Tcl + Java = A match made for scripting 

Summary
Many savvy Java programmers get their best results by harnessing Sun's object-oriented programming language in combination with the Tcl scripting language. The announcement this month of the final iteration of Tcl Blend and Jacl, both in version 1.2.5 makes, it timely for SunWorld to update its 1997 report on the original releases (see Resources). 

The lead developer for Tcl Blend and Jacl has collaborated with one of SunWorld's scripting specialists to present this tutorial on Tcl Blend and Jacl. The examples here demonstrate the effective teamwork possible between Tcl and Java. (3,900 words)

Let's start by getting to know the players. While many people met Java first as the source for Web browser "applets" (dancing bears, Web-based chat, and so on), its current position is largely that of a safer C++. That is, development teams choose Java over C++ because coding in Java seems to lead to more reliable and easily ported results. 

Tcl is a "scripting language," reminiscent of Visual Basic or Perl. It's generally used interpretively. When programmers work with C/C++ or Java, they typically write source code, then compile the texts into applications that can be executed. With Tcl, in contrast, the language processor executes native code immediately, without a separate compilation step visible to the user. Interpretive interaction feels much more "intimate" and encourages swift learning and program development. 

Tcl also contrasts with C/C++ and Java in its "typing." Java is strongly typed; variables must be defined (integer, string, etc.) and used consistently. Tcl is more relaxed in this regard, and assigns the responsibility for managing such distinctions to the computer, rather than the developer. If my_variable holds the value "1234," Tcl knows how to operate on my_variable as either a string or a numeric value, depending on context. 

Tcl's current home is Scriptics Corp. John Ousterhout, Tcl's creator, spun Scriptics off from Sun in January 1998, to produce commercial development tools based on Tcl. Scriptics also maintains Tcl's open source core and supports several of its extensions -- third-party libraries that augment the functionality of the Tcl core. 

One such extension is Tcl Blend. With Tcl Blend, a Tcl programmer can allocate Java objects and invoke Java methods inside Tcl. If a developer needs, for example, cryptographic functionality already coded in Java, he simply invokes the Java methods from within his Tcl-coded application. Internally, Tcl Blend uses the Java Native Interface (JNI) to reach Java from Tcl. 

Jacl is an implementation of Tcl written in 100 percent pure Java. It isn't a Tcl extension, for it doesn't add new commands to the Tcl interpreter. It is simply a rewrite of the Tcl interpreter using Java source code instead of C source code. Using Jacl, Tcl programmers can define variables and procedures as well as interact with Java objects. This interaction is made possible by the java package, which is a set of Tcl commands shared by Jacl and Tcl Blend that provide access to Java's reflection API. 

Another way to look at Jacl is in terms of platforms. "Classic" Tcl is highly portable; standard versions are available for Unix, Win*, and Mac OS, along with several specialty operating systems, including OpenVMS, OS/400, and VxWorks. Jacl is simply an implementation that extends this list to Java virtual machines (JVMs). We'll demonstrate below how this brings Java developers an opportunity to embed scripting functionality in their Java applications. One of the original goals of Tcl was to create a technology that could be embedded inside of an existing program to add scripting functionality to the embedding program. The Tcl library is written in C in a way that makes it easy for any application written in C or C++ to embed a Tcl interpreter. Jacl provides this same type of embeddable scripting library for applications written in Java. With Jacl, developers can add powerful scripting functionality to their Java applications without sacrificing Java's platform independence. 

Jacl was originally created by software engineer Ioi Lam while he was a student at Cornell. During its time as a division of Sun, Ousterhout's core Tcl development team released versions 1.0 of Jacl and Tcl Blend. Since then, article coauthor Moses DeJong has been the lead developer on the project, with considerable help from Christopher Hylands of the University of California at Berkeley and other Tcl-Java users. (Tcl-Java is used throughout this article to mean the combination of Tcl and Java with Tcl Blend or Jacl.) Scriptics sponsors the official "Tcl-Java Integration" page on its Web site, maintains a CVS repository and problem-report facility for the Jacl and Tcl Blend source code, and provides support services for corporate customers of Tcl Blend. 

Versions 1.2 of both Tcl Blend and Jacl are based on release 1.1 of the Java Developer Kit (JDK), and also support several features new with JDK 1.2. Versions 1.2 of Tcl Blend and Jacl also include Tcl-Java language features not present in earlier releases. Perhaps the most important of these is Unicode, crucial for management of international character sets. Other upgrades present in versions 1.2 include import capabilities, exception handling, and, for Jacl specifically, namespaces. Version 1.2 expands platform support to include Linux and Silicon Graphics's IRIX. Also with 1.2, Jacl gains Tcl's handy clock command for parsing and formatting times. 

Tcl, Tcl Blend, and Jacl are like Linux or Perl in that all are freely available for commercial and noncommercial use. Source code and binaries are available for free download. A "BSD-style" license governs all three. Note also that Jacl includes a regular expression package licensed from ORO Inc. for use only with Jacl, and only in the form of a binary class file. 

Preparing the stage
It doesn't take long to become a Jacl or Tcl Blend user. The 1.2 releases of both Jacl and Tcl Blend come in two flavors: a source release and a binary release. The Tcl Blend binary release is currently provided for Solaris SPARC and Windows Intel systems using Tcl version 8.2 and the JDK version 1.2. The binary release of Jacl should work on any system with a properly implemented JVM. 

It's reasonable to expect that downloading a binary release is the safer choice for beginners. However, we've found that the opposite is true, just as Sun freeware expert Steve Christensen told SunWorld last year. Binary installations too often conflict in subtle ways with other Java or Tcl software installed on a local machine. Unless you're quite sure you're working on a host with existing Java and Tcl installations that exactly match the versions the binary release was compiled against, we recommend that you download source code and generate an installation locally. The source release comes with a sophisticated configure process that detects the versions of Tcl and Java you have installed, and then compiles with all necessary options. 

Perhaps the biggest immediate challenge is to keep release designations straight: Jacl and Tcl Blend are both at version 1.2.5, compatible with version 8.2 of Tcl and Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.1 and 1.2.2x. While it's possible to generate Tcl Blend and Jacl with earlier base releases of Tcl and Java, the community of Tcl developers generally regards 8.2 as superior to 8.0 and 8.1 for its improved Windows integration, Unicode support, and so on. Notice also that both Tcl Blend and Jacl have been tested with JVMs other than Sun's, including the IBM JVM, the TowerJ JVM, and the Kaffe open source JVM designed for embedded systems. 

The documentation bundled with Tcl Blend and Jacl has been overhauled for the 1.2 releases. It is formatted in HTML, and is also available for browsing at the Scriptics Web site. See Resources for details. 

Support for Tcl Blend and Jacl ranges across the usual options for open sourced software. The comp.lang.tcl newsgroup is a convivial and useful meeting place for programmers working with Tcl; it boasts an excellent signal-to-noise ratio. Scriptics recently adopted from the Tcl Consortium a low-volume mailing list devoted to Tcl Blend and Jacl. Scriptics writes contracts for enterprise support of commercial application of Tcl Blend. Unbundled support of open source products is still a young and developing market; for current information on support arrangements, contact Scriptics. 

Make Tcl Blend and Jacl work for you
One of the attractions of Tcl, particularly for those coming from Java, is how little effort it takes before you start seeing results. A complete source distribution for Tcl is only about 1 MB. Once it's installed, you can immediately pop into the interpreter to experiment with different Tcl commands. Links in the Resources section point to several standard tutorials that explain Tcl concepts. 

One of the goals of this article is to contrast different styles of coding with Tcl and Java combinations. Our first example is a comparison of the use of Tcl-Java to create and control Java Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) widgets. You'll see for yourself the differences between the Java code to create and manipulate these graphical user interface (GUI) elements and the equivalent Tcl-Java code.

Java source code:

import java.awt.Button;
import java.awt.Frame;

public class TestAWT {
    public static void main(String[] argv) {
        Frame f = new Frame();
        Button b = new Button("Press Me");
        f.setSize(300,300);
        f.add(b);
        f.show();
    }
}

Tcl-Java source code:

package require java
java::import java.awt.Button
java::import java.awt.Frame

set f [java::new Frame]
set b [java::new Button "Press Me"]

$f setSize 300 300
$f add $b
$f show

Define a TestAWT class simply to test a tiny fragment of code 

Create an explicit main() method of TestAWT

Compile the TestAWT class 

Invoke the external java executable to interpret byte-compiled Java classes 

Notice that combining Java with Tcl does require one "additional" step of the programmer: the package require java command explicitly introduces Java capabilities in the Tcl interpretive context. Even this can be automated, though; it's easy enough to fold this command into an initialization script, which guarantees you'll have Java available whenever you launch your personal copy of the Tcl interpreter. 

Exceptional code
Our second example demonstrates Tcl's ability to manage Java exceptions. Notice first the java::throw command, a Tcl binding to Java's throw construct. Its natural complement is java::try, which binds Java's try-catch-finally construct, and therefore traps the exceptions java::throw raises. With this pair of commands, Tcl programmers can raise Java exceptions and respond to them.

Java source code:

public class Test {
    static void doSomething() throws Exception {
        throw new Exception("some error");
    }

    public static void main(String[] argv) {
        try {
            doSomething();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Tcl-Java source code:

package require java

proc doSomething {} {
    java::throw [java::new Exception "some error"]
}

java::try {
    doSomething
} catch {Exception e} {
    $e printStackTrace
}

Regression testing
One showcase for the capabilities of Tcl-Java is regression testing. A well-run project begins with explicit specification of deliverables. With this in hand, it's possible to validate programs and detect errors early in the development cycle. Particularly effective is construction of a bundle of small tests that can automatically be applied against an implementation during its growth and maintenance. Tcl has a long history of demonstrated success in this role of "regression testing": Oracle, Sybase, and dozens of other high-profile corporations rely on Tcl scripting of their regression tests. 

Both Tcl Blend and Jacl expand this role. Typical Java-coded programs depend on the teamwork of hundreds or even thousands of "objects." Failure of any one can, of course, doom the whole application. One response to this reality is to test all the objects separately. The next example shows how easy it is to write simple regression tests in Tcl. 

The following test for a java.lang.String object ensures that its charAt method returns an expected result:

Simple Tcl-Java regression test

# "1.1" is the name, or identifier, of the test.

test 1.1 {make sure the java.lang.String.charAt() method works} {
    set s [java::new String "I am a Java String"]
    $s charAt 7
} J

test ID DESCRIPTION {
    TCL_CODE
} EXPECTED_RESULT

The tcltest package makes it astonishingly easy to write and use regression tests. Notice how readable the example here is: it allocates a Java string, extracts its eighth character, and verifies that it's the letter J, as expected. 

Consider for a moment how useful this type of validation would be in development of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs). Requirements for an EJB can first be declared as a collection of regression tests. A corporation seeking to purchase an EJB would simply include the regression tests in the information given bidders. There's tremendous potential in ideas such as this to streamline the workflow of software development. 

Keep in mind that Jacl and Tcl Blend can boost your productivity even if the product you deliver doesn't include them. Your Java development process probably involves debuggers, monitors, and development environments your end users never see. In a similar manner, Tcl Blend and Jacl have a lot to offer even if used only in regression testing of each component or object included in your product. 

Industrial strength scripting
Perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of Tcl Blend's fitness for mission-critical application is its adoption by the Vignette Corporation for its flagship StoryServer product. Vignette is a rapidly growing publicly-traded company marketing primarily to the largest organizations. Vignette's StoryServer product "provides a platform for building customer-facing Web, Internet, and online applications," in the words of Ahmed Moin, product manager for Vignette StoryServer. Reliability and security are paramount for Vignette clients. The "value proposition" StoryServer offers them, Moin tells us, is as an "integration platform" that manages content, personalization, and syndication in applications that can be quickly delivered to market. StoryServer's scripting language has always been Tcl, and certainly Ousterhout has made explicit that, "The goal for Scriptics is to make Tcl the premier integration platform." Java capabilities are a natural realization of these themes. 

StoryServer 5x, due for release early next year, will include Tcl Blend 1.2. This means that the implementation language for StoryServer application builders will expose 

Native Tcl capabilities 

Vignette content services

Connections to Java resources such as external application servers and databases in a uniform, succinct syntax 

Happy Jacl users
One of Jacl's primary design goals is to provide an embeddable scripting language for applications written in Java. Microcosm Technologies Inc. provides a great example of Jacl's use in its new Java-based micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)/microsystems technology (MST) layout design (also mechanical computer-assisted design -- MCAD) tool called Catapult. Catapult is a 2D design tool used to layout graphical representations of microscopic mechanical devices that are fabricated with the same process used to create integrated circuits. Catapult uses Jacl to provide a scripting interface. Catapult gives users the ability to create custom menus, toolbars, and macros. 

Microcosm chose Tcl for its developmental scalability: simple syntax for novice programmers and full programming capabilities for advanced users. Jacl was selected because it, like Catapult itself, is written in 100 percent Java. Catapult's designers also stress that Jacl and Tcl Blend's open source development model leads to a better product because users have full access to the source code, so they can improve the product to meet their own needs. In fact, one of the new features in Jacl and Tcl Blend 1.2 -- the ability to source a Tcl script from any URL -- was added by Thomas McKay, Catapult's project manager. With version 1.2, all a Tcl-Java programmer needs to do to include source located on the Web is to specify the -url flag. Here's an example: 

% source -url http://www.memcad.com/scripts/clean.tcl

Also putting Jacl to good use is HMS Software Inc. From its home office in Boston, Mass., HMS focuses on development and implementation of Computer-Aided Process Planning (CAPP), shop floor control (manufacturing execution system -- MES), Non-Conformance Management (NCM) and other software systems used to generate, manage, and distribute information for manufacturing and assembly processes. All the existing HMS products are client/server applications that use Tcl as their core and primary development language. This presented a challenge when HMS decided to move to a new architecture founded on Java and EJBs, as it would take a very long time to rewrite all their business logic in Java. 

The solution made for an interesting story. Jacl seemed at first to be perfect: HMS could reuse all existing Tcl scripts in a 100 percent Java environment. Unfortunately, the 1.1 version of Jacl did not support the "namespace" features of Tcl 8, and HMS makes frequent use of namespaces. The source code to Jacl was available, so HMS investigated the effort required to add the namespace features to Jacl. The complexity of adding these namespace features convinced HMS that it would take too much time to bring one of its developers up to speed on Jacl and port the namespace features from the C version of Tcl over to Jacl. 

At this point, HMS posted a message to the Tcl-Java mailing list announcing its desire to contract out the project. Moses DeJong decided to take on this project; part of his motivation was the realization that namespace features would benefit many other Jacl users. The result was a version of Jacl that passed all of the namespace related regression tests for Tcl 8. These changes were then integrated into the 1.2 version of Jacl and made available to the user community. 

Large industry players are also integrating Jacl into their products. Sun has embedded Jacl in a product called Embedded Server, to provide a scripting interface to its Java-coded Web server. IBM also includes Jacl as part of its Bean Scripting Framework (BSF). BSF is an interface which embeds a number of scripting engines in a Java program with a single API. 

Reservations
The mixed marriage between strongly typed Java and Tcl, with its tradition that "everything is a string," produces a predictable burden of tensions between the two. Tcl-Java programmers have the mild annoyance of having to specify each argument in an overloaded Java method that involves primitive types, because otherwise the resolver can't disambiguate them. For example, assume a Java object with the following overloaded method is invoked from Tcl with a single argument. 

Java source code:

public class Overloaded {
    public String foo(int i) {return "i";}
    public String foo(char c) {return "c";}
    public String foo(byte b) {return "b";}
}

Tcl-Java code that uses the Overloaded class:

% package require java
% set obj [java::new Overloaded]
% $obj foo 1
ambiguous method signature, could not choose between {foo byte} {foo char} {foo int}

Tcl-Java code simply requires a fully qualified method signature:

% package require java
% set obj [java::new Overloaded]
% $obj {foo int} 1
i
% $obj {foo char} 1
c

Jacl does not yet implement all of the new features of Tcl 8.1 and 8.2. For instance, the lindex command was extended in 8.2 to support such index arithmetic as lindex $list end-1. Jacl doesn't yet perform Tcl 8.0's byte-code compilation, so it's slower -- sometimes much slower -- than standard Tcl. 

Some programmers want to load Tcl Blend native code dynamically into an already running Java process. This is a common technique in the Tcl world for managing application-specific extensions. Remember that Tcl was originally designed as "glue" between disparate code pieces, some scripted in Tcl, some compiled in other languages. Once it works, the ability to load modules at runtime will also provide a handy native-code interface that is an alternative to the JNI. Alden Dima of the National Institute of Standards and Technology has created a Tcl extension to support this dynamic loading, and has agreed to integrate his code into the next generation of Tcl Blend. 

The development team working on Tcl Blend and Jacl knows of these limitations. It has already begun plans for a version 1.3 that will improve performance and support additional Java 2 features. Also, the current binary-only regular expression facility in Jacl is scheduled to be rewritten to use the open sourced gnu.regexp library. 

Final notes
If you want to implement an extension to a Java application more rapidly and conveniently than with C, or combine applications written in such different languages as C/C++, Tcl, Java, Pascal, Python, Perl, and Fortran, use Tcl Blend. If you need to add scripting to an existing Java application, use Jacl. 

Many more programmers deserve to learn about Tcl-Java combinations. If you are developing in or learning Java, you'll want regression testing abilities as well as a command-line oriented interactive experimentation workbench. Tcl Blend and Jacl offer both. In interactive development of Java classes, programmers use Tcl-Java to allocate Java objects and call Java methods without ever having to write Java code or invoke the Java compiler directly. This makes it possible to prototype Java code in much the same way developers currently prototype GUIs with Tk. 

Finally, if you're a Tcl developer who needs access to Java capabilities, both Tcl Blend and Jacl make the connection natural. 

Mo DeJong is the project maintainer for Tcl Blend and Jacl. He received a BS in computer science from the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota and is on his way to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue a career in the technology sector.

• Cameron Laird is vice president of Phaseit Inc. and a frequent contributor to SunWorld. He writes SunWorld's biweekly Regular Expressions column about scripting languages. 

 
• "Sun releases scripting technology for Java," (SunWorld, October 1997): 

http://www.sunworld.com/swol-10-1997/swol-10-jacl.html
• Scriptics: 

http://www.scriptics.com/
• Tcl-Java integration: 

http://www.scriptics.com/java/
• Online Tcl-Java docs: 

http://www.scriptics.com/java/man/contents.htm
• "CVS in the scripting landscape," (SunWorld, October 1999): 

http://www.sunworld.com/swol-10-1999/swol-10-regex.html
• "Works great, costs less," (SunWorld, October 1998). A look at freeware for Sun: 

http://www.sunworld.com/swol-10-1998/swol-10-freeware.html
• Silicon Graphics Inc.: 

http://www.sgi.com/
• QuaTeams ORO Software: 

http://www.quateams.com/oro/index.html 
• Tower Technology: 

http://www.towerj.com/ 
• Kaffe: 

http://www.kaffe.org
• Cameron Laird's personal notes on Tcl tutorials: 

http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.tcl/tcl_tutorials.html
• Tcl Consortium: 

http://www.tclconsortium.org
• Tcl-Java mailing list: 

http://www.mail-archive.com/tcljava@scriptics.com
• Vignette: 

http://www.vignette.com/
• Microcosm Technologies Inc., CAD for MEMS microsystems: 

http://www.memcad.com/
• HMS Software, manufacturing management information systems: 

http://www.hmssoftware.com/
• Java Embedded Server: How does the Java Embedded Server integrate with Tcl? 

http://www.sun.com/software/embeddedserver/techinfo/tech-faq.html#390
• Bean Scripting Framework: 

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/bsf
• Feather (dynamic Tcl Blend embedding from Alden Dima): 

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/ctg/java/feather

• Full listing of past Regular Expressions columns: 

http://www.sunworld.com/common/swol-backissues-columns.html#regex
• The SunWorld Topical Index -- a comprehensive listing of all SunWorld articles by subject: 

http://www.sunworld.com/common/swol-siteindex.html
• Visit sunWHERE -- launchpad to hundreds of online resources for Sun users: 

http://www.sunworld.com/sunwhere.html
• Explore SunWorld's back issues: 

http://www.sunworld.com/common/swol-backissues.html
• IDG.net, your one-stop IT resource: 

http://www.idg.net