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- '\"
- '\" Copyright (c) 1993 The Regents of the University of California.
- '\" Copyright (c) 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
- '\"
- '\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution
- '\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.
- '\"
- '\" @(#) gets.n 1.3 94/12/17 16:18:01
- '\"
- .so man.macros
- .HS gets tcl
- .BS
- '\" Note: do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below!
- .SH NAME
- gets \- Read a line from a file
- .SH SYNOPSIS
- \fBgets \fIfileId\fR ?\fIvarName\fR?
- .BE
-
- .SH DESCRIPTION
- .PP
- This command reads the next line from the file given by \fIfileId\fR
- and discards the terminating newline character.
- If \fIvarName\fR is specified then the line is placed in the variable
- by that name and the return value is a count of the number of characters
- read (not including the newline).
- If the end of the file is reached before reading
- any characters then \-1 is returned and \fIvarName\fR is set to an
- empty string.
- If \fIvarName\fR is not specified then the return value will be
- the line (minus the newline character) or an empty string if
- the end of the file is reached before reading any characters.
- An empty string will also be returned if a line contains no characters
- except the newline, so \fBeof\fR may have to be used to determine
- what really happened.
- If the last character in the file is not a newline character then
- \fBgets\fR behaves as if there were an additional newline character
- at the end of the file.
- \fIFileId\fR must be \fBstdin\fR or the return value from a previous
- call to \fBopen\fR; it must refer to a file that was opened
- for reading.
- .VS
- Any existing end-of-file or error condition on the file is cleared at
- the beginning of the \fBgets\fR command.
- .VE
-
- .SH KEYWORDS
- file, line, read
-