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.\" 33.Dd February 13, 2012 34.Dt WRITE 1 35.Os 36.Sh NAME 37.Nm write 38.Nd send a message to another user 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.Nm 41.Ar user 42.Op Ar tty 43.Sh DESCRIPTION 44The 45.Nm 46utility allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 47your terminal to theirs. 48.Pp 49When you run the 50.Nm 51command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form: 52.Pp 53.Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ... 54.Pp 55Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 56terminal. 57If the other user wants to reply, they must run 58.Nm 59as well. 60.Pp 61When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 62The other user will see the message 63.Ql EOF 64indicating that the 65conversation is over. 66.Pp 67You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you 68with the 69.Xr mesg 1 70command. 71.Pp 72If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 73you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 74name as the second operand to the 75.Nm 76command. 77Alternatively, you can let 78.Nm 79select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 80idle time. 81This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 82home, the message will go to the right place. 83.Pp 84The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 85.Ql \-o , 86either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it is the 87other person's turn to talk. 88The string 89.Ql oo 90means that the person believes the conversation to be 91over. 92.Sh SEE ALSO 93.Xr mesg 1 , 94.Xr talk 1 , 95.Xr wall 1 , 96.Xr who 1 97.Sh HISTORY 98A 99.Nm 100command appeared in 101.At v1 . 102.Sh BUGS 103The sender's 104.Ev LC_CTYPE 105setting is used to determine which characters are safe to write to a 106terminal, not the receiver's (which 107.Nm 108has no way of knowing). 109