tcl lsearch on list of list

Question

There is a list of list in Tcl.

set somelist {{aaa 1} {bbb 2} {ccc 1}}

How to search the list's element which first item is "bbb"?

I tried this way but it doesn't work.

lsearch $somelist "{bbb *}"

Thanks.

Answer 1

Use -index, it's designed for exactly this case. As ramanman points out, when you have a list, use list procedures. Have you thought about what happens if you have multiple matches?

In your case, I would just do this:

% lsearch -index 0 -all -inline $somelist bbb
{bbb 2}
% lsearch -index 0 -all $somelist "bbb"
1
% lsearch -index 0 -all $somelist "ccc"
2

You use -index of 0 to specify that you are interested in the first index of the outer list. -all returns all results. And you can use -inline if you just want the value of list element that matches, omit it if you just want the index of the matching element.