Hello,

I have a procedure that accepts a list of paths.
Assuming "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir" is passed as a parameter, is there
a way to process this so that it's interpreted correctly in the end?
I've tried combinations of { }, [list], [file normalize], [file
nativename] but that didn't work.
(Working in Windows, tcl 8.6)

Thanks,

Alejandro

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El 17/05/2025 a las 13:51, saito escribió:

On 5/17/2025 12:37 PM, Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi wrote:

Hello,

I have a procedure that accepts a list of paths.
Assuming "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir" is passed as a parameter, is
there a way to process this so that it's interpreted correctly in the
end?
I've tried combinations of { }, [list], [file normalize], [file
nativename] but that didn't work.
(Working in Windows, tcl 8.6)

It is not clear what you are asking.

Are you trying to append a parameter to a list? You do "lappend mylist $parameter"

Are you trying to modify the Windows path env variable?  It is just a
string separated by commas: "append env(path) \;[join $mylist \;]"

The question - generalizing - is how (if it is possible) to convert a
path into a valid path if passed as a parameter to a procedure in the
Windows format, for example, "c:\windows\my dir".
The specific question would be:
given the following procedure
proc myproc { listofpaths } {
foreach p $listofpaths {
puts "$p - is valid? : [file isdirectory $p]"
}
}
if a parameter is passed as "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir"
the result obtained is
C:Windowsmy - is valid? : 0
dir - is valid? : 0
Then, is there a way to convert - within the procedure - that input into
a valid directory?

Alejandro

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On 5/18/2025 6:41 AM, Alan Grunwald wrote:

On 18/05/2025 03:36, Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi wrote:

El 17/05/2025 a las 13:51, saito escribió:

On 5/17/2025 12:37 PM, Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi wrote:

Hello,

I have a procedure that accepts a list of paths.
Assuming "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir" is passed as a parameter, is there a way to process this so that it's interpreted correctly in the end?
I've tried combinations of { }, [list], [file normalize], [file nativename] but that didn't work.
(Working in Windows, tcl 8.6)

It is not clear what you are asking.

Are you trying to append a parameter to a list? You do "lappend mylist $parameter"

Are you trying to modify the Windows path env variable?  It is just a string separated by commas: "append env(path) \;[join $mylist \;]"

The question - generalizing - is how (if it is possible) to convert a path into a valid path if passed as a parameter to a procedure in the Windows format, for example, "c:\windows\my dir".
The specific question would be:
given the following procedure
proc myproc { listofpaths } {
     foreach p  $listofpaths {
         puts "$p - is valid? : [file isdirectory $p]"
     }
}
if a parameter is passed as "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir"
the result obtained is
C:Windowsmy - is valid? : 0
dir - is valid? : 0
Then, is there a way to convert - within the procedure - that input into a valid directory?

Alejandro

It seems that the caller is mangling the parameter; it will be too late by the time the proc is entered.

I suggest you try passing [file join $::env(SystemRoot) "my dir"]. If you feel that lots of up-front, non-portable string manipulation is more readable you might prefer "$::env(SystemRoot)\\my dir".

Alan

Just to (hopefully) add a little more clarity, one can see why that result occurs, with this:


% puts "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir"
C:\WINDOWSmy dir

The \m became simply m, because of rule 9, \ followed by something NOT special (like \n), simply removes the \

Then the foreach treats it's input as though lindex were used on each item in a list:

% lindex "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir" 0
C:WINDOWSmy
% lindex "$::env(SystemRoot)\my dir" 1
dir

Here, you are getting another round of substitution on the \W which likewise removed the \

which all together then, explains why those 2 results showed up.

In the above, one would actually need another \ as so:

% puts "|$::env(SystemRoot)\\my\ dir|"
|C:\WINDOWS\my dir|

with the ||'s added to hopefully add more clarity.

-e

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Thanks for your answers, but it seems I haven't been able to express my question clearly.
The question isn't about why the input isn't valid (it's a string, the
slash is problematic, the spaces, etc.), but rather whether there's a reasonably simple way to make that input valid. Obviously, the simplest
way would be to write the parameter "correctly." However, this comes
through a procedure that allows the user to load one or more paths to
add to those defined in the script, meaning it's not up to me. As I
said, I tried several solutions, but they didn't work: automatically
converting the parameter to a list, using the file normalize and/or
nativename commands, or, as a first idea, checking whether the parameter
is a list or a string (spoiler: in TCL, everything is a string...).
Having said all that, I hope I've clarified the point of the question,
and again, thanks for answering.

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* Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi <aleccp@yahoo.com>
| However, this comes through a procedure that allows the user to load
| one or more paths to add to those defined in the script, meaning it's
| not up to me.

It might be that this procedure already mangled the filenames, e.g. if it
did not quote \\ correctly (or avoid it by using 'file join' in the first place).

Your procedure

proc myproc { listofpaths } {
foreach p $listofpaths {
puts "$p - is valid? : [file isdirectory $p]"
}
}

works fine if it is passed correct input (i.e. a *list* of properly
constructed filenames). If the function input is already incorrect
- GIGO¹.

R'
---
¹ http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/GIGO.html

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* Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi <aleccp@yahoo.com>
| I tried several solutions, but they didn't work: automatically
| converting the parameter to a list, using the file normalize and/or
| nativename commands, or, as a first idea, checking whether the
| parameter is a list or a string (spoiler: in TCL, everything is a
| string...).

Show your *exact* code and *exact* input.
Otherwise all one can do is guesswork.
I found many times that when I prepare something like that for posting,
the answer comes automagically...

R'

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On 5/18/2025 9:48 PM, Luis Alejandro Muzzachiodi wrote:

Thanks for your answers, but it seems I haven't been able to express my question clearly.
The question isn't about why the input isn't valid (it's a string, the slash is problematic, the spaces, etc.), but rather whether there's a reasonably simple way to make that input valid. Obviously, the simplest way would be to write the parameter "

correctly." However, this comes through a procedure that allows the user to load one or more paths to add to those defined in the script, meaning it's not up to me. As I said, I tried several solutions, but they didn't work: automatically converting the
parameter to a list, using the file normalize and/or nativename commands, or, as a first idea, checking whether the parameter is a list or a string (spoiler: in TCL, everything is a string...). Having said all that, I hope I've clarified the point of the
question, and again, thanks for answering.

If what you want is a way to unmangle a mangled filename, I would say there is no reasonably simple way to do this.

If there are only a few valid directories to choose from, and you can generate a list of them, then an "almost equal" function might do this, but likely not with 100% accuracy.

I have an application uses a fuzzy string compare function that produces a value that is a measure of a near match. I got the idea and some code from here, in particular I use the trigrams function:

https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Fuzzy+string+search

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