tell - get current seekpointer on a filehandle

- NAME
- SYNOPSIS
- DESCRIPTION

# NAME

tell - get current seekpointer on a filehandle

# SYNOPSIS

tell FILEHANDLE

tell

# DESCRIPTION

Returns the current position in bytes for FILEHANDLE, or -1 on error. FILEHANDLE may be an expression whose value gives the name of the actual filehandle. If FILEHANDLE is omitted, assumes the file last read.

Note the in bytes: even if the filehandle has been set to operate on characters (for example by using the `:utf8` open layer), `tell()` will return byte offsets, not character offsets (because that would render `seek()` and `tell()` rather slow).

The return value of `tell()` for the standard streams like the STDIN depends on the operating system: it may return -1 or something else. `tell()` on pipes, fifos, and sockets usually returns -1.

There is no `systell` function. Use `sysseek(FH, 0, 1)` for that.

Do not use `tell()` (or other buffered I/O operations) on a file handle that has been manipulated by sysread(), `syswrite()` or sysseek(). Those functions ignore the buffering, while `tell()` does not.

tell - get current seekpointer on a filehandle