TIP #151: REMOVE -E: COMMAND LINE OPTION FROM TCLSH AND WISH 
==============================================================
 Version:      $Revision: 1.4 $
 Author:       Don Porter <dgp_at_users.sourceforge.net> 
               Don Porter <dgp_at_users.sf.net> 
               Donal K. Fellows <donal.k.fellows_at_man.ac.uk> 
 State:        Draft
 Type:         Project
 Tcl-Version:  8.5
 Vote:         Pending
 Created:      Friday, 22 August 2003
 URL:          http://purl.org/tcl/tip/151.html
 WebEdit:      http://purl.org/tcl/tip/edit/151
 Post-History: 

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 ABSTRACT 
==========

 This TIP proposes removal of the -e: command line option to tclsh and 
 wish that was Accepted as part of [TIP #137]. 

 BACKGROUND 
============

 [TIP #137] was Accepted today. However, there were a few NO votes 
 objecting to the new _-e:_ form of the _-encoding_ command line option 
 for specifying the encoding of a startup script to tclsh and wish. 
 Those voting NO only objected to that part of [TIP #137] while 
 supporting the rest as a solid proposal that will improve Tcl. Among 
 those voting YES, no one explicitly embraced the _-e:_ command line 
 option as something they required. Some voting YES opined that the 
 _-e:_ option was a wart that could be fixed later. 

 Based on those comments, [TIP #137] would have been better had the 
 _-e:_ form of the command line option not been part of the proposal. 
 This TIP proposes nothing more than removing Acceptance of the _-e:_ 
 form of the _-encoding_ command line option. 

 Without the controversial _-e:_ proposal, I believe [TIP #137] would 
 have had unanimous approval. 

 RATIONALE 
===========

 The use of _-e:_ as a command line option to tclsh or wish suffers when 
 compared with the perl program. The _perl -e_ option for evaluation of 
 a Perl script provided on the command line is very well known, and it's 
 a mistake to add something to tclsh that looks similar, but is in fact 
 very different. 

 [TIP #137] proposed both _-encoding_ and the _-e:_ form. There's really 
 no need to add multiple ways to do the same thing. 

 The Rationale in [TIP #137] for the _-e:_ form is solely to support the 
 32-character limit in some Unices for their _#!_ lines. However, the 
 _-e:_ form does not really solve that problem. For example: 

    #!/usr/local/bin/tclsh8.5 -e:iso8859-15 
    12345678901234567890123456789012

 Here we see that we still run afoul of the 32-character limit when 
 tclsh is installed in the default location. Even longer encoding names 
 exist which magnify the problem, and altering the installation location 
 will not necessarily help: 

    #!/usr/bin/tclsh8.5 -e:iso8859-15 
    12345678901234567890123456789012

 (This is actually an insidious failure mode in that it leads to the 
 script being sourced with a valid but incorrect encoding.) 

 Conversely, we already have an effective general workaround for the 
 32-character limit problem: 

    #!/bin/sh
    #     exec tclsh -encoding iso8859-15 "$0" ${1+"$@"}

 So, _-e:_ doesn't solve a problem we don't really have, and it's 
 controverisal. We should remove it. 

 PROPOSAL 
==========

 Remove (Acceptance of) the _-e:_ set of command line options to the 
 programs _tclsh_ and _wish_. 

 COMPATIBILITY 
===============

 Since no version of Tcl or Tk has been released supporting the _-e:_ 
 command line option, there are no compatibility issues to resolve. 

 COPYRIGHT 
===========

 This document is placed in the public domain. 

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 TIP AutoGenerator - written by Donal K. Fellows 


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