1.\" $OpenBSD: write.1,v 1.12 2009/02/08 17:15:10 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: February 8 2009 $ 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, for example 72.Xr nroff 1 73and 74.Xr pr 1 , 75disallow writing automatically, so that your output isn't overwritten. 76.Pp 77If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 78you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 79name as the second operand to the 80.Nm 81command. 82Alternatively, you can let 83.Nm 84select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 85idle time. 86This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 87home, the message will go to the right place. 88.Pp 89The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 90.Dq \-o , 91either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the 92other person's turn to talk. 93The string 94.Dq oo 95means that the person believes the conversation to be 96over. 97.Sh SEE ALSO 98.Xr mesg 1 , 99.Xr talk 1 , 100.Xr who 1 101.Sh STANDARDS 102The 103.Nm 104utility is compliant with the 105.St -p1003.1-2008 106specification, 107but its presence is optional. 108.Sh HISTORY 109A 110.Nm 111command appeared in 112.At v2 . 113.Sh BUGS 114The 115.Dq EOF 116message seen when the other 117.Nm 118terminates is indistinguishable from that party simply typing 119.Dq EOF 120to make you believe that any future messages did not come from them. 121Especially messages such as: 122.Pp 123.Dl "[1] Done rm -rf *" 124