How To Install tcl-tclex on Ubuntu
Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )
4 minutes • 690 words
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install tcl-tclex on Ubuntu.
What is tcl-tclex
tcl-tclex is:
tcLex is a lexer (lexical analyzer) generator extension to Tcl. It is inspired by Unix and GNU lex and flex, which are “tools for generating programs that perform pattern-matching on text”. tcLex is very similar to these programs, except it uses Tcl philosophy and syntax, whereas the others use their own syntax and are used in conjunction with the C language. People used to lex or flex should then feel familiar with tcLex. tcLex is a small extension (the Windows compiled version is about 20kb, and the source is about 150kb), because it extensively uses the Tcl library. However, the current doesn’t use Tcl’s regexp code anymore but a patched version is now included in tcLex, which makes it slightly bigger (by a few KB). tcLex should work with Tcl 8.0 and later. tcLex will NEVER work with earlier versions, because it uses Tcl 8.0’s “object” system for performance. The most interesting features are:
cross-platform support, thanks to Tcl. Though it has been developed on Windows and tested on Windows and Unix only, it should work on other platforms as long as Tcl exists on these platforms. Supported Tcl platforms are Windows 95/NT, Unix (Linux, Solaris…) and Macintosh. Other platforms are VMS, OS/2, NeXTStep, Amiga…
unlike lex and flex, which only generate static lexers written in C and intended to be compiled, tcLex dynamically generates Tcl commands that can be used like other C commands or Tcl procedures from within Tcl scripts or C programs.
it uses Tcl regular expressions. That means you don’t have to learn another regexp language.
it works with Tcl namespaces
the generated lexer commands can be used in one pass or incrementally, because they maintain state information. That way, several instances of the same lexer (eg a HTML parser) can run at the same time in distinct call frames and maintain distinct states (local variables…). Lexer need not be specially designed in order to be used incrementally, the same lexer can transparently be used in one pass or incrementally. This feature is especially useful when processing text from a file or an Internet socket (Web pages for example), when data is not necessarily available at the beginning of the processing.
There are three methods to install tcl-tclex on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install tcl-tclex Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install tcl-tclex using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install tcl-tclex
Install tcl-tclex Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install tcl-tclex using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install tcl-tclex
Install tcl-tclex Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install tcl-tclex using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install tcl-tclex
How To Uninstall tcl-tclex on Ubuntu
To uninstall only the tcl-tclex package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove tcl-tclex
Uninstall tcl-tclex And Its Dependencies
To uninstall tcl-tclex and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove tcl-tclex
Remove tcl-tclex Configurations and Data
To remove tcl-tclex configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge tcl-tclex
Remove tcl-tclex configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove tcl-tclex configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge tcl-tclex
Dependencies
tcl-tclex have the following dependencies:
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install tcl-tclex package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.