This is the pgtcl-ng Source Release README
Last updated for pgtclng-1.7.1 on 2009-11-25
The project home page is: http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgtclng/
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OVERVIEW:

Pgtcl is the Tcl interface for the PostgreSQL Database Management System.
It is a loadable Tcl module implementing commands which allow an
application to interact with a PostgreSQL database. Pgtcl-ng is the "next
generation" implementation of Pgtcl.

This is a source release. With appropriate development tools on a compatible
platform, you can build this on your system.

The full documentation for pgtcl-ng is available at the site listed in the
header of this file. This source release only contains the minimal
documentation for building and installing.

A binary release of pgtcl-ng for Windows is available on the site listed in
the header of this file. If you are using pgtcl on Windows, you should
consider using the binary release. For more information about the Windows
binary release and its requirements, see the README.txt file inside the
release.


CONTENTS:

    README ...................  This file
    COPYRIGHT ................  License file (Open Source)
    INSTALL ..................  Building and installing instructions
    NEWS .....................  Release information and new features
    ChangeLog* ...............  Source change history files
    README.historical ........  Historical READMEs from project predecessors
    patches/ .................  Patches to build PostgreSQL libpq on Windows
    extra/ ...................  Directory containing pgtclsh shell sources
  Plus the source files and configure/build support files.


REQUIREMENTS:

Refer to the INSTALL file for details.

This release has been successfully built on Linux with gcc-4.3.3,
PostgreSQL-8.4.1, and Tcl-8.5.7. The result was then tested against servers
running PostgreSQL versions 8.4.1, 8.3.8, and 8.2.14. It might build with
other versions of PostgreSQL, perhaps back to 7.4, and with older versions
of Tcl, perhaps back to 8.3.1, but these are not tested.

This release has been successfully built on Windows XP-SP3 with Borland C++
Builder 5.5, PostgreSQL-8.4.1, and ActiveState ActiveTcl 8.5.8.  Starting
with pgtcl-ng version 1.7.1, binary releases for Windows use the Tcl
"stubs" mechanism to create a DLL which can be loaded into multiple
versions of Tcl.  The result has been tested with ActiveState ActiveTcl
8.4.19.2 and 8.5.8, connecting to PostgreSQL-8.4.1, PostgreSQL-8.3.8, and
PostgreSQL-8.2.14 servers running on Linux.


RELEASE ISSUES - all platforms:

+ This version of pgtcl is substantially changed from pre-1.5.x versions,
  but should be compatible, unless undocumented or incorrect behavior of
  previous versions was relied on in an application.  Undocumented behavior
  of some commands changed.  Some commands now check their arguments more
  rigorously than before. Other commands, specifically some of the Large
  Object commands, throw a Tcl error if an error occurs, where their previous
  behavior was undocumented but often involved returning a negative value.
  Additionally, error messages may have changed. Another change was to
  remove undocumented return values from result array assignment commands.

+ If you are looking for the Tcl shells with PostgreSQL extensions (pgtclsh
  and pgtksh), look in the "extra/" directory. The README file there explains
  why you might be better off not using them, though.


RELEASE ISSUES - Windows:

+ Changes to the connection control environment variables (such as PGHOST,
  PGDATABASE) are not seen once the DLL is loaded. This is either a Windows
  DLL environment variable issue, a Tcl environment variable issue, or both.
  This should not be a problem, since environment variables are mostly for
  setting outside your application.

+ Only TCP/IP is supported, not Unix Domain Sockets. So a hostname (or IP
  address) must be provided when connecting. If you are trying to connect
  to a PostgreSQL server running on your Windows PC, you need to specify
  host=localhost or host=127.0.0.1 to connect to it.

RELEASE ISSUES - MacOS

+ There was a report of success building pgtcl-ng on MacOS X 10.3.6.
  See the INSTALL file for more information. Pgtcl-ng has not been tested
  by the developer on MacOS.