Tcl Built-In Commands - tell manual page

Tcl/Tk

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Tcl/Tk Applications | Tcl Commands | Tk Commands | Tcl Library | Tk Library

NAME

tell - Return current access position for an open channel

SYNOPSIS

tell channelId

DESCRIPTION

Returns an integer string giving the current access position in channelId. This value returned is a byte offset that can be passed to seek in order to set the channel to a particular position. Note that this value is in terms of bytes, not characters like read. The value returned is -1 for channels that do not support seeking.

ChannelId must be an identifier for an open channel such as a Tcl standard channel (stdin, stdout, or stderr), the return value from an invocation of open or socket, or the result of a channel creation command provided by a Tcl extension.

EXAMPLE

Read a line from a file channel only if it starts with foobar: 
# Save the offset in case we need to undo the read...
set offset [tell $chan]
if {[read $chan 6] eq "foobar"} {
    gets $chan line
} else {
    set line {}
    # Undo the read...
    seek $chan $offset
}

SEE ALSO

file, open, close, gets, seek, Tcl_StandardChannels

KEYWORDS

access position, channel, seeking
Copyright © 1995-1997 Roger E. Critchlow Jr. Copyright © 1993 The Regents of the University of California. Copyright © 1994-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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