WRITE linux command manual

WRITE(1)                Linux Programmer's Manual                  WRITE(1)



NAME
       write - send a message to another user

SYNOPSIS
       write user [ttyname]

DESCRIPTION
       Write  allows  you  to  communicate with other users, by copying lines
       from your terminal to theirs.

       When you run the write command, the user you are  writing  to  gets  a
       message of the form:

              Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ...

       Any  further  lines  you  enter will be copied to the specified user's
       terminal.  If the other user wants to reply, they must  run  write  as
       well.

       When  you  are  done, type an end-of-file or interrupt character.  The
       other user will see the message EOF indicating that  the  conversation
       is over.

       You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to you
       with the mesg(1) command.  Some commands,  for  example  nroff(1)  and
       pr(1),  may  disallow writing automatically, so that your output isn't
       overwritten.

       If the user you want to write to is logged in on more than one  termi-
       nal, you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the ter-
       minal name as the second operand to the write command.  Alternatively,
       you  can  let write select one of the terminals - it will pick the one
       with the shortest idle time.  This is so that if the user is logged in
       at work and also dialed up from home, the message will go to the right
       place.

       The traditional protocol for writing to someone  is  that  the  string
       '-o',  either  at the end of a line or on a line by itself, means that
       it's the other person's turn to talk.  The string 'oo' means that  the
       person believes the conversation to be over.

SEE ALSO
       mesg(1), talk(1), who(1)

HISTORY
       A write command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.



                                12 March 1995                        WRITE(1)