source(n) Tcl Built-In Commands source(n)

```

```

# [NAME](#NAME)

source - Evaluate a file or resource as a Tcl script

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**source fileName**

**source** **-encoding encodingName fileName**

```

```

# [DESCRIPTION](#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 “\\x1A”, 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, utf-16, ucs-2).

The **-encoding** option is used to specify the encoding of the data stored in *fileName*. When the **-encoding** option is omitted, the utf-8 encoding is assumed.

# [EXAMPLE](#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](#SEE_ALSO)

[file(n)](/man/os/tcl/file.n), [cd(n)](/man/os/tcl/cd.n), [encoding(n)](/man/os/tcl/encoding.n), [info(n)](/man/os/tcl/info.n)

# [KEYWORDS](#KEYWORDS)

file, script

Tcl

---

Document: source(n) from tcl 9.1.0-r2 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/tcl/Tcl/9.1.0/tcl9.1.0-src.tar.gz