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wish ,wishx and Tcl Tk
- Thread starter 2001solu
- Start date
wish is the Tk shell. Usually it is installed as wish8.3 or wish83 or something like that where 8.3 is the version number. I don't know what wishx is but it sounds like either 'x=version number' or else wishx is a tk extention. Bob Rashkin
rrashkin@csc.com
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As Bong said, wish is a standard Tcl interpreter that has built-in support for Tk, the extension for creating graphical user interfaces. When you install Tcl, you don't actually get an executable named "wish". Instead, the major/minor version numbers are appended to the end (for example, wish8.3 on Unix or wish83 on Windows). Most systems administrators then create a link or alias pointing wish to the most recent version of Tcl's wish that's installed.
On the other hand, wishx is a wish interpreter that's been extended to have built-in support for the TclX extension. TclX adds numerous useful features (and many features originally introduced in TclX eventually were added to the Tcl core), but the reason TclX is used most often these days is to get access to Unix system calls like fork(). These days, the use of wishx is deprecated. Instead, most people start a standard wish and then include near the beginning of their application the line:
to dynamically load the TclX extension. But if your application is still using wishx, it might be using versions of Tcl and TclX that are so old that you can't dynamically load TclX with the package command.
To get started with Tcl/Tk, you might want to check out The Tcler's Wiki, a collaboratively edited collection of pages at (or equivalently, Another place to check would be the Tcl Developer's Xchange at although that site is starting to suffer a bit of link rot.
The "bible" for Tcl is Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 3rd ed. by Brent Welch, ISBN 0-13-022028-0, an immensely useful book which I highly recommend. However, a better way to learn Tcl from scratch is Teach Yourself Tcl/Tk in 24 Hours by Venkat V. S. Sastry and Lakshmi Sastry, ISBN 0672317494.
You can get an overview of TclX at The commands are also described in the O'Reilly book Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell, by Paul Raines and Jeff Trainer, ISBN 1-56592-433-9. - Ken Jones, President
Avia Training and Consulting
866-TCL-HELP (866-825-4357) US Toll free
415-643-8692 Voice
415-643-8697 Fax
On the other hand, wishx is a wish interpreter that's been extended to have built-in support for the TclX extension. TclX adds numerous useful features (and many features originally introduced in TclX eventually were added to the Tcl core), but the reason TclX is used most often these days is to get access to Unix system calls like fork(). These days, the use of wishx is deprecated. Instead, most people start a standard wish and then include near the beginning of their application the line:
Code:
package require Tclxto dynamically load the TclX extension. But if your application is still using wishx, it might be using versions of Tcl and TclX that are so old that you can't dynamically load TclX with the package command.
To get started with Tcl/Tk, you might want to check out The Tcler's Wiki, a collaboratively edited collection of pages at (or equivalently, Another place to check would be the Tcl Developer's Xchange at although that site is starting to suffer a bit of link rot.
The "bible" for Tcl is Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 3rd ed. by Brent Welch, ISBN 0-13-022028-0, an immensely useful book which I highly recommend. However, a better way to learn Tcl from scratch is Teach Yourself Tcl/Tk in 24 Hours by Venkat V. S. Sastry and Lakshmi Sastry, ISBN 0672317494.
You can get an overview of TclX at The commands are also described in the O'Reilly book Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell, by Paul Raines and Jeff Trainer, ISBN 1-56592-433-9. - Ken Jones, President
Avia Training and Consulting
866-TCL-HELP (866-825-4357) US Toll free
415-643-8692 Voice
415-643-8697 Fax
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