WRITE(1) WRITE(1)
NAME
write - write to other users
SYNOPSIS
write person ...
DESCRIPTION
Write copies lines from your terminal to terminals of other
persons designated either by login name or (to circumvent
occasional ambiguities) by terminal name as given by who(1).
It announces to each person your login name, your terminal,
and the other persons. To respond, each recipient should
execute a corresponding write to the persons he wants to
talk to.
When you are writing to more than one person, your messages
are identified to the recipients. Writing ends upon end of
file or interrupt, and the message `EOF' is sent to the oth-
ers.
Write recognizes certain commands during a conversation:
!cmd Execute a shell on the string cmd and then return
to write.
:a person Add person to the list of people to whom you are
talking, and send an appropriate announcement to
all parties. They must do :a for themselves if
they want to include the new person.
:d person Drop person from your list and make appropriate
announcements.
:l Print a list of people to whom you are talking.
The following protocol is suggested for using write: when
you first write to another user, wait for him to write back
before starting to send. Each party should end each message
with a distinctive signal-(o) for `over' is conventional-
that the other may reply. (oo) for `over and out' is sug-
gested when conversation is about to be terminated.
Permission to write may be denied or granted by mesg(1).
Normally writing is allowed. Certain commands, in particu-
lar nroff and pr(1) disallow messages in order to prevent
messy output.
FILES
/etc/utmp to find user
/bin/sh to execute `!'
WRITE(1) WRITE(1)
SEE ALSO
mesg(1), who(1), mail(1)
BUGS
Messages ought to be identified when the recipient is
receiving from more than one writer, rather than when the
writer is sending to more than one recipient, but that
requires cooperating processes and isn't worth the effort.