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wish(1tk)




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NAME

       wish - Simple windowing shell


SYNOPSIS

       wish ?fileName arg arg ...?


OPTIONS

       -colormap new       Specifies that the window should have a new private
                           colormap instead of using the default colormap  for
                           the screen.

       -display display    Display (and screen) on which to display window.

       -geometry geometry  Initial geometry to use for window.  If this option
                           is specified, its value is stored in  the  geometry
                           global  variable  of  the  application's Tcl inter-
                           preter.

       -name name          Use name as the title to be displayed in  the  win-
                           dow,  and  as  the name of the interpreter for send
                           commands.

       -sync               Execute all X  server  commands  synchronously,  so
                           that  errors  are  reported immediately.  This will
                           result in much slower execution, but it  is  useful
                           for debugging.

       -use                                                                    |
       id                                                                 |    |
                           Specifies that the main window for the  application |
                           is to be embedded in the window whose identifier is |
                           id, instead of  being  created  as  an  independent |
                           toplevel  window.  Id must be specified in the same |
                           way as the value for the -use option  for  toplevel |
                           widgets  (i.e.  it has a form like that returned by |
                           the winfo id command).

       -visual visual      Specifies the visual to use for the window.  Visual
                           may   have  any  of  the  forms  supported  by  the
                           Tk_GetVisual procedure.

       --                  Pass  all  remaining  arguments  through   to   the
                           script's  argv  variable without interpreting them.
                           This provides a  mechanism  for  passing  arguments
                           such  as  -name  to a script instead of having wish
                           interpret them.
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DESCRIPTION

       Wish is a simple program consisting of the Tcl command language, the Tk
       toolkit,  and a main program that reads commands from standard input or
       from a file.  It creates a main window and then processes Tcl commands.
       If  wish  is  invoked  with no arguments, or with a first argument that
       starts with ``-'', then it reads Tcl commands interactively from  stan-
       dard  input.   It  will  continue processing commands until all windows
       have been deleted or until end-of-file is reached  on  standard  input.
       If  there exists a file .wishrc in the home directory of the user, wish
       evaluates the file as a Tcl script just before reading the  first  com-
       mand from standard input.

       If  wish is invoked with an initial fileName argument, then fileName is
       treated as the name of a script file.  Wish will evaluate the script in
       fileName  (which  presumably  creates  a  user interface), then it will
       respond to events until all windows have been deleted.   Commands  will
       not  be  read from standard input.  There is no automatic evaluation of
       .wishrc when the name of a script file is presented on the wish command
       line, but the script file can always source it if desired.


OPTIONS

       Wish  automatically processes all of the command-line options described
       in the OPTIONS summary above.  Any other command-line arguments besides
       these  are  passed  through  to the application using the argc and argv
       variables described later.


APPLICATION NAME AND CLASS

       The name of the application, which is used for purposes  such  as  send
       commands,  is  taken from the -name option, if it is specified;  other-
       wise it is taken from fileName, if it is specified, or from the command
       name  by  which  wish  was invoked.  In the last two cases, if the name
       contains a ``/'' character, then only the  characters  after  the  last
       slash are used as the application name.

       The class of the application, which is used for purposes such as speci-
       fying options with a RESOURCE_MANAGER property or .Xdefaults  file,  is
       the same as its name except that the first letter is capitalized.


VARIABLES

       Wish sets the following Tcl variables:

       argc           Contains  a  count  of the number of arg arguments (0 if
                      none), not including the options described above.

       argv           Contains a Tcl list whose elements are the arg arguments
                      that  follow  a  --  option  or  don't  match any of the
                      options described in OPTIONS  above,  in  order,  or  an
                      empty string if there are no such arguments.

       argv0          Contains  fileName if it was specified.  Otherwise, con-
                      tains the name by which wish was invoked.

       geometry       If the -geometry option is specified,  wish  copies  its
                      value  into this variable.  If the variable still exists
                      after fileName has been evaluated, wish uses  the  value
                      of the variable in a wm geometry command to set the main
                      window's geometry.

       tcl_interactive
                      Contains 1 if wish  is  reading  commands  interactively
                      (fileName was not specified and standard input is a ter-
                      minal-like device), 0 otherwise.


SCRIPT FILES

       If you create a Tcl script in a file whose first line is
              #!/usr/local/bin/wish
       then you can invoke the script file directly from  your  shell  if  you
       mark  it  as  executable.  This assumes that wish has been installed in
       the default location in /usr/local/bin;  if  it's  installed  somewhere
       else  then  you'll  have  to modify the above line to match.  Many UNIX
       systems do not allow the #! line  to  exceed  about  30  characters  in
       length,  so  be  sure  that  the wish executable can be accessed with a
       short file name.

       An even better approach is to start your script files with the  follow-
       ing three lines:
              #!/bin/sh
              # the next line restarts using wish \
              exec wish "$0" "$@"
       This  approach  has  three advantages over the approach in the previous
       paragraph.  First, the location of the wish binary doesn't have  to  be
       hard-wired  into  the  script:  it can be anywhere in your shell search
       path.  Second, it gets around the 30-character file name limit  in  the
       previous  approach.   Third,  this  approach  will work even if wish is
       itself a shell script (this is done on some systems in order to  handle
       multiple  architectures  or operating systems:  the wish script selects
       one of several binaries to run).  The three lines  cause  both  sh  and
       wish  to  process  the script, but the exec is only executed by sh.  sh
       processes the script first;  it treats the second line as a comment and
       executes  the  third  line.  The exec statement cause the shell to stop
       processing and instead to start up wish to reprocess the entire script.
       When  wish  starts up, it treats all three lines as comments, since the
       backslash at the end of the second line causes the  third  line  to  be
       treated as part of the comment on the second line.

       The  end  of  a script file may be marked either by the physical end of |
       the medium, or by the character, '\032' ('\u001a', control-Z).  If this |
       character  is  present in the file, the wish application will read text |
       up to but not including the character.  An  application  that  requires |
       this  character  in  the  file  may encode it as ``\032'', ``\x1a'', or |
       ``\u001a''; or may generate it by use of commands  such  as  format  or |
       binary.


PROMPTS

       When wish is invoked interactively it normally prompts for each command
       with ``% ''.  You can  change  the  prompt  by  setting  the  variables
       tcl_prompt1  and  tcl_prompt2.   If variable tcl_prompt1 exists then it
       must consist of a Tcl script to output a prompt;  instead of outputting
       a  prompt  wish  will evaluate the script in tcl_prompt1.  The variable
       tcl_prompt2 is used in a similar way when a newline is  typed  but  the
       current  command  isn't  yet complete; if tcl_prompt2 isn't set then no
       prompt is output for incomplete commands.


KEYWORDS

       shell, toolkit

Tk                                    8.0                              wish(1)

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