Practical Programming in Tcl & Tk, Third Edition

The split Command

The split command takes a string and turns it into a list by breaking it at specified characters and ensuring that the result has the proper list syntax. The split command provides a robust way to turn input lines into proper Tcl lists:

set line {welch:*:28405:100:Brent Welch:/usr/welch:/bin/csh}
split $line :
=> welch * 28405 100 {Brent Welch} /usr/welch /bin/csh
lindex [split $line :] 4
=> Brent Welch
					

Do not use list operations on arbitrary data.

Even if your data has space-separated words, you should be careful when using list operators on arbitrary input data. Otherwise, stray double quotes or curly braces in the input ...