debian man page for tell

tell(3tcl)						       Tcl Built-In Commands							tell(3tcl)

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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 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(3tcl), open(3tcl), close(3tcl), gets(3tcl), seek(3tcl), Tcl_StandardChannels(3tcl)

KEYWORDS
       access position, channel, seeking

Tcl									8.1								tell(3tcl)