Provided by: tcl9.0-doc_9.0.1+dfsg-1_all 
NAME
chan - Read, write and manipulate channels
SYNOPSIS
chan option ?arg arg ...?
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DESCRIPTION
This command provides several operations for reading from, writing to and otherwise manipulating open
channels (such as have been created with the open and socket commands, or the default named channels
stdin, stdout or stderr which correspond to the process's standard input, output and error streams
respectively). Option indicates what to do with the channel; any unique abbreviation for option is
acceptable. Valid options are:
chan blocked channel
This tests whether the last input operation on the channel called channel failed because it would
have otherwise caused the process to block, and returns 1 if that was the case. It returns 0
otherwise. Note that this only ever returns 1 when the channel has been configured to be non-
blocking; all Tcl channels have blocking turned on by default.
chan close channel ?direction?
Close and destroy the channel called channel. Note that this deletes all existing file-events
registered on the channel. If the direction argument (which must be read or write or any unique
abbreviation of them) is present, the channel will only be half-closed, so that it can go from
being read-write to write-only or read-only respectively. If a read-only channel is closed for
reading, it is the same as if the channel is fully closed, and respectively similar for write-only
channels. Without the direction argument, the channel is closed for both reading and writing (but
only if those directions are currently open). It is an error to close a read-only channel for
writing, or a write-only channel for reading.
As part of closing the channel, all buffered output is flushed to the channel's output device
(only if the channel is ceasing to be writable), any buffered input is discarded (only if the
channel is ceasing to be readable), the underlying operating system resource is closed and channel
becomes unavailable for future use (both only if the channel is being completely closed).
If the channel is blocking and the channel is ceasing to be writable, the command does not return
until all output is flushed. If the channel is non-blocking and there is unflushed output, the
channel remains open and the command returns immediately; output will be flushed in the background
and the channel will be closed when all the flushing is complete.
If channel is a blocking channel for a command pipeline then chan close waits for the child
processes to complete.
If the channel is shared between interpreters, then chan close makes channel unavailable in the
invoking interpreter but has no other effect until all of the sharing interpreters have closed the
channel. When the last interpreter in which the channel is registered invokes chan close (or
close), the cleanup actions described above occur. With half-closing, the half-close of the
channel only applies to the current interpreter's view of the channel until all channels have
closed it in that direction (or completely). See the interp command for a description of channel
sharing.
Channels are automatically fully closed when an interpreter is destroyed and when the process
exits. Channels are switched to blocking mode, to ensure that all output is correctly flushed
before the process exits.
The command returns an empty string, and may generate an error if an error occurs while flushing
output. If a command in a command pipeline created with open returns an error, chan close
generates an error (similar to the exec command.)
Note that half-closes of sockets and command pipelines can have important side effects because
they result in a shutdown() or close() of the underlying system resource, which can change how
other processes or systems respond to the Tcl program.
Channels are automatically closed when an interpreter is destroyed and when the process exits.
From 8.6 on (TIP#398), nonblocking channels are no longer switched to blocking mode when exiting;
this guarantees a timely exit even when the peer or a communication channel is stalled. To ensure
proper flushing of stalled nonblocking channels on exit, one must now either (a) actively switch
them back to blocking or (b) use the environment variable TCL_FLUSH_NONBLOCKING_ON_EXIT, which
when set and not equal to “0” restores the previous behavior.
chan configure channel ?optionName? ?value? ?optionName value?...
Query or set the configuration options of the channel named channel.
If no optionName or value arguments are supplied, the command returns a list containing
alternating option names and values for the channel. If optionName is supplied but no value then
the command returns the current value of the given option. If one or more pairs of optionName and
value are supplied, the command sets each of the named options to the corresponding value; in this
case the return value is an empty string.
The options described below are supported for all channels. In addition, each channel type may add
options that only it supports. See the manual entry for the command that creates each type of
channel for the options supported by that specific type of channel. For example, see the manual
entry for the socket command for additional options for sockets, and the open command for
additional options for serial devices.
-blocking boolean
The -blocking option determines whether I/O operations on the channel can cause the process to
block indefinitely. The value of the option must be a proper boolean value. Channels are
normally in blocking mode; if a channel is placed into non-blocking mode it will affect the
operation of the chan gets, chan read, chan puts, chan flush, and chan close commands; see the
documentation for those commands for details. For non-blocking mode to work correctly, the
application must be using the Tcl event loop (e.g. by calling Tcl_DoOneEvent or invoking the vwait
command).
-buffering newValue
If newValue is full then the I/O system will buffer output until its internal buffer is full or
until the chan flush command is invoked. If newValue is line, then the I/O system will
automatically flush output for the channel whenever a newline character is output. If newValue is
none, the I/O system will flush automatically after every output operation. The default is for
-buffering to be set to full except for channels that connect to terminal-like devices; for these
channels the initial setting is line. Additionally, stdin and stdout are initially set to line,
and stderr is set to none.
-buffersize newSize
newSize must be an integer; its value is used to set the size of buffers, in bytes, subsequently
allocated for this channel to store input or output. newSize must be a number of no more than one
million, allowing buffers of up to one million bytes in size.
-encoding name
This option is used to specify the encoding of the channel as one of the named encodings returned
by encoding names, so that the data can be converted to and from Unicode for use in Tcl. For
instance, in order for Tcl to read characters from a Japanese file in shiftjis and properly
process and display the contents, the encoding would be set to shiftjis. Thereafter, when reading
from the channel, the bytes in the Japanese file would be converted to Unicode as they are read.
Writing is also supported - as Tcl strings are written to the channel they will automatically be
converted to the specified encoding on output.
If a file contains pure binary data (for instance, a JPEG image), the encoding for the channel
should be configured to be iso8859-1. Tcl will then assign no interpretation to the data in the
file and simply read or write raw bytes. The Tcl binary command can be used to manipulate this
byte-oriented data. It is usually better to set the -translation option to binary when you want
to transfer binary data, as this turns off the other automatic interpretations of the bytes in the
stream as well.
The default encoding for newly opened channels is the same platform- and locale-dependent system
encoding used for interfacing with the operating system, as returned by encoding system.
-eofchar char
This option supports DOS file systems that use Control-z (\x1A) as an end of file marker. If char
is not an empty string, then this character signals end-of-file when it is encountered during
input. Otherwise (the default) there is no special end of file character marker. The acceptable
range for -eofchar values is \x01 - \x7f; attempting to set -eofchar to a value outside of this
range will generate an error. 2
-profile profile 2
Specifies the encoding profile to be used on the channel. The encoding transforms in use for the 2
channel's input and output will then be subject to the rules of that profile. Any failures will 2
result in a channel error. See PROFILES in the encoding(3tcl) documentation for details about 2
encoding profiles.
-translation translation
-translation {inTranslation outTranslation}
In Tcl scripts the end of a line is always represented using a single newline character (\n).
However, in actual files and devices the end of a line may be represented differently on different
platforms, or even for different devices on the same platform. For example, under UNIX newlines
are used in files, whereas carriage-return-linefeed sequences are normally used in network
connections. On input (i.e., with chan gets and chan read) the Tcl I/O system automatically
translates the external end-of-line representation into newline characters. Upon output (i.e.,
with chan puts), the I/O system translates newlines to the external end-of-line representation.
The default translation mode, auto, handles all the common cases automatically, but the
-translation option provides explicit control over the end of line translations.
The value associated with -translation is a single item for read-only and write-only channels.
The value is a two-element list for read-write channels; the read translation mode is the first
element of the list, and the write translation mode is the second element. As a convenience, when
setting the translation mode for a read-write channel you can specify a single value that will
apply to both reading and writing. When querying the translation mode of a read-write channel, a
two-element list will always be returned. The following values are currently supported:
auto As the input translation mode, auto treats any of newline (lf), carriage return (cr), or
carriage return followed by a newline (crlf) as the end of line representation. The end of
line representation can even change from line-to-line, and all cases are translated to a
newline. As the output translation mode, auto chooses a platform specific representation;
for sockets on all platforms Tcl chooses crlf, for all Unix flavors, it chooses lf, and for
the various flavors of Windows it chooses crlf. The default setting for -translation is
auto for both input and output.
binary Like lf, no end-of-line translation is performed, but in addition, sets -eofchar to the
empty string to disable it, and sets -encoding to iso8859-1. With this one setting, a
channel is fully configured for binary input and output: Each byte read from the channel
becomes the Unicode character having the same value as that byte, and each character
written to the channel becomes a single byte in the output. This makes it possible to work
seamlessly with binary data as long as each character in the data remains in the range of 0
to 255 so that there is no distinction between binary data and text. For example, A JPEG
image can be read from a such a channel, manipulated, and then written back to such a
channel.
cr The end of a line in the underlying file or device is represented by a single carriage
return character. As the input translation mode, cr mode converts carriage returns to
newline characters. As the output translation mode, cr mode translates newline characters
to carriage returns.
crlf The end of a line in the underlying file or device is represented by a carriage return
character followed by a linefeed character. As the input translation mode, crlf mode
converts carriage-return-linefeed sequences to newline characters. As the output
translation mode, crlf mode translates newline characters to carriage-return-linefeed
sequences. This mode is typically used on Windows platforms and for network connections.
lf The end of a line in the underlying file or device is represented by a single newline
(linefeed) character. In this mode no translations occur during either input or output.
This mode is typically used on UNIX platforms.
chan copy inputChan outputChan ?-size size? ?-command callback?
Reads characters from inputChan and writes them to outputChan until all characters are copied,
blocking until the copy is complete and returning the number of characters copied. Leverages
internal buffers to avoid extra copies and to avoid buffering too much data in main memory when
copying large files to slow destinations like network sockets.
-size limits the number of characters copied.
If -command is given, chan copy returns immediately, works in the background, and calls callback
when the copy completes, providing as an additional argument the number of characters written to
outputChan. If an error occurs during the background copy, another argument provides message for
the error. inputChan and outputChan are automatically configured for non-blocking mode if needed.
Background copying only works correctly if events are being processed, e.g. via vwait or Tk.
During a background copy no other read operation may be performed on inputChan, and no write
operation may be performed on outputChan. However, write operations may by performed on inputChan
and read operations may be performed on outputChan, as exhibited by the bidirectional copy example
below.
If either inputChan or outputChan is closed while the copy is in progress, copying ceases and no
callback is made. If inputChan is closed all data already queued is written to outputChan.
There should be no event handler established for inputChan because it may become readable during
a background copy. An attempt to read or write from within an event handler results result in the
error, "channel busy". Any wrong-sided I/O attempted (by a chan event handler or otherwise)
results in a “channel busy” error.
chan create mode cmdPrefix
This subcommand creates a new script level channel using the command prefix cmdPrefix as its
handler. Any such channel is called a reflected channel. The specified command prefix, cmdPrefix,
must be a non-empty list, and should provide the API described in the refchan manual page. The
handle of the new channel is returned as the result of the chan create command, and the channel is
open. Use either close or chan close to remove the channel.
The argument mode specifies if the new channel is opened for reading, writing, or both. It has to
be a list containing any of the strings “read” or “write”, The list must have at least one
element, as a channel you can neither write to nor read from makes no sense. The handler command
for the new channel must support the chosen mode, or an error is thrown.
The command prefix is executed in the global namespace, at the top of call stack, following the
appending of arguments as described in the refchan manual page. Command resolution happens at the
time of the call. Renaming the command, or destroying it means that the next call of a handler
method may fail, causing the channel command invoking the handler to fail as well. Depending on
the subcommand being invoked, the error message may not be able to explain the reason for that
failure.
Every channel created with this subcommand knows which interpreter it was created in, and only
ever executes its handler command in that interpreter, even if the channel was shared with and/or
was moved into a different interpreter. Each reflected channel also knows the thread it was
created in, and executes its handler command only in that thread, even if the channel was moved
into a different thread. To this end all invocations of the handler are forwarded to the original
thread by posting special events to it. This means that the original thread (i.e. the thread that
executed the chan create command) must have an active event loop, i.e. it must be able to process
such events. Otherwise the thread sending them will block indefinitely. Deadlock may occur.
Note that this permits the creation of a channel whose two endpoints live in two different
threads, providing a stream-oriented bridge between these threads. In other words, we can provide
a way for regular stream communication between threads instead of having to send commands.
When a thread or interpreter is deleted, all channels created with this subcommand and using this
thread/interpreter as their computing base are deleted as well, in all interpreters they have been
shared with or moved into, and in whatever thread they have been transferred to. While this pulls
the rug out under the other thread(s) and/or interpreter(s), this cannot be avoided. Trying to use
such a channel will cause the generation of a regular error about unknown channel handles.
This subcommand is safe and made accessible to safe interpreters. While it arranges for the
execution of arbitrary Tcl code the system also makes sure that the code is always executed within
the safe interpreter.
chan eof channel
Test whether the last input operation on the channel called channel failed because the end of the
data stream was reached, returning 1 if end-of-file was reached, and 0 otherwise.
chan event channel event ?script?
Arrange for the Tcl script script to be installed as a file event handler to be called whenever
the channel called channel enters the state described by event (which must be either readable or
writable); only one such handler may be installed per event per channel at a time. If script is
the empty string, the current handler is deleted (this also happens if the channel is closed or
the interpreter deleted). If script is omitted, the currently installed script is returned (or an
empty string if no such handler is installed). The callback is only performed if the event loop
is being serviced (e.g. via vwait or update).
A file event handler is a binding between a channel and a script, such that the script is
evaluated whenever the channel becomes readable or writable. File event handlers are most
commonly used to allow data to be received from another process on an event-driven basis, so that
the receiver can continue to interact with the user or with other channels while waiting for the
data to arrive. If an application invokes chan gets or chan read on a blocking channel when there
is no input data available, the process will block; until the input data arrives, it will not be
able to service other events, so it will appear to the user to “freeze up” . With chan event, the
process can tell when data is present and only invoke chan gets or chan read when they will not
block.
A channel is considered to be readable if there is unread data available on the underlying device.
A channel is also considered to be readable if there is unread data in an input buffer, except in
the special case where the most recent attempt to read from the channel was a chan gets call that
could not find a complete line in the input buffer. This feature allows a file to be read a line
at a time in non-blocking mode using events. A channel is also considered to be readable if an
end of file or error condition is present on the underlying file or device. It is important for
script to check for these conditions and handle them appropriately; for example, if there is no
special check for end of file, an infinite loop may occur where script reads no data, returns, and
is immediately invoked again.
A channel is considered to be writable if at least one byte of data can be written to the
underlying file or device without blocking, or if an error condition is present on the underlying
file or device. Note that client sockets opened in asynchronous mode become writable when they
become connected or if the connection fails.
Event-driven I/O works best for channels that have been placed into non-blocking mode with the
chan configure command. In blocking mode, a chan puts command may block if you give it more data
than the underlying file or device can accept, and a chan gets or chan read command will block if
you attempt to read more data than is ready; no events will be processed while the commands block.
In non-blocking mode chan puts, chan read, and chan gets never block.
The script for a file event is executed at global level (outside the context of any Tcl procedure)
in the interpreter in which the chan event command was invoked. If an error occurs while
executing the script then the command registered with interp bgerror is used to report the error.
In addition, the file event handler is deleted if it ever returns an error; this is done in order
to prevent infinite loops due to buggy handlers.
chan flush channel
Ensures that all pending output for the channel called channel is written.
If the channel is in blocking mode the command does not return until all the buffered output has
been flushed to the channel. If the channel is in non-blocking mode, the command may return before
all buffered output has been flushed; the remainder will be flushed in the background as fast as
the underlying file or device is able to absorb it.
chan gets channel ?varName?
Reads a line from the channel consisting of all characters up to the next end-of-line sequence or
until end of file is seen. The line feed character corresponding to end-of-line sequence is not
included as part of the line. If the varName argument is specified, the line is stored in the
variable of that name and the command returns the length of the line. If varName is not specified,
the command returns the line itself as the result of the command.
If a complete line is not available and the channel is not at EOF, the command will block in the
case of a blocking channel. For non-blocking channels, the command will return the empty string as
the result in the case of varName not specified and -1 if it is.
If a blocking channel is already at EOF, the command returns an empty string if varName is not
specified. Note an empty string result can also be returned when a blank line (no characters
before the next end of line sequence). The two cases can be distinguished by calling the chan eof
command to check for end of file. If varName is specified, the command returns -1 on end of file.
There is no ambiguity in this case because blank lines result in 0 being returned.
If a non-blocking channel is already at EOF, the command returns an empty line if varName is not
specified. This can be distinguished from an empty line being returned by either a blank line
being read or a full line not being available through the use of the chan eof and chan blocked
commands. If chan eof returns true, the channel is at EOF. If chan blocked returns true, a full
line was not available. If both commands return false, an empty line was read. If varName was
specified for a non-bocking channel at EOF, the command returns -1. This can be distinguished from
full line not being available either by chan eof or chan blocked as above. Note that when varName
is specified, there is no need to distinguish between eof and blank lines as the latter will
result in the command returning 0.
If the encoding profile strict is in effect for the channel, the command will raise an exception
with the POSIX error code EILSEQ if any encoding errors are encountered in the channel input data.
The file pointer remains unchanged and it is possible to introspect, and in some cases recover, by
changing the encoding in use. See ENCODING ERROR EXAMPLES later.
chan isbinary channel
Test whether the channel called channel is a binary channel, returning 1 if it is and, and 0
otherwise. A binary channel is a channel with iso8859-1 encoding, -eofchar set to {} and
-translation set to lf.
chan names ?pattern?
Produces a list of all channel names. If pattern is specified, only those channel names that match
it (according to the rules of string match) will be returned.
chan pending mode channel
Depending on whether mode is input or output, returns the number of bytes of input or output
(respectively) currently buffered internally for channel (especially useful in a readable event
callback to impose application-specific limits on input line lengths to avoid a potential denial-
of-service attack where a hostile user crafts an extremely long line that exceeds the available
memory to buffer it). Returns -1 if the channel was not opened for the mode in question.
chan pipe
Creates a standalone pipe whose read- and write-side channels are returned as a 2-element list,
the first element being the read side and the second the write side. Can be useful e.g. to
redirect separately stderr and stdout from a subprocess. To do this, spawn with "2>@" or ">@"
redirection operators onto the write side of a pipe, and then immediately close it in the parent.
This is necessary to get an EOF on the read side once the child has exited or otherwise closed its
output.
Note that the pipe buffering semantics can vary at the operating system level substantially; it is
not safe to assume that a write performed on the output side of the pipe will appear instantly to
the input side. This is a fundamental difference and Tcl cannot conceal it. The overall stream
semantics are compatible, so blocking reads and writes will not see most of the differences, but
the details of what exactly gets written when are not. This is most likely to show up when using
pipelines for testing; care should be taken to ensure that deadlocks do not occur and that
potential short reads are allowed for.
chan pop channel
Removes the topmost transformation from the channel channel, if there is any. If there are no
transformations added to channel, this is equivalent to chan close of that channel. The result is
normally the empty string, but can be an error in some situations (i.e. where the underlying
system stream is closed and that results in an error).
chan postevent channel eventSpec
This subcommand is used by command handlers specified with chan create. It notifies the channel
represented by the handle channel that the event(s) listed in the eventSpec have occurred. The
argument has to be a list containing any of the strings read and write. The list must contain at
least one element as it does not make sense to invoke the command if there are no events to post.
Note that this subcommand can only be used with channel handles that were created/opened by chan
create. All other channels will cause this subcommand to report an error.
As only the Tcl level of a channel, i.e. its command handler, should post events to it we also
restrict the usage of this command to the interpreter that created the channel. In other words,
posting events to a reflected channel from an interpreter that does not contain it's
implementation is not allowed. Attempting to post an event from any other interpreter will cause
this subcommand to report an error.
Another restriction is that it is not possible to post events that the I/O core has not registered
an interest in. Trying to do so will cause the method to throw an error. See the command handler
method watch described in refchan, the document specifying the API of command handlers for
reflected channels.
This command is safe and made accessible to safe interpreters. It can trigger the execution of
chan event handlers, whether in the current interpreter or in other interpreters or other threads,
even where the event is posted from a safe interpreter and listened for by a trusted interpreter.
Chan event handlers are always executed in the interpreter that set them up.
chan push channel cmdPrefix
Adds a new transformation on top of the channel channel. The cmdPrefix argument describes a list
of one or more words which represent a handler that will be used to implement the transformation.
The command prefix must provide the API described in the transchan manual page. The result of
this subcommand is a handle to the transformation. Note that it is important to make sure that the
transformation is capable of supporting the channel mode that it is used with or this can make the
channel neither readable nor writable.
chan puts ?-nonewline? ?channel? string
Writes string to the channel named channel followed by a newline character. A trailing newline
character is written unless the optional flag -nonewline is given. If channel is omitted, the
string is written to the standard output channel, stdout.
Newline characters in the output are translated by chan puts to platform-specific end-of-line
sequences according to the currently configured value of the -translation option for the channel
(for example, on PCs newlines are normally replaced with carriage-return-linefeed sequences; see
chan configure above for details).
Tcl buffers output internally, so characters written with chan puts may not appear immediately on
the output file or device; Tcl will normally delay output until the buffer is full or the channel
is closed. You can force output to appear immediately with the chan flush command.
When the output buffer fills up, the chan puts command will normally block until all the buffered
data has been accepted for output by the operating system. If channel is in non-blocking mode
then the chan puts command will not block even if the operating system cannot accept the data.
Instead, Tcl continues to buffer the data and writes it in the background as fast as the
underlying file or device can accept it. The application must use the Tcl event loop for non-
blocking output to work; otherwise Tcl never finds out that the file or device is ready for more
output data. It is possible for an arbitrarily large amount of data to be buffered for a channel
in non-blocking mode, which could consume a large amount of memory. To avoid wasting memory, non-
blocking I/O should normally be used in an event-driven fashion with the chan event command (do
not invoke chan puts unless you have recently been notified via a file event that the channel is
ready for more output data).
The command will raise an error exception with POSIX error code EILSEQ if the encoding profile
strict is in effect for the channel and the output data cannot be encoded in the encoding
configured for the channel. Data may be partially written to the channel in this case.
chan read channel ?numChars?
chan read ?-nonewline? channel
In the first form, the result will be the next numChars characters read from the channel named
channel; if numChars is omitted, all characters up to the point when the channel would signal a
failure (whether an end-of-file, blocked or other error condition) are read. In the second form
(i.e. when numChars has been omitted) the flag -nonewline may be given to indicate that any
trailing newline in the string that has been read should be trimmed.
If channel is in non-blocking mode, chan read may not read as many characters as requested: once
all available input has been read, the command will return the data that is available rather than
blocking for more input. If the channel is configured to use a multi-byte encoding, then there
may actually be some bytes remaining in the internal buffers that do not form a complete
character. These bytes will not be returned until a complete character is available or end-of-
file is reached. The -nonewline switch is ignored if the command returns before reaching the end
of the file.
Chan read translates end-of-line sequences in the input into newline characters according to the
-translation option for the channel (see chan configure above for a discussion on the ways in
which chan configure will alter input).
When reading from a serial port, most applications should configure the serial port channel to be
non-blocking, like this:
chan configure channel -blocking 0.
Then chan read behaves much like described above. Note that most serial ports are comparatively
slow; it is entirely possible to get a readable event for each character read from them. Care must
be taken when using chan read on blocking serial ports:
chan read channel numChars
In this form chan read blocks until numChars have been received from the serial port.
chan read channel
In this form chan read blocks until the reception of the end-of-file character, see chan
configure -eofchar. If there no end-of-file character has been configured for the channel,
then chan read will block forever.
If the encoding profile strict is in effect for the channel, the command will raise an exception
with the POSIX error code EILSEQ if any encoding errors are encountered in the channel input data.
If the channel is in blocking mode, the error is thrown after advancing the file pointer to the
beginning of the invalid data. The successfully decoded leading portion of the data prior to the
error location is returned as the value of the -data key of the error option dictionary. If the
channel is in non-blocking mode, the successfully decoded portion of data is returned by the
command without an error exception being raised. A subsequent read will start at the invalid data
and immediately raise a EILSEQ POSIX error exception. Unlike the blocking channel case, the -data
key is not present in the error option dictionary. In the case of exception thrown due to encoding
errors, it is possible to introspect, and in some cases recover, by changing the encoding in use.
See ENCODING ERROR EXAMPLES later.
chan seek channel offset ?origin?
Sets the current access position within the underlying data stream for the channel named channel
to be offset bytes relative to origin. Offset must be an integer (which may be negative) and
origin must be one of the following:
start The new access position will be offset bytes from the start of the underlying file or
device.
current
The new access position will be offset bytes from the current access position; a negative
offset moves the access position backwards in the underlying file or device.
end The new access position will be offset bytes from the end of the file or device. A
negative offset places the access position before the end of file, and a positive offset
places the access position after the end of file.
The origin argument defaults to start.
Chan seek flushes all buffered output for the channel before the command returns, even if the
channel is in non-blocking mode. It also discards any buffered and unread input. This command
returns an empty string. An error occurs if this command is applied to channels whose underlying
file or device does not support seeking.
Note that offset values are byte offsets, not character offsets. Both chan seek and chan tell
operate in terms of bytes, not characters, unlike chan read.
chan tell channel
Returns a number giving the current access position within the underlying data stream for the
channel named channel. This value returned is a byte offset that can be passed to chan seek in
order to set the channel to a particular position. Note that this value is in terms of bytes, not
characters like chan read. The value returned is -1 for channels that do not support seeking.
chan truncate channel ?length?
Sets the byte length of the underlying data stream for the channel named channel to be length (or
to the current byte offset within the underlying data stream if length is omitted). The channel is
flushed before truncation.
EXAMPLES
SIMPLE CHANNEL OPERATION EXAMPLES
Instruct Tcl to always send output to stdout immediately, whether or not it is to a terminal:
fconfigure stdout -buffering none
In the following example a file is opened using the encoding CP1252, which is common on Windows, searches
for a string, rewrites that part, and truncates the file two lines later.
set f [open somefile.txt r+]
chan configure $f -encoding cp1252
set offset 0
# Search for string "FOOBAR" in the file
while {[chan gets $f line] >= 0} {
set idx [string first FOOBAR $line]
if {$idx >= 0} {
# Found it; rewrite line
chan seek $f [expr {$offset + $idx}]
chan puts -nonewline $f BARFOO
# Skip to end of following line, and truncate
chan gets $f
chan gets $f
chan truncate $f
# Stop searching the file now
break
}
# Save offset of start of next line for later
set offset [chan tell $f]
}
chan close $f
This example illustrates flushing of a channel. The user is prompted for some information. Because the
standard input channel is line buffered, it must be flushed for the user to see the prompt.
chan puts -nonewline "Please type your name: "
chan flush stdout
chan gets stdin name
chan puts "Hello there, $name!"
This example reads a file one line at a time and prints it out with the current line number attached to
the start of each line.
set chan [open "some.file.txt"]
set lineNumber 0
while {[chan gets $chan line] >= 0} {
chan puts "[incr lineNumber]: $line"
}
chan close $chan
In this example illustrating event driven reads, GetData will be called with the channel as an argument
whenever $chan becomes readable. The read call will read whatever binary data is currently available
without blocking. Here the channel has the fileevent removed when an end of file occurs to avoid being
continually called (see above). Alternatively the channel may be closed on this condition.
proc GetData {chan} {
set data [chan read $chan]
chan puts "[string length $data] $data"
if {[chan eof $chan]} {
chan event $chan readable {}
}
}
chan configure $chan -blocking 0 -translation binary
chan event $chan readable [list GetData $chan]
The next example is similar but uses chan gets to read line-oriented data.
proc GetData {chan} {
if {[chan gets $chan line] >= 0} {
chan puts $line
}
if {[chan eof $chan]} {
chan close $chan
}
}
chan configure $chan -blocking 0 -buffering line -translation crlf
chan event $chan readable [list GetData $chan]
A network server that echoes its input line-by-line without preventing servicing of other connections at
the same time:
# This is a very simple logger...
proc log {message} {
chan puts stdout $message
}
# This is called whenever a new client connects to the server
proc connect {chan host port} {
set clientName [format <%s:%d> $host $port]
log "connection from $clientName"
chan configure $chan -blocking 0 -buffering line
chan event $chan readable [list echoLine $chan $clientName]
}
# This is called whenever either at least one byte of input
# data is available, or the channel was closed by the client.
proc echoLine {chan clientName} {
chan gets $chan line
if {[chan eof $chan]} {
log "finishing connection from $clientName"
chan close $chan
} elseif {![chan blocked $chan]} {
# Didn't block waiting for end-of-line
log "$clientName - $line"
chan puts $chan $line
}
}
# Create the server socket and enter the event-loop to wait
# for incoming connections...
socket -server connect 12345
vwait forever
The following example reads a PPM-format image from a file combining ASCII and binary content.
# Open the file and put it into Unix ASCII mode
set f [open teapot.ppm]
chan configure $f -encoding ascii -translation lf
# Get the header
if {[chan gets $f] ne "P6"} {
error "not a raw-bits PPM"
}
# Read lines until we have got non-comment lines
# that supply us with three decimal values.
set words {}
while {[llength $words] < 3} {
chan gets $f line
if {[string match "#*" $line]} continue
lappend words {*}[join [scan $line %d%d%d]]
}
# Those words supply the size of the image and its
# overall depth per channel. Assign to variables.
lassign $words xSize ySize depth
# Now switch to binary mode to pull in the data,
# one byte per channel (red,green,blue) per pixel.
chan configure $f -translation binary
set numDataBytes [expr {3 * $xSize * $ySize}]
set data [chan read $f $numDataBytes]
close $f
FILE SEEK EXAMPLES
Read a file twice:
set f [open file.txt]
set data1 [chan read $f]
chan seek $f 0
set data2 [chan read $f]
chan close $f
# $data1 eq $data2 if the file wasn't updated
Read the last 10 bytes from a file:
set f [open file.data]
# This is guaranteed to work with binary data but
# may fail with other encodings...
chan configure $f -translation binary
chan seek $f -10 end
set data [chan read $f 10]
chan close $f
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
}
ENCODING ERROR EXAMPLES
The example below illustrates handling of an encoding error encountered during channel input. First,
creation of a test file containing the invalid UTF-8 sequence (A \xC3 B):
% set f [open test_A_195_B.txt wb]; chan puts -nonewline $f A\xC3B; chan close $f
An attempt to read the file will result in an encoding error which is then introspected by switching the
channel to binary mode. Note in the example that when the error is reported the file position remains
unchanged so that the chan gets during recovery returns the full line.
% set f [open test_A_195_B.txt r]
file384b6a8
% chan configure $f -encoding utf-8
% catch {chan gets $f} e d
1
% set d
-code 1 -level 0
-errorstack {INNER {invokeStk1 gets file384b6a8}}
-errorcode {POSIX EILSEQ {invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character}}
-errorinfo {...} -errorline 1
% chan tell $f
0
% chan configure $f -translation binary
% chan gets $f
AÃB
The following example is similar to the above but demonstrates recovery after a blocking read. The
successfully decoded data "A" is returned in the error options dictionary key -data. The file position is
advanced on the encoding error position 1. The data at the error position is thus recovered by the next
chan read command.
% set f [open test_A_195_B.txt r]
file35a65a0
% chan configure $f -encoding utf-8 -blocking 1
% catch {chan read $f} e d
1
% set d
-data A -code 1 -level 0
-errorstack {INNER {invokeStk1 read file35a65a0}}
-errorcode {POSIX EILSEQ {invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character}}
-errorinfo {...} -errorline 1
% chan tell $f
1
% chan configure $f -translation binary
% chan read $f
ÃB
% chan close $f
Finally the same example, but this time with a non-blocking channel.
% set f [open test_A_195_B.txt r]
file35a65a0
% chan configure $f -encoding utf-8 -blocking 0
% chan read $f
A
% chan tell $f
1
% catch {chan read $f} e d
1
% set d
-code 1 -level 0
-errorstack {INNER {invokeStk1 read file384b228}}
-errorcode {POSIX EILSEQ {invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character}}
-errorinfo {...} -errorline 1
CHANNEL COPY EXAMPLES
The first example transfers the contents of one channel exactly to another. Note that when copying one
file to another, it is better to use file copy which also copies file metadata (e.g. the file access
permissions) where possible.
chan configure $in -translation binary
chan configure $out -translation binary
chan copy $in $out
This second example shows how the callback gets passed the number of bytes transferred. It also uses
vwait to put the application into the event loop. Of course, this simplified example could be done
without the command callback.
proc Cleanup {in out bytes {error {}}} {
global total
set total $bytes
chan close $in
chan close $out
if {$error ne ""} {
# error occurred during the copy
}
}
set in [open $file1]
set out [socket $server $port]
chan copy $in $out -command [list Cleanup $in $out]
vwait total
The third example copies in chunks and tests for end of file in the command callback.
proc CopyMore {in out chunk bytes {error {}}} {
global total done
incr total $bytes
if {($error ne "") || [chan eof $in]} {
set done $total
chan close $in
chan close $out
} else {
chan copy $in $out -size $chunk \
-command [list CopyMore $in $out $chunk]
}
}
set in [open $file1]
set out [socket $server $port]
set chunk 1024
set total 0
chan copy $in $out -size $chunk \
-command [list CopyMore $in $out $chunk]
vwait done
The fourth example starts an asynchronous, bidirectional copy between two sockets. Those could also be
pipes from two bidirectional pipelines (e.g., [open "|hal 9000" r+]); the conversation will remain
essentially secret to the script, since all four chan event slots are busy, though any transforms that
are chan pushed on the channels will be able to observe the passing traffic.
proc Done {dir args} {
global flows done
chan puts "$dir is over."
incr flows -1
if {$flows <= 0} {
set done 1
}
}
set flows 2
chan copy $sok1 $sok2 -command [list Done UP]
chan copy $sok2 $sok1 -command [list Done DOWN]
vwait done
SEE ALSO
close(3tcl), eof(3tcl), fblocked(3tcl), fconfigure(3tcl), fcopy(3tcl), file(3tcl), fileevent(3tcl),
flush(3tcl), gets(3tcl), open(3tcl), puts(3tcl), read(3tcl), seek(3tcl), socket(3tcl), tell(3tcl),
refchan(3tcl), transchan(3tcl), Tcl_StandardChannels(3tcl)
KEYWORDS
blocking, channel, end of file, events, input, non-blocking, offset, output, readable, seek, stdio, tell,
writable
Tcl 8.5 chan(3tcl)