1.\" $OpenBSD: write.1,v 1.17 2014/06/04 06:07:32 jmc 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 $Mdocdate: June 4 2014 $ 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 write 43.Ar user 44.Op Ar ttyname 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46.Nm 47allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 48your terminal to theirs. 49.Pp 50When you run the 51.Nm 52command, 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 56Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 57terminal. 58If the other user wants to reply, they must run 59.Nm 60as well. 61.Pp 62When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 63The other user will see the message 64.Dq EOF 65indicating that the conversation is over. 66.Pp 67You can prevent people (other than the superuser) from writing to you 68with the 69.Xr mesg 1 70command. 71Some commands, such as 72.Xr pr 1 , 73disallow writing automatically, so that output isn't overwritten. 74.Pp 75If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 76you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 77name as the second operand to the 78.Nm 79command. 80Alternatively, you can let 81.Nm 82select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 83idle time. 84This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 85home, the message will go to the right place. 86.Pp 87The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 88.Dq \-o , 89either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the 90other person's turn to talk. 91The string 92.Dq oo 93means that the person believes the conversation to be 94over. 95.Sh ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS 96.Bl -tag -width SIGINTXXX 97.It Dv SIGINT 98Terminate 99.Nm 100and exit with a zero status. 101.El 102.Sh EXIT STATUS 103The 104.Nm 105utility exits with one of the following values: 106.Pp 107.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact 108.It 0 109Normal behavior. 110.It >0 111The specified user is either not logged in or not accepting messages. 112.El 113.Sh SEE ALSO 114.Xr mesg 1 , 115.Xr talk 1 , 116.Xr who 1 117.Sh STANDARDS 118The 119.Nm 120utility is compliant with the 121.St -p1003.1-2008 122specification. 123.Sh HISTORY 124A 125.Nm 126command appeared in 127.At v2 . 128.Sh BUGS 129The 130.Dq EOF 131message seen when the other 132.Nm 133terminates is indistinguishable from that party simply typing 134.Dq EOF 135to make you believe that any future messages did not come from them. 136Especially messages such as: 137.Pp 138.Dl "[1] Done rm -rf *" 139