In Ruby or Perl one can assign more than variable by using parentheses. For example (in Ruby):
(i,j) = [1,2]
(k,m) = foo() #foo returns a two element array
Can one accomplish the same in TCL, in elegant way? I mean I know that you can do:
foreach varname { i j } val { 1 2 } { set $varname $val }
foreach varname { k m } val [ foo ] { set $varname $val }
But I was hoping for something shorter/ with less braces.
Since Tcl 8.5, you can do
lassign {1 2} i j
lassign [foo] k m
Note the somewhat unintuitive left-to-right order of value sources -> variables. It's not a unique design choice: e.g. scan and regexp use the same convention. I'm one of those who find it a little less readable, but once one has gotten used to it it's not really a problem.
If one really needs a Ruby-like syntax, it can easily be arranged:
proc mset {vars vals} {
uplevel 1 [list lassign $vals {*}$vars]
}
mset {i j} {1 2}
mset {k m} [foo]
Before Tcl 8.5 you can use
foreach { i j } { 1 2 } break
foreach { k m } [ foo ] break
which at least has fewer braces than in your example.
lassign implementation.