Why is searching an element with "[]" in a list == -1?

[firelex]

Hello all!

I have such a script
[tt]
.......
set list {{a b} {a b (c)} {a b ([d])}}
puts stdout "$list"

foreach el $list {
puts stdout &quot;<$el> --> [lsearch $list $el]&quot;
}
puts stdout &quot;[lsearch $list {a b ([d])}]&quot;
.......
[/tt]

Why is searching of the last element of the list always [tt]-1[/tt]?

Thanks.

 

[Bong]

I don't know why but if you change &quot;[d]&quot; to &quot;(d)&quot; it works fine. I think the [] is trying to invoke &quot;d&quot;? Bob Rashkin
rrashkin@csc.com

 

[marsd]

Right.
This may seem to work:
lsearch -regexp $list &quot;\[d\]&quot;

But really it doesn't work either.
set list {a b} {a b (c) dd} {a b ([d])}
lsearch -regexp $list &quot;\[d\]&quot;
1

This is a problem and the fix is somewhat
complicated.
Try this thread:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...l1%24cli%241%40bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com&rnum=14

 

[firelex]

Thanks, marsd!
It was a good example, but I've found yesterday that -->
[tt]
.......
set list {{a b} {a b (c)} {a b ([d])}}
puts stdout &quot;$list&quot;

foreach el $list {
puts stdout &quot;<$el> --> [lsearch -exact $list $el]&quot;
}
puts stdout &quot;[lsearch -exact $list {a b ([d])}]&quot;
.......
[/tt]

works also. Really incredible .............

 

[AviaTraining]

Yes, using the lsearch -exact option is by far the easiest and safest way to search, as long as you don't need wildcard abilities in the pattern. lsearch can be a bit confusing, as it's one of the few commonly-used commands that I can think of that defaults to glob-style matching (that is, the same wildcards as supported by the string match command).

By the way, Tcl 8.4 added several useful new options to the lsearch command. You might want to check out the reference page at

http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TclCmd/lsearch.htm

to find out more about them. - Ken Jones, President, ken@avia-training.com
Avia Training and Consulting,

http://www.avia-training.com

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