fortune.6

.\" Copyright (c) 1985 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" Ken Arnold.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided
.\" that: (1) source distributions retain this entire copyright notice and
.\" comment, and (2) distributions including binaries display the following
.\" acknowledgement:  ``This product includes software developed by the
.\" University of California, Berkeley and its contributors'' in the
.\" documentation or other materials provided with the distribution and in
.\" all advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software.
.\" Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may
.\" be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
.\" specific prior written permission.
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
.\" WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
.\"
.\"	@(#)fortune.6	6.8 (Berkeley) 6/23/90
.\"
.TH FORTUNE 6 "June 23, 1990"
.UC 4
.SH NAME
fortune \- print a random, hopefully interesting, adage
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B fortune
[
.B \-aefilosw
]
[
.B \-m
.I pattern
]
[ [
.IR N%
]
.I file/dir/all
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
When
.I fortune
is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram.
Epigrams are divided into several categories, where each category
is subdivided into those which are potentially offensive and those
which are not.
The options are as follows:
.TP
.B \-a
Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not.
.TP
.B \-e
Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion below
on multiple files).
.TP
.B \-f
Print out the list of files which would be searched, but don't
print a fortune.
.TP
.B \-l
Long dictums only.
.TP
.B \-m
Print out all fortunes which match the regular expression
.IR pattern .
See
.BR regex (3)
for a description of patterns.
.TP
.B \-o
Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.
.ft B
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?)
.ft R
.PP
.in +5
\&... 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.
.br
.in +10
-- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"
.TP
.B \-s
Short apothegms only.
.TP
.B \-i
Ignore case for
.B \-m
patterns.
.TP
.B \-w
Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the
number of characters in the message.
This is useful if it is executed as part of the logout procedure
to guarantee that the message can be read before the screen is cleared.
.PP
The user may specify alternate sayings.
You can specify a specific file, a directory which contains one or
more files, or the special word
.B all
which says to use all the standard databases.
Any of these may be preceded by a percentage, which is a number
.I N
between 0 and 100 inclusive, followed by a
.B % .
If it is, there will be a
.I 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.
.PP
As an example, given two databases
.B funny
and
.B not-funny ,
with
.B funny
twice as big, saying
.RS
fortune funny not-funny
.RE
will get you fortunes out of
.B funny
two-thirds of the time.
The command
.RS
fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny
.RE
will pick out 90% of its fortunes from
.B funny
(the ``10% not-funny'' is unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left).
The
.B \-e
option says to consider all files equal;
thus
.RS
fortune \-e
.RE
is equivalent to
.RS
fortune 50% funny 50% not-funny
.RE
.SH FILES
/usr/share/games/fortune
.SH AUTHOR
Ken Arnold
.SH "SEE ALSO"
regex(3), regcmp(3), strfile(8)