Accessing the tclkit executable in a starpack

[Paul]

Hi,

I want to distribute a Tcl app as a starpack. The computer that it
will be used on won't have Tcl installed on it, but of course, Tcl
will be in the starpack.

What I want to do is, from a tcl script within the starpack, kick off
another tcl process, using the tcl interpreter contained within the
starpack.

If I could do something like [open "|internal_tclkit external.tcl" r
+], that would be great, where internal_tclkit is the tclkit contained
within the starpack, and external.tcl is a tcl script that resides
outside the starpack.

Is something like this possible?

Thanks,

Paul.

(Actually, I would prefer to be able to kick off another process using
the internal tclkit and also an internal tcl script, but I've already
found out that's not posiible.)

[Neil]

If I understand you correctly, you can launch both of those using the
starpack.

Make a folder structure (mine has main.tcl in the root, with a /lib
below that).

---- main.tcl ----
package require starkit

if {[llength $::argv]==1 && [string length [lindex $::argv 0]] &&
[file exist [lindex $::argv 0]]} {
source [lindex $::argv 0]
exit
}

puts "Running remainder of script"
---- /main.tcl ----

Then put a 'hello world' script in the lib directory (i named it
int.tcl, and made a copy outside the whole thing called ext.tcl).

Pack it all up into an exe. If I run that as follows, I get this:

C:\dev\tcl\template>extlaunch.exe ext.tcl
hello

C:\dev\tcl\template>extlaunch.exe extlaunch.exe/lib/int.tcl
hello

Note, to run the internal file, you use the exe name as the base
directory...

Next, if you want to open a new process from your exe running one of
the scripts, you just change the 'Running remainder of script' line
with:
exec [info nameofexecutable] ext.tcl
or
exec [info nameofexecutable] [file join [info nameofexecutable] lib
int.tcl]

You'd probably be best off using cmdline for the options, and
accepting a -source option, or similar, and obviously you want to
merge this with a proper main.tcl; but essentially, all you do is
source/exec the script *if it's passed*, then exit; or go on with your
app otherwise.