Provided by: tcl8.6-doc_8.6.13+dfsg-2_all bug

NAME

       chan - Read, write and manipulate channels

SYNOPSIS

       chan option ?arg arg ...?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

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 channelId
              This  tests whether the last input operation on the channel called channelId 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 channelId ?direction?
              Close and destroy the channel called channelId. 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 channelId 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 channelId 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  channelId
              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.

       chan configure channelId ?optionName? ?value? ?optionName value?...
              Query or set the configuration options of the channel named channelId.

              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
                     Newvalue  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.
                     Newvalue  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 or the special value binary, 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 binary.  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

              -eofchar {inChar outChar}
                     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.  For  output,  the  end-of-
                     file  character  is output when the channel is closed.  If char is the empty
                     string, then there is no special end of file character  marker.   For  read-
                     write  channels,  a  two-element  list  specifies the end of file marker for
                     input and output, respectively.  As a convenience, when setting the  end-of-
                     file  character for a read-write channel you can specify a single value that
                     will apply to both reading  and  writing.   When  querying  the  end-of-file
                     character  of  a  read-write  channel,  a  two-element  list  will always be
                     returned.  The default value for -eofchar is the empty string in  all  cases
                     except  for  files  under  Windows.   In that case the -eofchar is Control-z
                     (\x1A) for reading and the empty string for writing.  The  acceptable  range
                     for  -eofchar  values  is \x01 - \x7f; attempting to set -eofchar to a value
                     outside of this range will generate an error.

              -translation mode

              -translation {inMode outMode}
                     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 No end-of-line translations are performed.  This is nearly  identical
                            to lf mode, except that in addition binary mode also sets the end-of-
                            file character to the empty string (which disables it) and  sets  the
                            encoding  to  binary  (which  disables  encoding filtering).  See the
                            description of -eofchar and -encoding for more information.

                     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?
              Copy  data  from the channel inputChan, which must have been opened for reading, to
              the channel outputChan, which must have been opened  for  writing.  The  chan  copy
              command  leverages the buffering in the Tcl I/O system to avoid extra copies and to
              avoid buffering too much data in main memory  when  copying  large  files  to  slow
              destinations like network sockets.

              The chan copy command transfers data from inputChan until end of file or size bytes
              or characters have been transferred; size is in bytes if the two channels are using
              the  same encoding, and is in characters otherwise.  If no -size argument is given,
              then the copy goes until end of file. All the data read from inputChan is copied to
              outputChan.   Without  the  -command  option,  chan  copy  blocks until the copy is
              complete and returns the number of bytes or characters (using the same rules as for
              the -size option) written to outputChan.

              The  -command  argument  makes  chan  copy work in the background.  In this case it
              returns immediately and the callback is invoked later when the copy completes.  The
              callback  is  called  with  one or two additional arguments that indicates how many
              bytes were written to outputChan.  If an error occurred during the background copy,
              the  second  argument  is  the  error  string  associated  with  the error.  With a
              background copy, it is not necessary to  put  inputChan  or  outputChan  into  non-
              blocking mode; the chan copy command takes care of that automatically.  However, it
              is necessary to enter the event loop by using the vwait command or by using Tk.

              You are not allowed to do other I/O operations with inputChan or outputChan  during
              a  background  chan  copy.   If either inputChan or outputChan get closed while the
              copy is in progress, the current copy is stopped and the command  callback  is  not
              made.   If  inputChan  is  closed,  then  all data already queued for outputChan is
              written out.

              Note that inputChan can become readable during a background copy.  You should  turn
              off any chan event or fileevent handlers during a background copy so those handlers
              do not interfere with the copy.  Any I/O attempted by a  chan  event  or  fileevent
              handler will get a “channel busy” error.

              Chan copy translates end-of-line sequences in inputChan and outputChan according to
              the -translation option  for  these  channels  (see  chan  configure  above).   The
              translations  mean  that  the  number of bytes read from inputChan can be different
              than the number of bytes written to outputChan.  Only the number of  bytes  written
              to outputChan is reported, either as the return value of a synchronous chan copy or
              as the argument to the callback for an asynchronous chan copy.

              Chan copy obeys  the  encodings  and  character  translations  configured  for  the
              channels.  This  means  that the incoming characters are converted internally first
              UTF-8 and then into the encoding of the channel  chan  copy  writes  to  (see  chan
              configure  above  for  details  on  the  -encoding  and  -translation  options). No
              conversion is done if both channels are set to encoding binary  and  have  matching
              translations.  If only the output channel is set to encoding binary the system will
              write the internal UTF-8 representation of the incoming  characters.  If  only  the
              input  channel  is  set to encoding binary the system will assume that the incoming
              bytes are valid UTF-8 characters and convert them according to the output encoding.
              The  behaviour  of  the  system  for  bytes which are not valid UTF-8 characters is
              undefined in this case.

       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 channelId
              Test whether the last input  operation  on  the  channel  called  channelId  failed
              because  the  end  of  the  data stream was reached, returning 1 if end-of-file was
              reached, and 0 otherwise.

       chan event channelId event ?script?
              Arrange for the Tcl script script to be installed as a file  event  handler  to  be
              called  whenever  the  channel called channelId 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 channelId
              Ensures that all pending output for the channel called channelId 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 channelId ?varName?
              Reads the next line from the channel called channelId. If varName is not specified,
              the result of the command will be the line that has been read (without  a  trailing
              newline character) or an empty string upon end-of-file or, in non-blocking mode, if
              the data available is exhausted. If varName is specified, the line  that  has  been
              read  will  be written to the variable called varName and result will be the number
              of characters that have been read or -1 if end-of-file  was  reached  or,  in  non-
              blocking mode, if the data available is exhausted.

              If  an  end-of-file  occurs while part way through reading a line, the partial line
              will be returned (or written into varName). When varName is not specified, the end-
              of-file  case  can  be distinguished from an empty line using the chan eof command,
              and the partial-line-but-non-blocking case  can  be  distinguished  with  the  chan
              blocked command.

       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 channelId
              Depending on whether mode is input or output, returns the number of bytes of  input
              or  output  (respectively)  currently buffered internally for channelId (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 channelId
              Removes the topmost transformation from the channel channelId, if there is any.  If │
              there  are  no transformations added to channelId, 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 channelId eventSpec
              This subcommand is used by command handlers specified with chan create. It notifies
              the  channel  represented  by  the handle channelId 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 channelId cmdPrefix
              Adds  a  new transformation on top of the channel channelId. 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? ?channelId? string
              Writes  string  to  the  channel named channelId followed by a newline character. A
              trailing newline character is written unless the optional flag -nonewline is given.
              If  channelId  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
              channelId 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).

       chan read channelId ?numChars?

       chan read ?-nonewline? channelId
              In  the  first  form, the result will be the next numChars characters read from the
              channel named channelId; 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 channelId 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 channelId -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 channelId numChars
                     In  this  form  chan  read blocks until numChars have been received from the
                     serial port.

              chan read channelId
                     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.

       chan seek channelId offset ?origin?
              Sets the current access position within the underlying data stream for the  channel
              named  channelId  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 channelId
              Returns  a  number  giving  the  current access position within the underlying data
              stream for the channel named channelId. 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 channelId ?length?
              Sets  the byte length of the underlying data stream for the channel named channelId
              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

       This  opens  a  file  using  a known encoding (CP1252, a very common encoding on Windows),
       searches for a string, rewrites that part, and truncates the  file  after  a  further  two
       lines.

              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 > -1} {
                      # 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

       A  network server that does echoing of 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

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)

KEYWORDS

       channel, input, output, events, offset