Tcl7.6 C API Man Page -- Tcl_Main (n)
Table of Contents

NAME

Tcl_Main - main program for Tcl-based applications

SYNOPSIS

#include <tcl.h>

Tcl_Main(argc, argv, appInitProc)

ARGUMENTS

int
argc (in) Number of elements in argv.

char
*argv[] (in) Array of strings containing command-line arguments.

Tcl_AppInitProc *appInitProc (in) Address of an applicationspecific initialization procedure. The value for this argument is usually Tcl_AppInit.

DESCRIPTION

Tcl_Main acts as the main program for most Tcl-based applications. Starting with Tcl 7.4 it is not called main anymore because it is part of the Tcl library and having a function main in a library (particularly a shared library) causes problems on many systems. Having main in the Tcl library would also make it hard to use Tcl in C++ programs, since C++ programs must have special C++ main functions.

Normally each application contains a small main function that does nothing but invoke Tcl_Main. Tcl_Main then does all the work of creating and running a tclsh-like application.

When it is has finished its own initialization, but before it processes commands, Tcl_Main calls the procedure given by the appInitProc argument. This procedure provides a ``hook'' for the application to perform its own initialization, such as defining application-specific commands. The procedure must have an interface that matches the type Tcl_AppInitProc:
typedef int Tcl_AppInitProc(Tcl_Interp *interp);

AppInitProc is almost always a pointer to Tcl_AppInit; for more details on this procedure, see the documentation for Tcl_AppInit.

KEYWORDS

application-specific initialization, command-line arguments, main program

Table of Contents