This manual page is for Mac OS X version 10.6.3

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tell(n)                                     Tcl Built-In Commands                                    tell(n)



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NAME
       tell - Return current access position for an open channel

SYNOPSIS
       tell channelId
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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 chan-nels channels
       nels 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(n), open(n), close(n), gets(n), seek(n), Tcl_StandardChannels(3)


KEYWORDS
       access position, channel, seeking



Tcl                                                  8.1                                             tell(n)