Philip Quaife 12 May 06

This project is a continuation of autoKit. It generates shrink wrapped executables from Tcl source code on the fly. It is a collection of cgi scripts that can be used by any web server to serve applications.

Where autoKit only takes starkit files and generates executable files, AutoExe can take a variety of file formats and runtime systems.

Purpose

This project was created to help solve the problem of distributing Tcl applications to end users.

It allows software developers to host a single archive file (zip, kit, tgz) and allows the generation of platform specific files for end users.

Overview

The developer creates an archive file of application code. Included in this archive file is a file containing information on the environment that was used in the development. This includes the names of extensions needed and the type of interpreter used (e.g., tclkit, freewrap).

This archive file is loaded to a web server. When a user requests the application, the cgi scripts take the archive file, add to it any extensions needed, append the archive to a runtime and then send the result to the user.

The archives can be generated in memory and streamed to the users, or they can built and cached to save processing time for busy archives.

Example

AutoExe is used by The Cool Store for serving Tcl applications to end users.

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TS Ok, so where can I get a copy of AutoExe directly without having to visit The Cool Store and start searching?

PWQ: 23 May 06, TS: When The Cool Store has completed its test phase and become stable, the whole of TCS code will be available as a package. Like all open source software, the time scale is not fixed.

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