TIP #151: REMOVE -E: COMMAND LINE OPTION FROM TCLSH AND WISH 
==============================================================
 Version:      $Revision: 1.7 $
 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:        Final
 Type:         Project
 Tcl-Version:  8.5
 Vote:         Done
 Created:      Friday, 22 August 2003
 URL:          https://tip.tcl-lang.org151.html
 Post-History: 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 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. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 TIP AutoGenerator - written by Donal K. Fellows