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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)write.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 32.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/write/write.1,v 1.7.2.3 2002/07/15 08:18:03 keramida Exp $ 33.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/write/write.1,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:29:34 dillon Exp $ 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 46The 47.Nm 48utility allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 49your terminal to theirs. 50.Pp 51When you run the 52.Nm 53command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form: 54.Pp 55.Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ... 56.Pp 57Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 58terminal. 59If the other user wants to reply, they must run 60.Nm 61as well. 62.Pp 63When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 64The other user will see the message 65.Ql EOF 66indicating that the 67conversation is over. 68.Pp 69You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you 70with the 71.Xr mesg 1 72command. 73.Pp 74If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 75you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 76name as the second operand to the 77.Nm 78command. 79Alternatively, you can let 80.Nm 81select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 82idle time. 83This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 84home, the message will go to the right place. 85.Pp 86The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 87.Ql \-o , 88either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the 89other person's turn to talk. 90The string 91.Ql oo 92means that the person believes the conversation to be 93over. 94.Sh SEE ALSO 95.Xr mesg 1 , 96.Xr talk 1 , 97.Xr wall 1 , 98.Xr who 1 99.Sh HISTORY 100A 101.Nm 102command appeared in 103.At v1 . 104