Thread: Pltcl error - could not create "normal" interpreter

Greetings,

Could somebody shed any light on the error message below that came from
trying to call a simple pltcl test function?  I am running Postgres 8.1
on WinXP and just recently added the pltcl language by copying Tcl84.dll
into my system directory (C:/Windows/System32) and successfully issuing
the command:
> createlang pltcl -U db_admin postgres
What else do I need to do or configure to enable this full
functionality?

postgres=# create or replace function test_fxn() returns void as $$
postgres$# spi_exec "SELECT * FROM test"
postgres$# $$ language pltcl;
CREATE FUNCTION
postgres=# select test_fxn();
ERROR:  could not create "normal" interpreter
postgres=#

Any help is greatly appreciated and the little that's in the
archives/www is fairly abstruse.  Thanks,
JL

"Lenorovitz, Joel" <Joel.Lenorovitz@usap.gov> writes:
> Could somebody shed any light on the error message below that came from
> trying to call a simple pltcl test function?  I am running Postgres 8.1
> on WinXP and just recently added the pltcl language by copying Tcl84.dll
> into my system directory (C:/Windows/System32) and successfully issuing
> the command:
>> createlang pltcl -U db_admin postgres

Hm, surely that .dll is not the only component of a standard Tcl
installation?  The error message is pretty unhelpful I agree, but
I suspect it may mean that Tcl's attempt to execute some kind of
init file failed.

            regards, tom lane

"Lenorovitz, Joel" <Joel.Lenorovitz@usap.gov> writes:
> Could somebody shed any light on the error message below that came from
> trying to call a simple pltcl test function?  I am running Postgres 8.1
> on WinXP and just recently added the pltcl language by copying Tcl84.dll
> into my system directory (C:/Windows/System32) and successfully issuing
> the command:
>> createlang pltcl -U db_admin postgres

I was able to reproduce the "could not create "normal" interpreter"
behavior after removing "init.tcl" from the Tcl library directory.
Unfortunately, it seems that this breaks Tcl badly enough that it's
not capable of returning a useful error message :-( --- the fact that
our code doesn't make any attempt to print the interpreter result
is probably Not Good, but when I changed it to do so, I still didn't
get anything but an empty string ...

So the short answer is "install Tcl per its directions".

            regards, tom lane