1.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1991, 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.\" Ken Arnold. 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.Dd July 1, 2021 32.Dt FORTUNE 6 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm fortune 36.Nd "print a random, hopefully interesting, adage" 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Fl aDefilosw 40.Op Fl m Ar pattern 41.Oo 42.Op Ar \&N% 43.Ar file Ns / Ns Ar directory Ns / Ns Cm all 44.Oc 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46When 47.Nm 48is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram. 49Epigrams are divided into several categories, where each category 50is subdivided into those which are potentially offensive and those 51which are not. 52The options are as follows: 53.Bl -tag -width indent 54.It Fl a 55Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not. 56(See the 57.Fl o 58option for more information on offensive fortunes.) 59.It Fl D 60Enable additional debugging output. 61Specify this option multiple times for more verbose output. 62Only available if compiled with 63.Li -DDEBUG . 64.It Fl e 65Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion below 66on multiple files). 67.It Fl f 68Print out the list of files which would be searched, but do not 69print a fortune. 70.It Fl l 71Long dictums only. 72.It Fl m Ar pattern 73Print out all fortunes which match the regular expression 74.Ar pattern . 75See 76.Xr regex 3 77for a description of patterns. 78.It Fl o 79Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms. 80.Bf -symbolic 81Please, please, please request a potentially offensive fortune if and 82only if you believe, deep down in your heart, that you are willing 83to be offended. 84(And that if you are not willing, you will just quit using 85.Fl o 86rather than give us 87grief about it, okay?) 88.Ef 89.Bd -unfilled -offset indent 90\&... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy 91of The Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: 92we believe in healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of 93the whole human race, if needs be. 94Needs be. 95 --H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" 96.Ed 97.It Fl s 98Short apothegms only. 99.It Fl i 100Ignore case for 101.Fl m 102patterns. 103.It Fl w 104Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the 105number of characters in the message. 106This is useful if it is executed as part of the logout procedure 107to guarantee that the message can be read before the screen is cleared. 108.El 109.Pp 110The user may specify alternate sayings. 111You can specify a specific file, a directory which contains one or 112more files, or the special word 113.Cm all 114which says to use all the standard databases. 115Any of these may be preceded by a percentage, which is a number 116.Ar N 117between 0 and 100 inclusive, followed by a 118.Ql % . 119If it is, there will be an 120.Ar N 121percent probability that an adage will be picked from that file 122or directory. 123If the percentages do not sum to 100, and there are specifications 124without percentages, the remaining percent will apply to those files 125and/or directories, in which case the probability of selecting from 126one of them will be based on their relative sizes. 127.Pp 128As an example, given two databases 129.Pa funny 130and 131.Pa not-funny , 132with 133.Pa funny 134twice as big, saying 135.Pp 136.Dl "fortune funny not-funny" 137.Pp 138will get you fortunes out of 139.Pa funny 140two-thirds of the time. 141The command 142.Pp 143.Dl "fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny" 144.Pp 145will pick out 90% of its fortunes from 146.Pa funny 147(the 148.Dq Li "10% not-funny" 149is unnecessary, since 10% is all that is left). 150The 151.Fl e 152option says to consider all files equal; 153thus 154.Pp 155.Dl "fortune -e funny not-funny" 156.Pp 157is equivalent to 158.Pp 159.Dl "fortune 50% funny 50% not-funny" 160.Sh ENVIRONMENT 161.Bl -tag -width ".Ev FORTUNE_PATH" 162.It Ev FORTUNE_PATH 163The search path for the data files. 164It is a colon-separated list of directories in which 165.Nm 166looks for data files. 167If not set it will default to 168.Pa /usr/share/games/fortune:/usr/local/share/games/fortune . 169If none of the directories specified exist, it will print a warning and exit. 170.It Ev FORTUNE_SAVESTATE 171If set, fortune will save some state about what fortune 172it was up to on disk. 173.El 174.Sh FILES 175.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /usr/share/games/fortune/*" 176.It Pa /usr/share/games/fortune/* 177the fortunes databases (those files ending 178.Dq Pa -o 179contain the 180.Sy offensive 181fortunes) 182.El 183.Sh EXIT STATUS 184.Ex -std 185In particular, if 186.Fl l , 187.Fl m , 188or 189.Fl s 190is specified, failure to find a matching citation in the selected 191files counts as an error. 192.Sh SEE ALSO 193.Xr arc4random_uniform 3 , 194.Xr regcomp 3 , 195.Xr regex 3 , 196.Xr strfile 8 197.Sh HISTORY 198The 199.Nm 200utility first appeared 201.At v7 . 202