Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell

Widget Overview

All Tk widgets are created by a Tcl command of the same name as the widget. These widget creation commands have the form:

widgetCmd pathName [option value...]

where widgetCmd is the name of the widget type desired (e.g., button or listbox) and pathName is the pathname for the new widget. The Return value for the command is pathName.

A widget’s pathname consists of a child name appended to the pathname of its parent widget using a “.” character. The child name is an arbitrary string that excludes the “.” character and is unique among its siblings, the other widget children of its parent. The pathname for the Tk main (or root) window is simply a single dot (i.e., “.”); its immediate children begin with a dot, and each additional level of a child widget appears after an additional dot. This scheme is analogous to file pathnames in the Unix file system, where the “/” character is used as a directory name separator. For example, the pathname of a frame widget named frame1 whose parent is the main window would have the pathname .frame1. A button widget named button1 who is a child of frame1 would have the pathname .frame1.button1. Almost all Tk commands require the full pathname for arguments that specify a widget.

When a new widget is created with the pathname pathName, a new Tcl command is also defined with the same name. Invoking this command allows one to manipulate the widget in various ways depending on the arguments passed. The first argument to the widget’s command ...