Basekits: How to extract them from ActiveState Installers

Just discovered the following in need for an 8.15.x basekit, without wanting to install this release:

  • Download the desired Installer from http://downloads.activestate.com/ActiveTcl/releases/
  • sdx mksplit installername gives 2 Files, one named ...head and one named ...tail
    • (the head itself seems to be a spezialized tclkit, but it's complaining about the missing tail...;-)
  • sdx unwrap tail

The wanted basekits are now below the created VFS-structure under payload/bin.


MG Thanks for the tip - works a treat. There are a lot of files in there, though, and I'm not sure what most of them are - anyone care to fill in the blanks? I just extracted the Win32 64bit 8.6.3 installer, and found these files in payload/bin:

  • base-tcl8.6-thread-win32-x86_64.dll
  • base-tcl8.6-thread-win32-x86_64.exe - basekit without Tk (launches a console app)
  • base-tk8.6-thread-win32-x86_64.exe - basekit with Tk
  • tcl86.dll
  • tclsh.exe
  • tclsh86.exe
  • tclvfse.tcl - seems to be a file explorer of some kind, but not sure of its exact purpose, and the file contents are compiled/obfusticated
  • teacup.exe - Teacup package installer
  • tk86.dll
  • tkcon.tcl - TkCon console
  • wish.exe
  • wish86.exe
  • zlib1.dll

Both the tclsh and wish .exes are tiny (370kb) by comparison, so I'm guessing they're wrappers, which probably rely on the corresponding tcl and tk .dlls? Presumably those, and the basekit.dll, can be used by apps linking against Tcl. Not sure about tcl