| blob | 28d614c3835579da123358f2f187ffbb07fbe201 |
1 .\" $NetBSD: write.1,v 1.6 2003/08/07 11:17:48 agc Exp $
2 .\"
3 .\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1993
4 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
5 .\"
6 .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
7 .\" Jef Poskanzer and Craig Leres of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
8 .\"
9 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
10 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
11 .\" are met:
12 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
13 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
14 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
15 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
16 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
17 .\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
18 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
19 .\" without specific prior written permission.
20 .\"
21 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
22 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
23 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
24 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
25 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
26 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
27 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
28 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
29 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
30 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
31 .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
32 .\"
33 .\" from: @(#)write.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
34 .\"
35 .Dd June 6, 1993
36 .Dt WRITE 1
37 .Os
38 .Sh NAME
39 .Nm write
40 .Nd send a message to another user
41 .Sh SYNOPSIS
42 .Nm
43 .Ar user
44 .Op Ar ttyname
45 .Sh DESCRIPTION
46 .Nm
47 allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from
48 your terminal to theirs.
49 .Pp
50 When you run the
51 .Nm
52 command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form:
53 .Pp
54 .Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ...
55 .Pp
56 Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's
57 terminal.
58 If the other user wants to reply, they must run
59 .Nm
60 as well.
61 .Pp
62 When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character.
63 The other user will see the message
64 .Ql EOF
65 indicating that the
66 conversation is over.
67 .Pp
68 You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you
69 with the
70 .Xr mesg 1
71 command.
72 Some commands, for example
73 .Xr nroff 1
74 and
75 .Xr pr 1 ,
76 disallow writing automatically, so that your output isn't overwritten.
77 .Pp
78 If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal,
79 you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal
80 name as the second operand to the
81 .Nm
82 command.
83 Alternatively, you can let
84 .Nm
85 select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest
86 idle time.
87 This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from
88 home, the message will go to the right place.
89 .Pp
90 The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string
91 .Ql \-o ,
92 either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the
93 other person's turn to talk.
94 The string
95 .Ql oo
96 means that the person believes the conversation to be
97 over.
98 .Sh SEE ALSO
99 .Xr mesg 1 ,
100 .Xr talk 1 ,
101 .Xr who 1
102 .Sh HISTORY
103 A
104 .Nm
105 command appeared in
106 .At v6 .