fortune man page on 4.4BSD

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FORTUNE(6)		       BSD Games Manual			    FORTUNE(6)

NAME
     fortune — print a random, hopefully interesting, adage

SYNOPSIS
     fortune [-aefilosw] [-m pattern] [[N%] file/dir/all]

DESCRIPTION
     When fortune is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram.
     Epigrams are divided into several categories, where each category is sub‐
     divided into those which are potentially offensive and those which are
     not.  The options are as follows:

     -a	   Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not.  (See the
	   -o option for more information on offensive fortunes.)

     -e	   Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion
	   below on multiple files).

     -f	   Print out the list of files which would be searched, but don't
	   print a fortune.

     -l	   Long dictums only.

     -m	   Print out all fortunes which match the regular expression pattern.
	   See regex(3) for a description of patterns.

     -o	   Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.  Please, please,
	   please request a potentially offensive fortune if and only if you
	   believe, deep down in your heart, that you are willing to be
	   offended.  (And that if you are, you'll just quit using -o rather
	   than give us grief about it, okay?)

		 ... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy of The
		 Brotherhood,  as  handsomely  summarized  in  these words: we
		 believe in healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of  the
		 whole human race, if needs be.	 Needs be.
			     --H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"

     -s	   Short apothegms only.

     -i	   Ignore case for -m patterns.

     -w	   Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the
	   number of characters in the message.	 This is useful if it is exe‐
	   cuted as part of the logout procedure to guarantee that the message
	   can be read before the screen is cleared.

     The user may specify alternate sayings.  You can specify a specific file,
     a directory which contains one or more files, or the special word all
     which says to use all the standard databases.  Any of these may be pre‐
     ceded by a percentage, which is a number N between 0 and 100 inclusive,
     followed by a %.  If it is, there will be a N percent probability that an
     adage will be picked from that file or directory.	If the percentages do
     not sum to 100, and there are specifications without percentages, the
     remaining percent will apply to those files and/or directories, in which
     case the probability of selecting from one of them will be based on their
     relative sizes.

     As an example, given two databases funny and not-funny, with funny twice
     as big, saying

	   fortune funny not-funny

     will get you fortunes out of funny two-thirds of the time.	 The command

	   fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny

     will pick out 90% of its fortunes from funny (the ``10% not-funny'' is
     unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left).  The -e option says to con‐
     sider all files equal; thus

	   fortune -e

     is equivalent to

	   fortune 50% funny 50% not
	   -funny

FILES
     /usr/share/games/fortune

SEE ALSO
     regex(3), regcmp(3),

4th Berkeley Distribution	April 19, 1994	     4th Berkeley Distribution
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