dilemma: run slow or crash on load

Basically, you're doing this in a very inefficient way. Specifically, you're converting your class list into an array by iterating over your class list 1,296 (=36*36) times. You can do the same thing by only iterating over it once:

 

  when RULE_INIT {
     set debug 1
     if { $debug > 0 } {log local0.notice "rule initializing"}
     set list_map [lsort -unique -decreasing -ascii $::cl_map_v10]
     array unset ::map
     array unset ::listsize
     if { $debug > 0 } {log local0.notice "starting to load array"}
     foreach element $list_map {
        set idx1 [string index $element 1]
        set idx2 [string index $element 2]
        set count 1
        catch { set count $::listsize(${idx1}${idx2}) }
        set ::map(${idx1}${idx2},${count}) $element
        incr count
        set ::listsize(${idx1}${idx2}) $count
     }
     if { $debug > 0 } {log local0.notice "map(ab,1): $::map(ab,1)"}
     if { $debug > 0 } {log local0.notice "done load array"}
     if { $debug > 0 } {log local0.notice "rule initialized"}
   }

 

 

This code takes the fist two characters of each element of your class, looks up which index into the "map" array is the next one, stuffs it in there, and increments and stores the new count for that index. The "catch" line is just a clever way of dealing with the fact that if you try to access an unset array key, Tcl gives an error instead of returning 0 or something. So if we haven't set a particular "listsize" key yet, the "count" variable keeps its value of 1.

 

 

A few other notes: I've made your "array set"s into "array unset"s, since I think that that's what you really meant to do. I got rid of "keylist" since you never actually use it. I did not check if the values stored in "listsize" match your original rule, or are off by 1. If they are off, I think you can just do "set count 0" instead of 1, and move the "incr count" line just after the "catch" line. Basically, this should get you close, and you can make further changes to suit your application.