tclsh problem

[LinuxDummie]

I'm using tcl8.4 and I'm trying to do a little tclsh scripting.

I'm trying to execute a shell command using a tcl variable that has embedded spaces.

% set x "file1 file2"
file1 file2
% cp $x
/bin/cp: missing destination file operand after `file1 file2'
Try `/bin/cp --help' for more information.
child process exited abnormally

I've tried this as well, with no luck:

% [cp $x]
% cp "$x"
% exec "cp $x"

Anyone know how I can do this??

[drl]

Hi.

This seemed to work for me:

% tclsh8.4
% rm data1 data2
% echo hi >data1
% cat data1
hi
% cat data2
/bin/cat: data2: No such file or directory
child process exited abnormally
% set x "data1 data2"
data1 data2
% eval cp $x
% cat data2
hi

Milld warning: I rarely use tcl, and almost never interactively, so there may be far better ways to do this, although this seems straightforward. I noticed that this did not seem to work in a tclsh script, but I did not attempt to solve that problem ... cheers, drl

[drl]

Hi.

This isn't pretty:

#!/usr/bin/env tclsh

# @(#) s3     Demonstrate tclsh execution of shell command.

puts ""
puts " Version tclsh: $tcl_version "

set x "data1 data2"
puts [exec rm -f data1 data2]
exec echo hi >data1

puts " Files found:"
puts [exec ls -CF]

puts ""
puts " Contents of data1:"
puts [exec cat data1]
puts [exec bash -c "cp $x"]

puts " Results of copying to data2:"
puts [exec cat data2]

but it produces:

% ./s3

 Version tclsh: 8.4

 Files found:
data1  readme.txt  s1*  s2*  s3*

 Contents of data1:
hi

 Results of copying to data2:
hi

From which you can extract the core ideas you need. I found the links on page comp.lang.tcl FAQ Launch Page to be useful.

In particular, the FAQs suggest that small procedures are very useful to use in tclsh scripts ... cheers, drl

[LinuxDummie]

Thank you very much!