1FORTUNE(6)                   UNIX Reference Manual                  FORTUNE(6)
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NAME

6       fortune - print a random, hopefully interesting, adage
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SYNOPSIS

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12                 fortune     [-acefilosw]
13                    [-n length]
14                    [-m pattern]
15                    [[n%] file/dir/all]
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DESCRIPTION

19       When fortune is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram.
20       Epigrams are divided into several categories, where each category is
21       sub-divided into those which are potentially offensive and those which
22       are not.
23
24
25   Options
26       The options are as follows:
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29       -a
30
31           Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not. (See the
32           -o option for more information on offensive fortunes.)
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34
35       -c
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37           Show the cookie file from which the fortune came.
38
39
40       -e
41
42           Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion
43           below on multiple files).
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46       -f
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48           Print out the list of files which would be searched, but don't
49           print a fortune.
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51
52       -l
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54           Long dictums only. See -n on how “long” is defined in this sense.
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57       -m pattern
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59           Print out all fortunes which match the basic regular expression
60           pattern. The syntax of these expressions depends on how your system
61           defines re_comp(3) or regcomp(3), but it should nevertheless be
62           similar to the syntax used in grep(1).
63
64           The fortunes are output to standard output, while the names of the
65           file from which each fortune comes are printed to standard error.
66           Either or both can be redirected; if standard output is redirected
67           to a file, the result is a valid fortunes database file. If
68           standard error is also redirected to this file, the result is still
69           valid, but there will be “bogus” fortunes, i.e. the filenames
70           themselves, in parentheses. This can be useful if you wish to
71           remove the gathered matches from their original files, since each
72           filename-record will precede the records from the file it names.
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75       -n length
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77           Set the longest fortune length (in characters) considered to be
78           “short” (the default is 160). All fortunes longer than this are
79           considered “long”. Be careful! If you set the length too short and
80           ask for short fortunes, or too long and ask for long ones, fortune
81           goes into a never-ending thrash loop.
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83
84           -o Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms. The -o option
85           is ignored if a fortune directory is specified.
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87
88           Please, please, please request a potentially offensive fortune if
89           and only if you believe, deep in your heart, that you are willing
90           to be offended. (And that you'll just quit using -o rather than
91           give us grief about it, okay?)
92
93           ... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy of The
94           Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: we believe in
95           healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race,
96           if needs be. Needs be.
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98           --H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"
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100           -s Short apothegms only. See -n on which fortunes are considered
101           “short”.
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103
104       -i
105
106           Ignore case for -m patterns.
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108
109       -w
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111           Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the
112           number of characters in the message. This is useful if it is
113           executed as part of the logout procedure to guarantee that the
114           message can be read before the screen is cleared.
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117
118       The user may specify alternate sayings. You can specify a specific
119       file, a directory which contains one or more files, or the special word
120       all which says to use all the standard databases. Any of these may be
121       preceded by a percentage, which is a number n between 0 and 100
122       inclusive, followed by a %. If it is, there will be a n percent
123       probability that an adage will be picked from that file or directory.
124       If the percentages do not sum to 100, and there are specifications
125       without percentages, the remaining percent will apply to those files
126       and/or directories, in which case the probability of selecting from one
127       of them will be based on their relative sizes.
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129
130       As an example, given two databases funny and not-funny, with funny
131       twice as big (in number of fortunes, not raw file size), saying
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134       fortune funny not-funny
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137       will get you fortunes out of funny two-thirds of the time. The command
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139
140       fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny
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143       will pick out 90% of its fortunes from funny (the “10% not-funny” is
144       unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left).
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146
147       The -e option says to consider all files equal; thus
148
149
150       fortune -e funny not-funny
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153       is equivalent to
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156       fortune 50% funny 50% not-funny
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159       This fortune also supports the BSD method of appending “-o” to database
160       names to specify offensive fortunes. However this is not how fortune
161       stores them: offensive fortunes are stored in a separate directory
162       without the “-o” infix. A plain name (i.e., not a path to a file or
163       directory) that ends in “-o” will be assumed to be an offensive
164       database, and will have its suffix stripped off and be searched in the
165       offensive directory (even if the neither of the -a or -o options were
166       specified). This feature is not only for backwards-compatibility, but
167       also to allow users to distinguish between inoffensive and offensive
168       databases of the same name.
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171       For example, assuming there is a database named definitions in both the
172       inoffensive and potentially offensive collections, then the following
173       command will select an inoffensive definition 90% of the time, and a
174       potentially offensive definition for the remaining 10%:
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176
177       fortune 90% definitions definitions-o
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179

FILES

181       Note: these are the defaults as defined at compile time.
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184       /usr/share/games/fortune Directory for innoffensive fortunes.
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187       /usr/share/games/fortune/off Directory for offensive fortunes.
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190       If a particular set of fortunes is particularly unwanted, there is an
191       easy solution: delete the associated .dat file. This leaves the data
192       intact, should the file later be wanted, but since fortune no longer
193       finds the pointers file, it ignores the text file.
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195

BUGS

197       The division of fortunes into offensive and non-offensive by directory,
198       rather than via the `-o' file infix, is not 100% compatible with
199       original BSD fortune. Although the `-o' infix is recognised as
200       referring to an offensive database, the offensive database files still
201       need to be in a separate directory. The workaround, of course, is to
202       move the `-o' files into the offensive directory (with or without
203       renaming), and to use the -a option.
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206       The supplied fortune databases have been attacked, in order to correct
207       orthographical and grammatical errors, and particularly to reduce
208       redundancy and repetition and redundancy. But especially to avoid
209       repetitiousness. This has not been a complete success. In the process,
210       some fortunes may also have been lost.
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213       The fortune databases are now divided into a larger number of smaller
214       files, some organized by format (poetry, definitions), and some by
215       content (religion, politics). There are parallel files in the main
216       directory and in the offensive files directory (e.g.,
217       fortunes/definitions and fortunes/off/definitions). Not all the
218       potentially offensive fortunes are in the offensive fortunes files, nor
219       are all the fortunes in the offensive files potentially offensive,
220       probably, though a strong attempt has been made to achieve greater
221       consistency. Also, a better division might be made.
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HISTORY

225       This version of fortune is based on the NetBSD fortune 1.4, but with a
226       number of bug fixes and enhancements.
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229       The original fortune/strfile format used a single file; strfile read
230       the text file and converted it to null-delimited strings, which were
231       stored after the table of pointers in the .dat file. By NetBSD fortune
232       1.4, this had changed to two separate files: the .dat file was only the
233       header (the table of pointers, plus flags; see strfile.h), and the text
234       strings were left in their own file. The potential problem with this is
235       that text file and header file may get out of synch, but the advantage
236       is that the text files can be easily edited without resorting to unstr,
237       and there is a potential savings in disk space (on the assumption that
238       the sysadmin kept both .dat file with strings and the text file).
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241       Many of the enhancements made over the NetBSD version assumed a Linux
242       system, and thus caused it to fail under other platforms, including
243       BSD. The source code has since been made more generic, and currently
244       works on SunOS 4.x as well as Linux, with support for more platforms
245       expected in the future. Note that some bugs were inadvertently
246       discovered and fixed during this process.
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249       At a guess, a great many people have worked on this program, many
250       without leaving attributions.
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SEE ALSO

254       re_comp(3), regcomp(3), strfile(1), unstr(1)
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259BSD Experimental             19 April 94 [May. 97]                  FORTUNE(6)
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