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This document describes the packaging of Tcl/Tk within the Debian distribution and the policy requirements for Tcl/Tk extensions and packages. This policy has been defined during Jessie release cycle, so pre-Jessie releases can violate this policy in one or more aspects. Backporters are warned.
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At any given time, the binary packages tcl and tk
represent the current default Debian Tcl/Tk version. They contain Tcl and Tk
shells /usr/bin/tclsh and /usr/bin/wish which are
symlinks to the current default version binaries. For backward compatibility
they provide the virtual packages tclsh and wish but
it isn't recommended to reference them in packages dependencies anymore. The
packages tcl and tk are provided by the Debian
tcltk-defaults source package, in order to manage modules and
extensions packaging and upgrading better. Modules should preferably use those
packages when appropriate (i.e. they are either version independent or
properly versioned to inhibit the use of a non compatible versions, see Dependencies, Section 2.2), but it is not mandatory.
The default packages are
tcl
tk
tcl-dev
tk-dev
tcl-doc
tk-doc
The default Debian Tcl/Tk version should always be the latest stable upstream release that can be integrated in the distribution. Starting from 8.0, Tcl and Tk share the same version numbering. The default packages depend on the appropriate versioned packages and provide useful additional symlinks. Default packages versions follow upstream versions, so that packages can use appropriate versioning constraints on them when it is needed.
Apart from the default version, legacy versions of Tcl/Tk may be included as well in the distribution, as long as they are needed by other packages, or as long as it seems reasonable to provide them. (Note: For the scope of this document, Tcl/Tk versions mean the result of 'info tclversion' command, i.e. Tcl/Tk 8.5 and 8.5.14 are subminor versions of the same Tcl/Tk version 8.5, but Tcl 8.6 and 8.5 are indeed different versions. The patchlevel intends the result of the 'info patchlevel' command, i.e. Tcl/Tk 8.5.14 and 8.5.13 have the same version but different patchlevels).
In addition, unstable/development version of Tcl/Tk may be included in the unstable/experimental distribution.
For any version, the main Tcl and Tk packages are called
tclX.Y and
tkX.Y respectively. They are always
packaged as separate sources, as for upstream. Names of related packages or
extensions must follow the same convention if the inclusion of multiple
versions make sense or if they work only with specific versions of Tcl or Tk.
To avoid definition clashes with Debian terminology, we will call modules any Tcl/Tk packages which consist uniquely of Tcl/Tk sources, and extension any program which extends consistently Tcl/Tk using TEA and shared libraries. Note that this is not completely consistent with Tcl terminology, which started from version 8.5 also introduces .tm modules and traditionally deals with packages and script libraries.
For every Tcl/Tk versions provided in the distribution, the packages
libtclX.Y and
libtkX.Y comprise a corresponding Tcl/Tk
libraries, core modules and extensions of the upstream Tcl/Tk distribution.
They provide infrastructure for embedding Tcl into external programs. Any such
packages includes a Provides: item of the virtual package
libtcl and a Provides: item for the libtk
virtual package.
Also, the packages tclX.Y and
tkX.Y ship the binaries
/usr/bin/tclshX.Y,
/usr/bin/wishX.Y. Starting from Jessie they
don't provide alternatives for files /usr/bin/tclsh and
/usr/bin/wish. If an application uses one of those, it has to
depend on tcl or tk package.
Tools and files for the development of Tcl/Tk extensions are split off
in two separate packages tclX.Y-dev and
tkX.Y-dev. Documentation is provided
separately in packages tclX.Y-doc and
tkX.Y-doc.
Tcl/Tk scripts depending on the default Tcl/Tk version (see Main packages, Section 1.2) or not depending on a specific
Tcl/Tk version must use tclsh and/or wish
(unversioned) as the interpreter name and must depend on tcl
and/or tk package.
Tcl/Tk scripts that only work with a specific Tcl/Tk version must explicitly
use the versioned interpreter name (tclshX.Y
and/or wishX.Y) and must depend on the
specific Tcl/Tk versioned package (tclX.Y
and/or tkX.Y respectively).
The path name for the Tcl interpreter is /usr/bin/tclsh or
/usr/bin/tclshX.Y.
The path name for the Tk interpreter is /usr/bin/wish or
/usr/bin/wishX.Y.
If a maintainer would like to provide the user a possibility to override the
Debian Tcl interpreter, he may want to use /usr/bin/env tclsh or
/usr/bin/env tclshX.Y. The same
consideration applies for Tk and the wish interpreter. Starting
from Jessie administrators no longer can override default versions of the
interpreters using update-alternatives, which provided some
flexibility but caused confusion for program maintainers before.
The Tcl and Tk libraries are provided by
libtclX.Y and
libtkX.Y respectively. These packages
install
/usr/lib/$(DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH)/libtclX.Y.so
(soname is libtclX.Y.so) and
/usr/lib/$(DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH)/libtkX.Y.so
(soname is libtkX.Y.so).
Some tools and files for development of Tcl/Tk modules and extensions are
packaged as tclX.Y-dev and
tkX.Y-dev. These packages provide header
files as well as static and stub libraries. Header files are installed in
/usr/include/tclX.Y directory (for both Tcl
and Tk). Default packages tcl-dev and tk-dev provide
symlinks to the right versioned header files directory
/usr/include/tcl -> /usr/include/tclX.Y
/usr/include/tk -> /usr/include/tclX.Y
See net section and Possible issues building Tcl/Tk extensions, Appendix C for more information about possible issues with extension building due to Debian customizations.
The Tcl and Tk libraries and development packages can be installed for several
architectures simultaneously. They ship architecture dependent files in
/usr/lib/$(DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH) directory. See also section Possible issues building Tcl/Tk extensions, Appendix
C for information on how to package multiarchified Tcl/Tk extension.
The package search path (auto_path) for both Tcl and Tk is a list searched in the following order:
/usr/local/lib/tcltk (architecture dependent files)
/usr/local/share/tcltk (architecture independent files)
/usr/lib/tcltk/$(DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH) (architecture dependent files)
/usr/lib/tcltk (architecture dependent files)
/usr/share/tcltk (architecture independent files)
/usr/share/tcltk/tclX.Y
/usr/share/tcltk/tkX.Y (for Tk only)
Maintainers must ensure that modules and extensions are correctly installed in
subdirs of the paths above consistently. See Tcl/Tk modules loading, Appendix B for more
information about Tcl/Tk specific ways of dealing with modules and extensions
loading. Developers must consider that these defaults impact TEA-based modules
and use preferably system-wide tcl.m4 (it isn't TEA-compatible
though) instead of private one (see Possible
issues building Tcl/Tk extensions, Appendix C).
Default packages tcl-doc and tk-doc which depend on
default versioned tclX.Y-doc and
tkX.Y-doc are provided. Since different
tclX.Y-doc and
tkX.Y-doc conflict in files and cannot be
installed simultaneously, tcl-doc and tk-doc only
recommend tclX.Y-doc and
tkX.Y-doc to allow administrators to install
any desirable package with Tcl/Tk manual pages. The package
tcl-doc also includes a copy of the up-to-date version of this
policy.
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Packages should be named by the primary module provided. The naming convention
for a module foo is tcl-foo or
tk-foo when the module is version independent.
The naming convention for a module foo is
tclX.Y-foo or tkX.Y-foo when
the module is version dependent.
If the package already uses the name tclfoo or
tkfoo, that is, naming without Tcl/Tk versioning even
if version-dependent and/or without hyphen, may use the name for now. However,
the package naming proposed above is recommended for consistency.
Packaged modules available for one particular version of Tcl/Tk must depend on
the corresponding libtclX.Y and/or
libtkX.Y package if they don't contain
Tcl/Tk scripts, and on tclX.Y and/or
tkX.Y package if they do.
The recommended dependencies of version-independent packages are the following:
If the package works in all available Tcl/Tk versions it should depend on
libtcl or libtk (tcl or tk
if it includes Tcl/Tk scripts). If the package works for several Tcl/Tk
versions (but not for all) it should depend on all of them alternatively (e.g.
libtcl8.5 | libtcl8.4).
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Programs that can run with any version of Tcl/Tk should be started with
#!/usr/bin/tclsh or #!/usr/bin/wish. They must also
specify a dependency on default packages tcl and/or
tk. You're free to use #!/usr/bin/env tclsh and
#!/usr/bin/env wish, if you'd like to give the user a chance to
override the Debian Tcl/Tk package with a local version.
Programs which require a specific version of Tcl must start with
#!/usr/bin/tclshX.Y. They must also specify
a strict dependency on tclX.Y. Programs
which require a specific version of Tk must start with
#!/usr/bin/wishX.Y. They must also specify
a strict dependency on tkX.Y. Again, if
you're using #!/usr/bin/env tclshX.Y, or
#!/usr/bin/env wishX.Y please be aware that
a user might override the Debian Tcl/Tk packages with a local version and that
release default packages can change also.
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Build dependencies for Tcl/Tk dependent packages must be declared for every Tcl/Tk version, that the package is built for. In order to build for a specific version, add the versioned Tcl/Tk packages dependencies; it is generally better and recommended depending on the appropriate default packages with an eventual strict or relaxed versioning.
Extension packages and applications which link to Tcl/Tk libraries should depend appropriately on one or more of the following packages (with or without additional package version relationships):
tcl-dev
tk-dev
tclX.Y-dev
tkX.Y-dev
For example, tclreadline build dependencies are the following:
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 8.0.0), dpkg-dev (>= 1.16.1~), tcl-dev,
libreadline5-dev, autotools-dev
Module packages, script libraries and Tcl-only applications should depend on the
tcl
tk
tclX.Y
tkX.Y
For example, tcllib build dependencies are the following:
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 8.9.7)
Build-Depends-Indep: tcl
Due to limitations of current autobuild daemon it is forbidden to use build
dependencies on the virtual packages libtcl or libtk
only. These dependencies cannot guarantee consistent build environment, so it
is mandatory to prepend a preferred Tcl/Tk version before each of the virtual
packages.
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Tcl/Tk supports a few alternative ways for modules loading. Modules can be implemented as shared libraries, Tcl/Tk scripts or a combination of them. Generally, specific index scripts are used for that and they need to be placed in a directory included in the auto_path list along with scripts and libraries. Old non-package script libraries require a tclIndex generated with the auto_mkindex Tcl instruction. Packages require a pkgIndex.tcl file generated with the pkg_mkIndex Tcl instruction. Tcl 8.5 introduced Tcl Modules scripts (.tm) which do not require an index script for single file implementations. Another peculiar way of modules providing is based on Starkit and the use of the Tcl Virtual File System (TclVFS). In each of those cases, the maintainer must ensure that the all required files are included and installed in the right place to allow using of the module.
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In order to support this policy, a number of changes have been applied in
upstream init.tcl, tclConfig.sh,
tkConfig.sh and tcl.m4 files. Extensions using TEA
with local copies of tcl.m4, or which use custom guesses about
Tcl/Tk configuration could require explicit use of
--with-tcl=/usr/lib/tclX.Y
--with-tk=/usr/lib/tkX.Y
--with-tclincludes=/usr/include/tclX.Y
or other custom hacks.
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Tcl/Tk has in general a very backward compatible API both at C and commands set
levels. When packaging a module or extension, verify if it requires a specific
minimal version and if it includes run-time checks about that, possibly (which
is always convenient). Scripts can include a package require ?-exact?
Tcl X.Y or package require ?-exact? Tk X.Y, for instance.
In those cases, use a versioned dependency on one of the default packages
(tcl, tk, tcl-dev or
tk-dev), e.g. tcl (>= X.Y).
That is recommend instead of versioned packages dependencies, which are anyway
supported for compatibility with past conventions. Note also that
tk depends on tcl and tk-dev depends on
tcl-dev.
Always install your package stuff in a per-package sub-directory of
/usr/share/tcltk (for scripted modules) and/or
/usr/lib/tcltk (for shared library extensions) along with the
needed index file (see Tcl/Tk modules loading,
Appendix B).
If your package supports multiarch install its index file into a subdirectory
of /usr/lib/tcltk/$(DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH) directory. Tcl/Tk cannot
determine multiarch triplet in runtime, so package indices for different
architectures must differ.
This policy customizes auto_path differently with respect to generic
upstream UNIX platforms, so that you should use preferably system provided
tcl.m4. Occasionally that could either require custom hacks for
non TEA-based building systems, or using --with-tcl or
--with-tk argument for TEA scripts.
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Debian Tcl/Tk Policy
version 0.3.0mailto:frankie@debian.orgmailto:sgolovan@debian.org