rename(n)

renamen

Rename or delete a command

Usage

rename oldName newName


    


    


    

Overview

Rename the command that used to be called oldName so that it is now called newName. If newName is an empty string then oldName is deleted. oldName and newName may include namespace qualifiers (names of containing namespaces). If a command is renamed into a different namespace, future invocations of it will execute in the new namespace. The rename command returns an empty string as result.

Examples

The rename command can be used to wrap the standard Tcl commands with your own monitoring machinery. For example, you might wish to count how often the source command is called:

rename ::source ::theRealSource
set sourceCount 0
proc ::source args {
    global sourceCount
    puts "called source for the [incr sourceCount]'th time"
    uplevel 1 ::theRealSource $args
}

Keywords

command, delete, namespace, rename

From tcl 8.6.16-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.