list doesn't contain its own members in Tcl

Question

I have a list containing one member, that member is the string <cmd_stichstudy1>XXDDR0_MA[12]. When I search for that string in the list (using lsearch) I get that the list doesn't contain it. I even get it when I search for the member of the list:

tcl> set nets_names

{<cmd_stichstudy1>XXDDR0_MA[12]}

tcl> lsearch $nets_names [lindex $nets_names 0]

-1

Why does this happen?

Just to expand on the correct answers, because the search string contains square brackets, with glob-style matching, `lsearch` is trying to match either `XXDDR0_MA1` or `XXDDR0_MA2` -- documented on the [`string match` man page](http://tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/TclCmd/string.htm#M40) — glenn jackman, Sep 04 '12 at 16:00

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 04 '12 at 10:14

4

If you use -exact it will work the way you want.

% set nets_names {<cmd_stichstudy1>XXDDR0_MA[12]}
<cmd_stichstudy1>XXDDR0_MA[12]
% lsearch -exact $nets_names [lindex $nets_names 0]
0
%

answered Sep 04 '12 at 10:14

TrojanName

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 04 '12 at 10:18

2

lsearch has an unfortunate property of using glob-style matching by default.

To cite the manual:

If all matching style options are omitted, the default matching style is -glob.

So always pass -exact to lsearch unless you really want -glob.

answered Sep 04 '12 at 10:18

kostix

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list doesn't contain its own members in Tcl

2 Answers2