case(1T) Tcl Built-In Commands case(1T)
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NAME
case - Evaluate one of several scripts, depending on a given value
SYNOPSIS
case string ?in? patList body ?patList body ...?
case string ?in? {patList body ?patList body ...?}
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DESCRIPTION
Note: the case command is obsolete and is supported only for backward compatibility. At some point in the future it may be removed
entirely. You should use the switch command instead.
The case command matches string against each of the patList arguments in order. Each patList argument is a list of one or more patterns.
If any of these patterns matches string then case evaluates the following body argument by passing it recursively to the Tcl interpreter
and returns the result of that evaluation. Each patList argument consists of a single pattern or list of patterns. Each pattern may con-
tain any of the wild-cards described under string match. If a patList argument is default, the corresponding body will be evaluated if no
patList matches string. If no patList argument matches string and no default is given, then the case command returns an empty string.
Two syntaxes are provided for the patList and body arguments. The first uses a separate argument for each of the patterns and commands;
this form is convenient if substitutions are desired on some of the patterns or commands. The second form places all of the patterns and
commands together into a single argument; the argument must have proper list structure, with the elements of the list being the patterns
and commands. The second form makes it easy to construct multi-line case commands, since the braces around the whole list make it unneces-
sary to include a backslash at the end of each line. Since the patList arguments are in braces in the second form, no command or variable
substitutions are performed on them; this makes the behavior of the second form different than the first form in some cases.
SEE ALSO
switch(1T)
KEYWORDS
case, match, regular expression
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+--------------------+-----------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+--------------------+-----------------+
|Availability | SUNWTcl |
+--------------------+-----------------+
|Interface Stability | Uncommitted |
+--------------------+-----------------+
NOTES
Source for Tcl is available on http://opensolaris.org.
Tcl 7.0 case(1T)