1WRITE(1)                         User Commands                        WRITE(1)
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NAME

6       write - send a message to another user
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SYNOPSIS

9       write user [ttyname]
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DESCRIPTION

12       Write allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from
13       your terminal to theirs.
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15       When you run the write command, the user you are writing to gets a mes‐
16       sage of the form:
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18              Message from yourname@yourhost on yourtty at hh:mm ...
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20       Any further lines you enter will be copied to the specified user's ter‐
21       minal.  If the other user wants to reply, they must run write as well.
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23       When you are done, type an end-of-file  or  interrupt  character.   The
24       other user will see the message EOF indicating that the conversation is
25       over.
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27       You can prevent people (other than the super-user) from writing to  you
28       with  the  mesg(1)  command.   Some  commands, for example nroff(1) and
29       pr(1), may disallow writing automatically, so that  your  output  isn't
30       overwritten.
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32       If  the  user you want to write to is logged in on more than one termi‐
33       nal, you can specify which terminal to write to by specifying the  ter‐
34       minal  name as the second operand to the write command.  Alternatively,
35       you can let write select one of the terminals - it will  pick  the  one
36       with  the shortest idle time.  This is so that if the user is logged in
37       at work and also dialed up from home, the message will go to the  right
38       place.
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40       The  traditional  protocol  for  writing  to someone is that the string
41       `-o', either at the end of a line or on a line by  itself,  means  that
42       it's  the  other person's turn to talk.  The string `oo' means that the
43       person believes the conversation to be over.
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SEE ALSO

46       mesg(1), talk(1), who(1)
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HISTORY

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

52       The write command is part of the util-linux package  and  is  available
53       from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
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57util-linux                        March 1995                          WRITE(1)