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.\" 37.Dd June 6, 1993 38.Dt WRITE 1 39.Os 40.Sh NAME 41.Nm write 42.Nd send a message to another user 43.Sh SYNOPSIS 44.Nm write 45.Ar user 46.Op Ar ttyname 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48.Nm Write 49allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 50your terminal to theirs. 51.Pp 52When you run the 53.Nm write 54command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form: 55.Pp 56.Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ... 57.Pp 58Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 59terminal. 60If the other user wants to reply, they must run 61.Nm write 62as well. 63.Pp 64When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 65The other user will see the message 66.Ql EOF 67indicating that the 68conversation is over. 69.Pp 70You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you 71with the 72.Xr mesg 1 73command. 74Some commands, for example 75.Xr nroff 1 76and 77.Xr pr 1 , 78disallow writing automatically, so that your output isn't overwritten. 79.Pp 80If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 81you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 82name as the second operand to the 83.Nm write 84command. 85Alternatively, you can let 86.Nm write 87select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 88idle time. 89This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 90home, the message will go to the right place. 91.Pp 92The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 93.Ql \-o , 94either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the 95other person's turn to talk. 96The string 97.Ql oo 98means that the person believes the conversation to be 99over. 100.Sh SEE ALSO 101.Xr mesg 1 , 102.Xr talk 1 , 103.Xr who 1 104.Sh HISTORY 105A 106.Nm 107command appeared in 108.At v6 . 109