tell(n)

telln

Return current access position for an open channel

Usage

tell channelId

Overview

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.

Examples

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 }

Keywords

access position, channel, seeking

Releases

163 releases since Mac OS X 10.0; the text changed 4 times.

  1. 10.0–10.1.5
  2. 10.2–10.2.8
  3. 10.3–10.3.9
  4. 10.4–10.5.8
  5. 10.6–26.5

From tcl 152 in macOS 26.5. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.