term-utils/write.1

   1 .\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1993
   2 .\"     The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
   3 .\"
   4 .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
   5 .\" Jef Poskanzer and Craig Leres of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
   6 .\"
   7 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
   8 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
   9 .\" are met:
  10 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
  11 .\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  12 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
  13 .\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
  14 .\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  15 .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
  16 .\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
  17 .\"     This product includes software developed by the University of
  18 .\"     California, Berkeley and its contributors.
  19 .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
  20 .\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
  21 .\"    without specific prior written permission.
  22 .\"
  23 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
  24 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
  25 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
  26 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
  27 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
  28 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
  29 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
  30 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
  31 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
  32 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
  33 .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
  34 .\"
  35 .\"     @(#)write.1     8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
  36 .\"
  37 .TH WRITE 1 "March 1995" "util-linux" "User Commands"
  38 .SH NAME
  39 write \- send a message to another user
  40 .SH SYNOPSIS
  41 .B write
  42 .I user
  43 .RI [ ttyname ]
  44 .SH DESCRIPTION
  45 .B write
  46 allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from
  47 your terminal to theirs.
  48 .PP
  49 When you run the
  50 .B write
  51 command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form:
  52 .PP
  53 .RS
  54 Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ...
  55 .RE
  56 .PP
  57 Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's
  58 terminal.  If the other user wants to reply, they must run
  59 .B write
  60 as well.
  61 .PP
  62 When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character.  The other
  63 user will see the message
  64 .B EOF
  65 indicating that the conversation is over.
  66 .PP
  67 You can prevent people (other than the superuser) from writing to you with
  68 the
  69 .BR mesg (1)
  70 command.  Some commands, for example
  71 .BR nroff (1)
  72 and
  73 .BR pr (1),
  74 may automatically disallow writing, so that the output they produce
  75 isn't overwritten.
  76 .PP
  77 If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal,
  78 you can specify which terminal to write to by giving the terminal
  79 name as the second operand to the
  80 .B write
  81 command.  Alternatively, you can let
  82 .B write
  83 select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest idle
  84 time.  This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up
  85 from home, the message will go to the right place.
  86 .PP
  87 The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string `\-o',
  88 either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the
  89 other person's turn to talk.  The string `oo' means that the person
  90 believes the conversation to be over.
  91 .SH "SEE ALSO"
  92 .BR mesg (1),
  93 .BR talk (1),
  94 .BR who (1)
  95 .SH HISTORY
  96 A
  97 .B write
  98 command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
  99 .SH AVAILABILITY
 100 The write command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 101 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.