Emacs Tcl Mode

Tcl Mode is automatically selected if you visit a file ending in .tcl; you can force Tcl Mode with M-x tcl-mode
Defun and S expression commands customized for Tcl
Parenthesis matching for Tcl brackets
TAB indents line for Tcl code
C-M-q indents an entire Tcl group (like a proc)

Using An Inferior Tcl

An inferior Tcl is Emacs jargon for a Tcl interpreter that's running inside an Emacs buffer.

Invoke an inferior Tcl with

M-x inferior-tcl

or with C-c C-p from Tcl Mode. Most Emacs commands can be used to move around in this buffer. Some commands have special behavior: e.g., C-a and DEL understand the prompt.

History:

M-p and M-n recall the previous and next line, respectively, from the command line history.

Re-editing Previous Command Lines

You can also move directly to a previous command line, re-edit in place (or not) and then execute it by hitting RET. The command is automatically re-executed at the end of the buffer.

Searching for Previous Command Lines

You can use ordinary searching commands (like C-r and C-s), but you can also use the specialized commands M-r and M-s.

Loading Tcl Files

Of course you can load a Tcl source file into the inferior with the Tcl source command, but you can also use C-c C-l, which does completion on the filename in the minibuffer.

Signals

You can send Unix signals to the inferior:

C-c C-c: Sends a SIGINT (same as type C-c from the Unix shell)
C-c C-\e: Sends a SIGQUIT (same as type C-\e from the Unix shell)

C-c C-c is the thing to type if your Tcl code is looping infinitely, for example. C-c C-\e is more extreme, and causes a core dump. Alterntively, you can kill the inferior.

Exiting or Killing the Inferior

You can exit the inferior by giving the Tcl exit command, or by sending end-of-file (EOF) to Tcl with a C-d as the first thing on the command line. You will see the message:

Process inferior-tcl finished

indicating that the Tcl interpretor has been killed.

Alternatively, you can simply kill the Emacs buffer associated with the inferior Tcl (with C-x k); this is a perfectly valid way to exit the Tcl interpreter.

Finally, Emacs will kill the running inferior when you exit Emacs. It will first ask you if that's okay:

Active processes exist; kill them and exit anyway (yes or no)

You should answer yes if you want to exit.

Keith Waclena
The University of Chicago Library
This page last updated: Mon Jul 25 14:14:13 CDT 1994
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