Running from sources

Sometimes you would want to "run from sources", what is that and how do I do it?

Tcl/Tk is a scripting language and no compilation of source code is necessary. You can therefore run an application directly from the source code using a Tcl/Tk installation. Unix systems typically already have a Tcl/Tk installation. In any case you can install a free one from ActiveState. That pages can be hard to navigate and you can try a direct link. The first step is to get and install Tcl/Tk. The second step is to get the Coccinella sources, either a released version or directly from Subversion. On Mac OS X and Windows you start the wish application, which is what Tcl/Tk is called for some reason, pick the File/Source menu and select Coccinella.tcl in the Coccinella sources. There you go. On unix systems you typically do

cd coccinella/
chmod u+x Coccinella.tcl
./Coccinella.tcl

If you want an interactive console you do

cd coccinella/
wish
source Coccinella.tcl

instead.

On Mac OS X it is not recommended to use the wish console that is built into Tcl/Tk, but instead run wish from the Terminal. The reason is that the wish console renders its output using ATSUI which can be extremely slow for large texts.