foo.txt > foo.txt.temp. The script as shown 'works' on both Linux (Tcl 8.5) and Cygwin (Tcl 8.6).
Thanks.
#!/usr/bin/env tclsh
proc cygwin_prefix { file } {
global cygwin
if {$cygwin} {
set status [catch { set fpath [eval exec which $file] } result ]
if { $status != 0 } {
puts "which error: '$result'"
exit 1
}
set file "/usr/bin/env tclsh $fpath"
}
set file
}
set cygwin 1
set filein foo.txt
set command [cygwin_prefix filter_g]
set command "$command < $filein > $filein.temp"
set status [catch { eval exec $command } result ]
if { $status != 0 } {
puts "filter error: '$result'"
exit 1
}
exit 0
The key to your question is two-fold.
If a procedure doesn't finish with return (or error, of course) the result of the procedure is the result of the last command executed in that procedure's body.
(Or the empty string, if no commands were executed. Doesn't apply in this case.)
This is useful for things like procedures that just wrap commands:
proc randomPick {list} {
lindex $list [expr { int(rand() * [llength $list]) }]
}
Yes, you could add in return […] but it just adds clutter for something so short.
The set command, with one argument, reads the named variable and produces the value inside the var as its result.
A very long time ago (around 30 years now) this was how all variables were read. Fortunately for us, the $… syntax was added which is much more convenient in 99.99% of all cases. The only place left where it's sometimes sensible is with computed variable names, but most of the time there's a better option even there too.
The form you see with set file at the end of a procedure instead of return $file had currency for a while because it produced slightly shorter bytecode. By one unreachable opcode. The difference in bytecode is gone now. There's also no performance difference, and never was (especially by comparison with the weight of exec which launches subprocesses and generally does a lot of system calls!)
It's not required to use eval for exec. Building up a command as a list will protect you from, for example, path items that contain a space. Here's a quick rewrite to demonstrate:
proc cygwin_prefix { file } {
if {$::cygwin} {
set status [catch { set fpath [exec which $file] } result]
if { $status != 0 } {
error "which error: '$result'"
}
set file [list /usr/bin/env tclsh $fpath]
}
return $file
}
set cygwin 1
set filein foo.txt
set command [cygwin_prefix filter_g]
lappend command "<" $filein ">" $filein.temp
set status [catch { exec {*}$command } result]
if { $status != 0 } {
error "filter error: '$result'"
}
This uses {*} to explode the list into individual words to pass to exec.

Why is ::cmdline::getoptions throwing an error?

Why does the following code:
#!/usr/bin/env tclsh
package require cmdline;
set options {{d.arg "" "destination directory"}}
set usage ": $::argv0 \[options] filename ...\noptions:"
set params [::cmdline::getoptions ::argv $options $usage]
throw the following error upon execution of ./main.tcl -help?
main : ./main.tcl [options] filename ...
options:
-d value destination directory <>
-help Print this message
-? Print this message
while executing
"error [usage $optlist $usage]"
(procedure "::cmdline::getoptions" line 15)
invoked from within
"::cmdline::getoptions ::argv $options $usage"
invoked from within
"set params [::cmdline::getoptions ::argv $options $usage]"
(file "./main.tcl" line 8)
It should display the usage information, but I didn't expect the error afterwards. Did I do something wrong?
From what I understand from the docs (emphasis mine):
The options -?, -help, and -- are implicitly understood. The first two abort option processing by throwing an error and force the generation of the usage message, whereas the the last aborts option processing without an error, leaving all arguments coming after for regular processing, even if starting with a dash.
using -help or -? will always throw an error.
Further down in the docs you can see an example where try { ... } trap { ... } is being used in conjunction with ::cmdline::getoptions, which might be how you might want to do it:
try {
array set params [::cmdline::getoptions ::argv $options $usage]
} trap {CMDLINE USAGE} {msg o} {
# Trap the usage signal, print the message, and exit the application.
# Note: Other errors are not caught and passed through to higher levels!
puts $msg
exit 1
}

Assigning value to a variable only if argv specified in TCL

I am new to the TCL scripting .I have a script called "Sample.tcl". In the Sample.tcl I have a variable called $name. How can I assign a value to the variable if there exist a specific argv i.e.
Sample.tcl -step xyz
Only if I specify -step then $name should be xyz.
I'm not sure what $name might be in this context (it's a really unusual name for a variable, and using variable variable names is typically a bad idea) but under the guess that you're trying to set step to xyz in this case, you can put this in your script:
apply {{} {
# For each pair of values in the arguments (after the script name)
global argv
foreach {key value} $argv {
# Safety-check: if the key starts with a hyphen...
if {[string match -* $key]} {
# ... strip the leading hyphen(s)
set varname [string trimleft $key "-"]
# ... bind that global var name to a local name
upvar 1 $varname var
# ... and set the variable to the value we've got.
set var $value
}
}
}}
It's done in an apply so that we don't pollute the global namespace with all our working variables (key, value, varname and var) and because we don't really need to make a procedure for something we're only going to do once.
This isn't a safe piece of code, not by any means, but it is a useful and flexible way to get something working.
In general, parsing command line arguments can take quite a bit of thought to get perfectly right and there's various packages to help out, but that's only really important when writing code for other people to run. When it's just for yourself, you can be a lot sloppier and get the job done in a few minutes.
Using the cmdline package from tcllib you could write:
#!/usr/bin/env tclsh
package require cmdline
set options {
{step.arg "" "Set the step value"}
}
try {
array set params [cmdline::getoptions argv $options]
} on error e {
puts stderr $e
exit 1
}
if {$params(step) ne ""} {
set name $params(step)
}
if {[info exists name]} {
puts "name = $name"
} else {
puts "name is not set"
}

info exists command in Tcl returns an error

I wrote the following code in itcl
if {[info exists ::xtg::triggers::match$arg]} {
eval delete object ::xtg::triggers::match$arg
}
this code should check if there exists an object of name ::xtg::triggers::match$arg and delete it if it exists.
The problem is that I get the following error in my shell :
" command "match0" already exists in namespace "::xtg::Triggers" "
and not 1 or 0 as written in the manual of info exists command.
How can I fix this problem?
info exists checks for existing variables, not commands (incl. object commands).
Try:
if {[info commands ::xtg::triggers::match$arg] ne ""} {
# ...
}
You might also want to consider Itcl's info objects:
if {::xtg::triggers::match$arg in [info objects]} {
# ...
}
or
if {[info objects ::xtg::triggers::match$arg] ne ""} {
# ...
}
(assuming that you call [info objects] for the correct namespace scope)

Why can't I access errorInfo and errorCode

I have the following code:
$ cat ~/tmp/2.tcl
set zero 0
proc p1 {} {
if {[catch {expr 1/$zero} err]} {
puts "errorCode=$errorCode"
puts "errorInfo=$errorInfo"
}
}
p1
When I source it, I get error accessing errorCode:
$ tclsh ~/tmp/2.tcl
can't read "errorCode": no such variable
while executing
"puts "errorCode=$errorCode""
(procedure "p1" line 3)
invoked from within
"p1"
(file "~/tmp/2.tcl" line 9)
I tried changing to $::errorCode, but did not help.
Can you see what is wrong?
The errorInfo and errorCode variables are globals. You should either use the global command to bring them into scope or use their fully-qualified names (i.e., precede with ::).
It might be easier to pick the information out of the result options dictionary (a new feature in 8.5).
Starting from Tcl 8.5 [catch] doesn't set the errorCode and errorInfo global variables. (As Donal has pointed out, it still does, so they can be accessed as $::errorCode and $::errorInfo). And in addition it puts their values into a dictionary which name is to be specified as the third argument. The following code
#!/usr/bin/tclsh
set zero 0
proc p1 {} {
if {[catch {expr 1/$zero} err opts] == 1} {
puts "errorCode=[dict get $opts -errorcode]"
puts "errorInfo=[dict get $opts -errorinfo]"
}
}
p1
prints
errorCode=NONE
errorInfo=can't read "zero": no such variable
while executing
"expr 1/$zero"
in Tcl 8.5.19, and
errorCode=TCL READ VARNAME
errorInfo=can't read "zero": no such variable
while executing
"expr 1/$zero"
in Tcl8.6.6.
You'd probably want to use $::zero in the division after which the result would be
errorCode=ARITH DIVZERO {divide by zero}
errorInfo=divide by zero
while executing
"expr 1/$::zero"