Invoking HelgaShell

There are three ways of invoking an instance of HelgaShell:

1. Live via the "tclsh" command - this will initiate the Tcl shell, and you must manually load the Helga Tcl libraries:

$ tclsh
% package require helga
3.0
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You may avoid manually loading the Helga Tcl library by placing the line "package require helga" in the file ~/.tclshrc on your Helga server.

2. With a script via the "tclsh <filename>" command - this command would run the contents of a file named "<filename>" as a Tcl script. If the first Tcl command of your script is "package require helga", you will be able to run it as a Helga script - a series of Helga commands. Any additional arguments can be made available to the script by placing them after <filename>.
3. Start a persistent shell via the "helgash" script, and use TCP to connect to it. This is the method used by HelgaWeb, and is generally too cumbersome to be desirable for use over methods #1 and #2. It is not overly complex, though, and there's nothing stopping developers from writing tools to make use of HelgaShell via this method. Refer to the HelgaWeb documentation for an example of how HelgaWeb makes use of persistent instances of HelgaShell.