1cowsay(1)                   General Commands Manual                  cowsay(1)
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NAME

6       cowsay/cowthink - configurable speaking/thinking cow (and a bit more)
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SYNOPSIS

9       cowsay  [-e  eye_string] [-f cowfile] [-h] [-l] [-n] [-T tongue_string]
10       [-W column] [-bdgpstwy]
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DESCRIPTION

13       Cowsay generates an ASCII picture of a cow saying something provided by
14       the  user.   If run with no arguments, it accepts standard input, word-
15       wraps the message given at about 40 columns, and prints the cow  saying
16       the given message on standard output.
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18       To  aid in the use of arbitrary messages with arbitrary whitespace, use
19       the -n option.  If it is specified, the given message will not be word-
20       wrapped.   This is possibly useful if you want to make the cow think or
21       speak in figlet(6).  If -n is specified, there must not be any command-
22       line arguments left after all the switches have been processed.
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24       The  -W  specifies  roughly  (where the message should be wrapped.  The
25       default is equivalent to -W 40 i.e. wrap words at or  before  the  40th
26       column.
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28       If  any  command-line  arguments  are left over after all switches have
29       been processed, they become the cow's message.  The  program  will  not
30       accept standard input for a message in this case.
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32       There are several provided modes which change the appearance of the cow
33       depending on its particular emotional/physical state.   The  -b  option
34       initiates  Borg  mode;  -d  causes  the  cow to appear dead; -g invokes
35       greedy mode; -p causes a state of paranoia to come  over  the  cow;  -s
36       makes  the  cow  appear thoroughly stoned; -t yields a tired cow; -w is
37       somewhat the opposite of -t, and initiates wired mode; -y brings on the
38       cow's youthful appearance.
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40       The  user  may  specify  the  -e option to select the appearance of the
41       cow's eyes, in which case the first  two  characters  of  the  argument
42       string eye_string will be used.  The default eyes are 'oo'.  The tongue
43       is similarly configurable through -T and tongue_string; it must be  two
44       characters  and does not appear by default.  However, it does appear in
45       the 'dead' and 'stoned' modes.  Any configuration done  by  -e  and  -T
46       will be lost if one of the provided modes is used.
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48       The  -f option specifies a particular cow picture file (``cowfile'') to
49       use.  If the cowfile spec contains '/' then it will be interpreted as a
50       path  relative to the current directory.  Otherwise, cowsay will search
51       the path specified in the COWPATH environment variable.   To  list  all
52       cowfiles on the current COWPATH, invoke cowsay with the -l switch.
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54       If  the program is invoked as cowthink then the cow will think its mes‐
55       sage instead of saying it.
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COWFILE FORMAT

58       A cowfile is made up of a simple block of perl(1) code, which assigns a
59       picture  of a cow to the variable $the_cow.  Should you wish to custom‐
60       ize the eyes or the tongue of the cow, then  the  variables  $eyes  and
61       $tongue may be used.  The trail leading up to the cow's message balloon
62       is composed of the character(s) in the $thoughts variable.   Any  back‐
63       slashes  must  be reduplicated to prevent interpolation.  The name of a
64       cowfile should end with .cow, otherwise it is assumed not to be a  cow‐
65       file.   Also, at-signs (``@'') must be backslashed because that is what
66       Perl 5 expects.
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COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS

69       What older versions? :-)
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71       Version 3.x is fully backward-compatible with 2.x versions.  If  you're
72       still  using  a 1.x version, consider upgrading.  And tell me where you
73       got the older versions, since I didn't exactly put them up  for  world-
74       wide access.
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76       Oh,  just  so  you  know,  this  manual  page documents version 3.02 of
77       cowsay.
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ENVIRONMENT

80       The COWPATH environment variable, if present, will be  used  to  search
81       for  cowfiles.  It contains a colon-separated list of directories, much
82       like PATH or MANPATH.  It should always contain  the  /usr/share/cowsay
83       directory,  or  at  least a directory with a file called default.cow in
84       it.
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FILES

87       /usr/share/cowsay holds a sample set of cowfiles.  If your  COWPATH  is
88       not explicitly set, it automatically contains this directory.
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BUGS

91       If there are any, please notify the author at the address below.
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AUTHOR

94       Tony   Monroe  (tony@nog.net),  with  suggestions  from  Shannon  Appel
95       (appel@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU)  and  contributions   from   Anthony   Polito
96       (aspolito@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU).
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SEE ALSO

99       perl(1), wall(1), nwrite(1), figlet(6)
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103                         $Date: 1999/11/04 19:50:40 $                cowsay(1)
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