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.\" $Id$ 37.\" 38.Dd June 6, 1993 39.Dt WRITE 1 40.Os 41.Sh NAME 42.Nm write 43.Nd send a message to another user 44.Sh SYNOPSIS 45.Nm write 46.Ar user 47.Op Ar ttyname 48.Sh DESCRIPTION 49.Nm Write 50allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from 51your terminal to theirs. 52.Pp 53When you run the 54.Nm write 55command, the user you are writing to gets a message of the form: 56.Pp 57.Dl Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ... 58.Pp 59Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's 60terminal. 61If the other user wants to reply, they must run 62.Nm write 63as well. 64.Pp 65When you are done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character. 66The other user will see the message 67.Ql EOF 68indicating that the 69conversation is over. 70.Pp 71You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you 72with the 73.Xr mesg 1 74command. 75Some commands, for example 76.Xr nroff 1 77and 78.Xr pr 1 , 79disallow writing automatically, so that your output isn't overwritten. 80.Pp 81If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one terminal, 82you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the terminal 83name as the second operand to the 84.Nm write 85command. 86Alternatively, you can let 87.Nm write 88select one of the terminals \- it will pick the one with the shortest 89idle time. 90This is so that if the user is logged in at work and also dialed up from 91home, the message will go to the right place. 92.Pp 93The traditional protocol for writing to someone is that the string 94.Ql \-o , 95either at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that it's the 96other person's turn to talk. 97The string 98.Ql oo 99means that the person believes the conversation to be 100over. 101.Sh SEE ALSO 102.Xr mesg 1 , 103.Xr talk 1 , 104.Xr who 1 105.Sh HISTORY 106A 107.Nm 108command appeared in 109.At v1 . 110