NAME

       source - Evaluate a file or resource as a Tcl script

SYNOPSIS

       source fileName

       source -encoding encodingName fileName
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DESCRIPTION

       This command takes the contents of the specified file or resource and passes it to the Tcl
       interpreter as a text script.  The return value from source is the  return  value  of  the
       last command executed in the script.  If an error occurs in evaluating the contents of the
       script then the source command will return that error.  If a  return  command  is  invoked
       from  within  the  script  then  the  remainder of the file will be skipped and the source
       command will return normally with the result from the return command.

       The end-of-file character for files is “\32” (^Z) for all platforms.  The  source  command
       will  read  files  up  to this character.  This restriction does not exist for the read or
       gets commands, allowing for files containing code and data segments (scripted  documents).
       If you require a “^Z” in code for string comparison, you can use “\032” or “\u001a”, which
       will be safely substituted by the Tcl interpreter into “^Z”.

       A leading BOM (Byte order mark) contained in the file is  ignored  for  unicode  encodings
       (utf-8, unicode).

       The -encoding option is used to specify the encoding of the data stored in fileName.  When
       the -encoding option is omitted, the system encoding is assumed.

EXAMPLE

       Run the script in the file foo.tcl and then the script in the file bar.tcl:

              source foo.tcl
              source bar.tcl

       Alternatively:

              foreach scriptFile {foo.tcl bar.tcl} {
                  source $scriptFile
              }

SEE ALSO

       file(3tcl), cd(3tcl), encoding(3tcl), info(3tcl)

KEYWORDS

       file, script