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.Dd February 13, 2012 32.Dt WRITE 1 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm write 36.Nd send a message to another user 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Ar user 40.Op Ar tty 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42The 43.Nm 44utility allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 45your terminal to theirs. 46.Pp 47When you run the 48.Nm 49command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form: 50.Pp 51.Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ... 52.Pp 53Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 54terminal. 55If the other user wants to reply, they must run 56.Nm 57as well. 58.Pp 59When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 60The other user will see the message 61.Ql EOF 62indicating that the 63conversation is over. 64.Pp 65You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you 66with the 67.Xr mesg 1 68command. 69.Pp 70If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 71you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 72name as the second operand to the 73.Nm 74command. 75Alternatively, you can let 76.Nm 77select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 78idle time. 79This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 80home, the message will go to the right place. 81.Pp 82The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 83.Ql \-o , 84either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it is the 85other person's turn to talk. 86The string 87.Ql oo 88means that the person believes the conversation to be 89over. 90.Sh SEE ALSO 91.Xr mesg 1 , 92.Xr talk 1 , 93.Xr wall 1 , 94.Xr who 1 95.Sh HISTORY 96A 97.Nm 98command appeared in 99.At v1 . 100.Sh BUGS 101The sender's 102.Ev LC_CTYPE 103setting is used to determine which characters are safe to write to a 104terminal, not the receiver's (which 105.Nm 106has no way of knowing). 107