Python Tkinter throwing Tcl error

Question

I am learning basic GUI in Python, and I came across a sample example to read file name from file explorer on Stack Overflow.

from Tkinter import Tk
from tkFileD         


        

Answer 1

If you are hitting this kind of error in a python -m venv NAME kind of virtual environment (and you actually have tcl installed in your system), then you need to export the paths similarly as suggested by Kamil Czerski in a previous post for virtualenv.

1. To find out what are your TK and TCL paths, run a python script outside of the venv (source):

import tkinter
root = tkinter.Tk()   
print(root.tk.exprstring('$tcl_library'))   
print(root.tk.exprstring('$tk_library'))

2. Open your venv configuration file bin/activate and find the place where they export PATH and insert after this (insert correct paths from step 1):

TCL_LIBRARY="/tcl/path/from/step/1"   
TK_LIBRARY="/tk/path/from/step/1"   
TKPATH="/tk/path/from/step/1"  
export TCL_LIBRARY TK_LIBRARY TKPATH

3. Deactivate (if it was activated) and source again your venv:

deactivate  
source bin/activate

The "Tcl missing"-error should be gone.