TIP #293 Version 1.3: Argument Expansion with Leading {*}

This is not necessarily the current version of this TIP.


TIP:293
Title:Argument Expansion with Leading {*}
Version:$Revision: 1.3 $
Author:Miguel Sofer <msofer at users dot sourceforge dot net>
State:Accepted
Type:Project
Tcl-Version:8.5
Vote:Done
Created:Thursday, 02 November 2006
Obsoletes:TIP #157

Abstract

Tcl shall use {*} to denote argument expansion, replacing the current {expand}.

Rationale

There seems to be a consensus that the functionality of {expand} is exactly what was needed, but the syntax could be nicer. The problem, both back in 2003 and today, is that there is no general agreement on which is the best one. However, the issue of ugliness is regularly revived in the mailing lists so it is not going away soon. Moreover, an alpha release in a popular distribution allows the use of {} instead of {expand}.

A compromise solution, {*}, is less verbose and "ugly" than {expand}, and less prone to typographical errors than plain {}. It is inspired using the mne