### 3.18 send

send \- Execute a command in a different interpreter

#### Synopsis

send interp cmd ?arg arg ...?

#### Description

This command arranges for cmd (and args) to be executed in the interpreter named by interp. It returns the result or error from that command execution. Interp must be the name of an interpreter registered on the display associated with the interpreter in which the command is invoked; it need not be within the same process or application. If no arg arguments are present, then the command to be executed is contained entirely within the cmd argument. If one or more args are present, they are concatenated to form the command to be executed, just as for the eval Tcl command.

#### Security

The send command is potentially a serious security loophole, since any application that can connect to your X server can send scripts to your applications. These incoming scripts can use Tcl to read and write your files and invoke subprocesses under your name. Host-based access control such as that provided by xhost is particularly insecure, since it allows anyone with an account on particular hosts to connect to your server, and if disabled it allows anyone anywhere to connect to your server. In order to provide at least a small amount of security, Tk checks the access control being used by the server and rejects incoming sends unless (a) xhost-style access control is enabled (i.e. only certain hosts can establish connections) and (b) the list of enabled hosts is empty. This means that applications cannot connect to your server unless they use some other form of authorization such as that provide by xauth.

#### Keywords

interpreter, remote execution, security, send