write

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 mes-
       sage 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 ter-
       minal.  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)