WRITE(C) XENIX System V WRITE(C)
Name
write - Writes to another user.
Syntax
write user [ tty ]
Description
write copies lines from your terminal to that of another
user. When first called, it sends the message:
Message from your-logname your-tty ...
The recipient of the message should write back at this
point. Communication continues until an end-of-file is read
from the terminal or an interrupt is sent. At that point,
write displays:
(end of message)
on the other terminal and exits.
If you want to write to a user who is logged in more than
once, the tty argument may be used to indicate the
appropriate terminal.
Permission to write may be denied or granted by use of the
mesg(C) command. At the outset, writing is allowed.
Certain commands, in particular nroff(CT) and pr(C),
disallow messages in order to prevent messy output.
If the character ! is found at the beginning of a line,
write calls the shell to execute the rest of the line as a
command. Output from the command is sent to the terminal;
it is not sent to the remote user.
The following protocol is suggested for using write: when
you first write to another user, wait for him or her to
write back before starting to send. Each party should end
each message with a distinctive signal ((o) for ``over'' is
conventional), indicating that the other may reply; (oo) for
``over and out'' is suggested when conversation is to be
terminated.
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WRITE(C) XENIX System V WRITE(C)
Files
/etc/utmp To find user
/bin/sh To execute !
See Also
hello(C), mail(C), mesg(C), who(C)
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