Using tcl console in vivado to open reports

[wtr]

Hello all,

1. I'm trying to get a tcl command to open reports external to vivado. [solved]

What i've done so far is create a symbolic link. This symbolic link enables me to use the following command to find the file channel id & open it onto Vivado's tcl console

set chan_ID [open Reports/IO_Reports.txt]
read $chan_ID

......
......
......

Mid way through typing this i discovered that I can use

exec "C:/Program Files/Notepad++/notepad++.exe" Reports/IO_Reports.txt

So that covers the first point. I guess this has left me with another question for the community.

2. How can i find out what channel identifiers represent? What is the pros/cons of closing them?

When using the tcl command

chan name

I get a list of active/open channel identifiers, these are for example file3265f0f8, file3cfaf28...etc etc
Obviously these names are meaningless....

Regards,
Wesley