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We are pleased to announce the 13th Annual Tcl/Tk conference (Tcl'2006), sponsored by Noumena Corporation , Digital Smarties , Eolas Technologies and ActiveState . libtclsh.a: A single file solution for embedding the Tcl InterpreterAuthor: Clif FlyntAbstractSeveral wrapping solutions have been presented to the community over the years. These include Jan Nijtman's original wrap program, TOBE, StarKits, ProWrap, and FreeWrap. These solutions are ideal for a script developer who needs to distribute an executable version of his application with the Tcl interpreter wrapped around it. They are not suited to providing a C/FORTRAN/ADA/Whatever developer with a single library to link with to gain access to the Tcl interpreter. The libtclsh.a solution is to pack the contents of the tcl libraries into a memory structure, use a virtual file system to mount the memory image as a /mem directory into the Tcl interpreter and then redirect all the initialization to the /mem filesystem. This initialization is similar to the approach used in Starkits, TOBE, etc, but reduces the level of external code required. Using a C structure to hold Tcl files was used by the Borenstein/Rose SafeTcl interpreter. The pure ASCII representation of all the data in the Tcl initialization libraries is large (about 4 Meg), and leaves all the Tcl scripts (possibly including proprietry algorithms in the application) open to easy examination. The libtclsh.a library maintains the memory image in a compressed format, reducing the memory footprint and restricting access to the Tcl scripts contents. The paper will discuss the implementation and applications of this idea. Applications include providing FORTRAN developers a single library to link to for Network support and rapid-prototyping GUIs in Tcl for use by C++ developers. Conference Committee
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