NAME

dmh85, dmh86 - Version specific names of dmh_wish

libdmh85.so, libdmh85.sl, dmh85.dll, dmh86.dll, etc. - version specific shared libraries for dynamic loading

SYNOPSIS

dmh85 ?options? ?arg arg ...?

OPTIONS

-colormap new

For X-windows platforms, specifies that the window should have a new private colormap instead of using the default colormap for the screen.

-console

Enable using console input with an input file. Without this option, console input is disabled when an input file is specified.  Prior to September 2014, on Unix systems, this flag simply caused console IO in the terminal window to be enabled.  Post September 2014 on Unix systems, this argument causes a Tk based console window to be created that replaces using the terminal window as a console.  This behavior is now similar to Windows where a Tk based console window is always created and available.  The Tk based console window on Windows and Unix is shown if there is no file input or if the command console show is executed.  The Tk based console window has the advantages of properly handling command history editing with cursor movements and providing readily accessible handling of both console input and output.

-display display

For X-windows platforms, the display (and screen) on which to display window. Ignored if -notk is specified.

-encoding name

Specifies the encoding of the text stored in fileName.

-file fileName

Read commands from fileName rather than standard input. The last element in fileName will be used as the title for the application and name of its interpreter for send commands (unless overridden by the -name option).

When the -file option is used without the -console option, console input is disabled on POSIX systems, and the console is hidden on NT systems.

-geometry geometry

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

-help

Print a summary of the command-line options and exit.

-msgargs

Execute the command line arguments that are not options as SEMATECH Generic Server message commands. When used with the -file option, if the -msgargs option is first on the command line, the commands are executed first, before the file is sourced. Similarly, if the -file option appears first, the file is sourced first. This feature is used by Tcl application scripts such as the Datahub to provide command line usage which is compatible with legacy SEMATECH applications.

-name name

Use name as the title to be displayed in the window, and as the name of the interpreter for send commands. Ignored if -notk is specified.

-notk

Do not connect to the X server. This mode is useful for daemon/server processes. On Windows, the Tk windowing software is still loaded and initialized, but the windows are hidden. A Windows developer can achieve results closer to a true background process by running as a service.

-sync

On X-Windows platforms, execute all display server commands synchronously, so that errors are reported immediately. This will result in much slower execution, but it is useful for debugging. Ignored if -notk is specified.

-tclargs

Evalute the command line arguments that are not options as Tcl statements. When used with the -file option, if the -tclargs option preceeds the -file option on the command line, the statements are evaluated before the file is sourced. Similarly, if the -file option appears first, the file is sourced first.

-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). Note that on some platforms this will only work correctly if id refers to a Tk frame or toplevel that has its -container option enabled.

DESCRIPTION

The Hume Integration Datahub SDK installs an extended Tcl/Tk program having a version specific name such as dmh85 as well as installing the same program under the version independent name dmh_wish. Dmh_wish is a single program consisting of the Tcl command language, the Tk toolkit, DMH mailbox messaging extensions, Hume Datahub extensions, and logic that reads commands from standard input or from a file. By default, it creates a main window and then processes Tcl commands. If dmh_wish is invoked with no -f option then it reads Tcl commands interactively from standard input. It will continue processing commands until all windows have been deleted or until end-of-file is reached on standard input.

When used interactively, if there exists a file .dmhrc in the home directory of the user, dmh_wish evaluates the file as a Tcl script just before reading the first command from standard input. On Windows NT, the home directory is established by creating the environment variable HOME, with a value of a Unix style slash delimited pathname such as c:/users/joe. Use the Control Panel application System or the Tcl command regset to do this.

If the -file option is used, then dmh_wish reads Tcl commands from the file named in the -file option. These commands will normally create an interactive interface consisting of one or more widgets. When the end of the command file is reached, dmh_wish will continue to respond to window events until all windows have been deleted. There is no automatic evaluation of .dmhrc in this case, but the script file can always source it if desired.

Automatic Loading of Packages

This feature has the following advantages for deploying your applications:

• The correct Tcl/Tk executable is run instead of one chosen by the command interpreter working with a script or batch file.
• The user can run the application without having a batch file, a command line argument, or a program start menu item that specifies a script to run.  For example, he can double-click on the executable name from a file system browser.
• On windows, you do not have to code around problems with passing command line arguments in a .bat file.
• Task manager or process status lists show directly which applications are running.
• You do not have to code installation paths into batch or script files, or use environment variables to pass them.  The package loading mechanism will find the correct version of your package and its associated files under the Tcl/Tk library directory.
• You can customize pkgIndex.tcl files so that the executable version is run with the correct version of your application.  For example, you can add a statement such as if { [package provide Tcl] < 8.5 } return to the beginning of the file to prevent versions earlier than 8.5 from using the package.

Dynamic Loading of the DMH Package

ENVIRONMENT

Recent versions of Tcl/Tk are built with shared libraries on all platforms. On Windows, the shared library DLL files are found by the operating system in the same directory as the executable. On POSIX systems, the shared libraries are found by the operating system if they are installed in the system directories, /lib, /usr/lib, or /usr/local/lib. If the libraries are installed elsewhere, an environment variable must be set. The proper environment variable differs for the specific operating system:

AIX

LIBPATH

# example
LIBPATH=$LIBPATH:$pwd/usr/local/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export LIBPATH

HP-UX

SHLIB_PATH

# example
SHLIB_PATH=$SHLIB_PATH:$pwd/usr/local/lib; export SHLIB_PATH

Linux

LD_RUN_PATH

# example
LD_RUN_PATH=$LD_RUN_PATH:$pwd/usr/local/lib; export LD_RUN_PATH

SunOS/Solaris

LD_LIBRARY_PATH

# example
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$pwd/usr/local/lib; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

The following environment variables affect various aspects of using Tcl/Tk and the DMH package. For convenience, this list includes items that are more closely related to other programs and application scripts than to dmh_wish.

DMH_BIN

This variable gives the path where the DMH executable programs and application scripts are found. The path defaults to /usr/local/bin. If the DMH_BIN variable value is not correct, the invocation of certain script applications such as the datahub will fail.

DMH_LIBRARY

Ordinarily the directory containing the DMH runtime library is found relative to the executable program, as in "../lib/dmh85/". In unusual circumstances such as when using DMH in an application that is not in the DMH_BIN directory, the environment variable DMH_LIBRARY can be defined to override the usual search, or to indicate a specific runtime library directory. Once the DMH software is successfully initialized, the variable ::dmh::dmh_library shows the directory that is being used.

HUB_MAX_FIELD

In order to prevent excessive memory usage, the hub table display logic limits the requested initial display width in characters for each column to 200.  The user can override this value by setting the environment variable HUB_MAX_FIELD.

HUB_MAX_WIDTH

The hub table display logic computes an initial window width based on the table data and the available screen width.  On very large screens, large tables can be inconveniently wide.   A user can set the maximum width in pixels by setting the environment variable HUB_MAX_WIDTH.

HUB_ROW_MAX

In order to prevent excessive memory usage, the hub table display logic ordinarily shows only the first 5000 rows of a table's data. To show more rows than this default, the environment variable HUB_ROW_MAX can be set. This environment variable is used for both display of in-memory tables, and display of persistent database tables using dmh_SQLsrv.

NO_DDE_IMPORT

Prior to Tcl version 8.4, the DMH software always created the mh_eval command in the global namespace.  The presence of this command is relied upon by the mbx_RPC command which is used to support the inspect application.  In order to have compatibilty of Tcl 8.5 applications with inspect, the mh_eval command is imported into the global namespace from the ::dmh namespace during initialization on all platforms unless the NO_DDE_IMPORT environment variable is defined.  On Windows platforms, the send and dde_execute commands are also imported into the global namespace for the same purpose during initialization unless this environment variable is defined.

NO_DDE_QUERY

When the DMH software is run on the Windows platforms, it ordinarily uses the Microsoft DDE query call to determine which DMH processes already exist, so it can choose a unique name for its send command identity. Defining the NO_DDE_QUERY environment variable prevents this query from happening. This is needed if a dmh_wish process execs a child dmh_wish process without requesting background execution using &.. The child process and parent deadlock since the parent will not answer the child's query until after the child exits. The usual situation is to exec dmh_wish processes in background, so the problem does not occur. The NO_DDE_QUERY variable should also be set when software that does not respond properly to a DDE query, such as IBM's Visual Age Smalltalk, or IBM's Automation Connection. In this situation it appears that the dmh_wish program cannot be started, but in reality, the dmh_wish process is blocked by the rogue application, and is not able to finish its initialization.

NO_SQL_ROW_COUNT

The User Interface of the dmh_SQLsrv application ordinarily lists the tables that exist in a persistent database, and the number of data rows in each table. If the tables are very large, obtaining the number of rows can be time-consuming. Therefore, counting the rows can be disabled by setting the environment variable NO_SQL_ROW_COUNT to the value 1. This value can be overridden by the dmh_SQLsrv menu, so the environment variable is actually an initialization preference.

TCL_LIBRARY

Ordinarily the directory containing the Tcl runtime library including the file init.tcl is found relative to the executable program, as in "../lib/tcl8.5/". In unusual circumstances such as when using Tcl in an embedded application, the environment variable TCL_LIBRARY can be defined to override the usual search, and indicate a specific runtime library directory.

TK_LIBRARY

Ordinarily the directory containing the Tk runtime library including the file tk.tcl is found relative to the Tcl library path, as in "../tk8.5/". In unusual circumstances such as when using Tk in an uninstalled application, the environment variable TK_LIBRARY can be defined to override the usual search, and indicate a specific runtime library directory. library directory.

TCLLIBPATH

A colon separated list of directories to supply the initial value to the Tcl auto_path variable which is used to find Tcl procedures that are sourced when first used.

VARIABLES

Dmh_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 (not including the options described above), in order, or an empty string if there are no arg arguments.

argv0

Contains fileName if it was specified. Otherwise, contains the name by which dmh_wish was invoked.

::dmh::dmh_library

Set to the path where the program finds the DMH Tcl library.

::dmh::notk

Set to 1 if the -notk command line option was used to indicate background operation without windows is desired. On Unix systems, -notk causes the executable not use X-windows, and Tk variables such as tk_library are not defined. On Windows when using -notk, all of the usual Tk commands and variables still exist, so this flag is set to indicate that windows are not wanted. Dmh_wish.exe can also be run in the background as an NT service.

::dmh::dmh_version

Set to 1.3. This version interoperates with all previous releases, but some earlier releases did not define this variable.

tcl_interactive

Contains 1 if dmh_wish is reading commands interactively (no -file option was specified and standard input is a terminal-like device), 0 otherwise.

tcl_library

Set to the path where the program has found the Tcl runtime library.

tcl_version

Set to 8.5 for Tcl 8.5.

tcl_patchLevel

Set to a value such as 8.5.2 to show the patch level of the version.

tk_library

Set to the path where the program has found the Tk runtime library.

tk_version

Set to 8.5 for Tk 8.5. Releases prior to 4.0 set variable tkVersion.

SCRIPT FILES

On Unix systems, if you create a Tcl script in a file whose first line is

#!/usr/local/bin/dmh_wish -f

A better alternative on Unix systems is to start your script programs with:

#!/bin/sh
# restart using first dmh_wish on PATH \ 
exec dmh_wish -f "$0" "$@"

See wish(1) for an explanation.

On Windows NT, you can create batch files with the filename extension of .bat or .cmd to have the command interpreter recognize them as executable. The contents of a batch file might be:

  start /b dmh_wish -f /users/joe/myscript.tcl

  start dmh_wish -tclargs "proc start args {} ; proc goto args {} ; source myscript.bat"
  goto EndOfTcl
  #
  # Insert Tcl code HERE

  #
  # \
  :EndOfTcl

As a rule of thumb, you use Unix style slash pathnames for any pathname that is processed by the Tcl/Tk logic, and DOS style backslashes for Windows programs. Windows NT 3.51 needs the "start" command to run a program independent of the current shell process, but Windows NT 4.0 does not. Another example is:

  start /b d:\usr\local\bin\dmh_wish -f /users/joe/myscript.tcl

PROMPTS

When dmh_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 dmh_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.

RESOURCES

On Unix, you can set X-Windows resources in your .Xdefaults file in your home directory. The options(n) man page describes the Name and Class of window system widget attributes that you can set. You need to refer to your X-Windows documentation to fully understand use of resources. For example, to change the default foreground and background colors, of the "ui" Tcl/Tk application, you could use the following lines in your .Xdefaults file:

  Ui*Background: Grey
  Ui*Foreground: Black

On Windows NT and the Macintosh there is no .Xdefaults or xrdb application. You can change your window system attributes using the option command inside of your Tcl source code as in:

  option add *Background Grey
  option add *Canvas*Background LightGray
  option add *Scrollbar.foreground SlateGrey
  option add *activeBackground SlateGrey
  option add *disabledForeground SlateGrey
  option add *Text*Background LightGray
  option add *selectBackground LightBlue2
  option add *selectForeground Black
  #option add *font -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-12-120-*-*-*-*-*-*
  #option add *font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-80-iso8859-1
  # font "Ansi" is for Windows only
  option add *font Ansi
  # on the Macintosh:
  option add *font {monaco 9 normal}
  option add Reporthighlight*font {monaco 9 {bold italic}}

On Windows NT, you specify colors just as you do in Unix, using X-windows colornames or RGB numeric values (see colors).

In addition, the following names are also supported on Windows NT for the system colors:

    System3dDarkShadow
    System3dLight
    SystemActiveBorder
    SystemActiveCaption
    SystemAppWorkspace
    SystemBackground
    SystemButtonFace
    SystemButtonHighlight
    SystemButtonShadow
    SystemButtonText
    SystemCaptionText
    SystemDisabledText
    SystemGrayText
    SystemHighlight
    SystemHighlightText
    SystemInactiveBorder
    SystemInactiveCaption
    SystemInactiveCaptionText
    SystemInfoBackground
    SystemInfoText
    SystemMenu
    SystemMenuText
    SystemScrollbar
    SystemWindow
    SystemWindowFrame
    SystemWindowText

SEE ALSO

Tcl variables, Tk variables, wish

KEYWORDS