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.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/write/write.1,v 1.7.2.3 2002/07/15 08:18:03 keramida Exp $ 37.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/write/write.1,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:29:34 dillon Exp $ 38.\" 39.Dd June 6, 1993 40.Dt WRITE 1 41.Os 42.Sh NAME 43.Nm write 44.Nd send a message to another user 45.Sh SYNOPSIS 46.Nm 47.Ar user 48.Op Ar ttyname 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50The 51.Nm 52utility allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 53your terminal to theirs. 54.Pp 55When you run the 56.Nm 57command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form: 58.Pp 59.Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ... 60.Pp 61Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 62terminal. 63If the other user wants to reply, they must run 64.Nm 65as well. 66.Pp 67When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 68The other user will see the message 69.Ql EOF 70indicating that the 71conversation is over. 72.Pp 73You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you 74with the 75.Xr mesg 1 76command. 77.Pp 78If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 79you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 80name as the second operand to the 81.Nm 82command. 83Alternatively, you can let 84.Nm 85select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 86idle time. 87This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 88home, the message will go to the right place. 89.Pp 90The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 91.Ql \-o , 92either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the 93other person's turn to talk. 94The string 95.Ql oo 96means that the person believes the conversation to be 97over. 98.Sh SEE ALSO 99.Xr mesg 1 , 100.Xr talk 1 , 101.Xr wall 1 , 102.Xr who 1 103.Sh HISTORY 104A 105.Nm 106command appeared in 107.At v1 . 108