+++ /dev/null
-.\" $NetBSD: fortune.6,v 1.4 1995/03/23 08:28:37 cgd Exp $
-.\"
-.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1991, 1993
-.\" 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, with or without
-.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
-.\" are met:
-.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
-.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
-.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
-.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
-.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
-.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
-.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
-.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
-.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
-.\" 4. 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 BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
-.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
-.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
-.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
-.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
-.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
-.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
-.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
-.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
-.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
-.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
-.\"
-.\" @(#)fortune.6 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
-.\"
-.\" This version of the man page has been modified heavily, like the
-.\" program it documents. Some of the changes may be exclusive to
-.\" Linux. Amy A. Lewis, September, 1995.
-.\"
-.\" Changes Copyright (c) 1997 Dennis L. Clark. All rights reserved.
-.\"
-.\" The changes in this file may be freely redistributed, modified or
-.\" included in other software, as long as both the above copyright
-.\" notice and these conditions appear intact.
-.\"
-.TH FORTUNE 6 "19 April 94 [May. 97]" "BSD Experimental" "UNIX Reference Manual"
-.SH NAME
-fortune \- print a random, hopefully interesting, adage
-.SH SYNOPSIS
-.BR fortune " [" -acefilosw "] [" -n
-.IR length "] ["
-.B -m
-.IR pattern "] [[" n% "] " file/dir/all ]
-.SH DESCRIPTION
-When
-.B 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.
-.SS Options
-The options are as follows:
-.TP
-.B -a
-Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not. (See the
-.B -o
-option for more information on offensive fortunes.)
-.TP
-.B -c
-Show the cookie file from which the fortune came.
-.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. See
-.B -n
-on how ``long'' is defined in this sense.
-.TP
-.BI "-m " pattern
-Print out all fortunes which match the basic regular expression
-.IR pattern .
-The syntax of these expressions depends on how your system defines
-.BR re_comp "(3) or " regcomp (3),
-but it should nevertheless be similar to the syntax used in
-.BR grep (1).
-.sp
-.RS
-The fortunes are output to standard output, while the names of the file
-from which each fortune comes are printed to standard error. Either or
-both can be redirected; if standard output is redirected to a file, the
-result is a valid fortunes database file. If standard error is
-.I also
-redirected to this file, the result is
-.IR "still valid" ,
-.B but there will be ``bogus''
-.BR fortunes ,
-i.e. the filenames themselves, in parentheses. This can be useful if you
-wish to remove the gathered matches from their original files, since each
-filename-record will precede the records from the file it names.
-.RE
-.TP
-.BI "-n " length
-Set the longest fortune length (in characters) considered to be
-``short'' (the default is 160). All fortunes longer than this are
-considered ``long''. Be careful! If you set the length too short and
-ask for short fortunes, or too long and ask for long ones, fortune goes
-into a never-ending thrash loop.
-.TP
-.B -o
-Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms. The -o option is
-ignored if a fortune directory is specified.
-.sp
-.B Please, please, please request a potentially
-.B offensive fortune if and only if
-.B you believe, deep in your heart,
-.B that you are willing to be
-.B offended. (And that you'll just quit
-.BR using " -o " rather
-.B than give us grief about it,
-.B okay?)
-.sp
-.RS
-\&... 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.
-.RS
---H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"
-.RE
-.RE
-.TP
-.B -s
-Short apothegms only. See
-.B -n
-on which fortunes are considered ``short''.
-.TP
-.B -i
-Ignore case for
-.IR -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
-.I 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
-.IR % .
-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
-.IR funny " and " not-funny ", with " funny
-twice as big (in number of fortunes, not raw file size), saying
-.RS
-.sp
-.B fortune
-.I funny not-funny
-.sp
-.RE
-will get you fortunes out of
-.I funny
-two-thirds of the time. The command
-.RS
-.sp
-.B fortune
-.RI "90% " funny " 10% " not-funny
-.sp
-.RE
-will pick out 90% of its fortunes from
-.I funny
-(the ``10% not-funny'' is unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left).
-.PP
-The
-.B -e
-option says to consider all files equal; thus
-.RS
-.sp
-.B fortune -e
-.I funny not-funny
-.sp
-.RE
-is equivalent to
-.RS
-.sp
-.B fortune
-.RI "50% " funny " 50% " not-funny
-.sp
-.RE
-This fortune also supports the BSD method of appending ``-o'' to
-database names to specify offensive fortunes. However this is
-.B not
-how fortune stores them: offensive fortunes are stored in a separate
-directory without the ``-o'' infix. A plain name (i.e., not a path to a
-file or directory) that ends in ``-o'' will be assumed to be an
-offensive database, and will have its suffix stripped off and be
-searched in the offensive directory (even if the neither of the
-.IR -a " or " -o
-options were specified). This feature is not only for
-backwards-compatibility, but also to allow users to distinguish between
-inoffensive and offensive databases of the same name.
-.PP
-For example, assuming there is a database named
-.I definitions
-in both the inoffensive and potentially offensive collections, then the
-following command will select an inoffensive definition 90% of the time,
-and a potentially offensive definition for the remaining 10%:
-.RS
-.sp
-.B fortune
-90%
-.I definitions definitions-o
-.RE
-.SH FILES
-Note: these are the defaults as defined at compile time.
-.PP
-.PD 0
-.TP
+++ /dev/null
-.PD
-.PP
-If a particular set of fortunes is particularly unwanted, there is an
-easy solution: delete the associated
-.I .dat
-file. This leaves the data intact, should the file later be wanted, but
-since
-.B fortune
-no longer finds the pointers file, it ignores the text file.
-.SH BUGS
-The division of fortunes into offensive and non-offensive by directory,
-rather than via the `-o' file infix, is not 100% compatible with
-original BSD fortune. Although the `-o' infix is recognised as referring
-to an offensive database, the offensive database files still need to be
-in a separate directory. The workaround, of course, is to move the `-o'
-files into the offensive directory (with or without renaming), and to
-use the
-.B -a
-option.
-.PP
-The supplied fortune databases have been attacked, in order to correct
-orthographical and grammatical errors, and particularly to reduce
-redundancy and repetition and redundancy. But especially to avoid
-repetitiousness. This has not been a complete success. In the process,
-some fortunes may also have been lost.
-.PP
-The fortune databases are now divided into a larger number of smaller
-files, some organized by format (poetry, definitions), and some by
-content (religion, politics). There are parallel files in the main
-directory and in the offensive files directory (e.g., fortunes/definitions and
-fortunes/off/definitions). Not all the potentially offensive fortunes are in
-the offensive fortunes files, nor are all the fortunes in the offensive
-files potentially offensive, probably, though a strong attempt has been
-made to achieve greater consistency. Also, a better division might be
-made.
-.SH HISTORY
-This version of fortune is based on the NetBSD fortune 1.4, but with a
-number of bug fixes and enhancements.
-.PP
-The original fortune/strfile format used a single file; strfile read the
-text file and converted it to null-delimited strings, which were stored
-after the table of pointers in the .dat file. By NetBSD fortune 1.4,
-this had changed to two separate files: the .dat file was only the header
-(the table of pointers, plus flags; see
-.IR strfile.h ),
-and the text strings were left in their own file. The potential problem
-with this is that text file and header file may get out of synch, but the
-advantage is that the text files can be easily edited without resorting
-to unstr, and there is a potential savings in disk space (on the
-assumption that the sysadmin kept both .dat file with strings and the
-text file).
-.PP
-Many of the enhancements made over the NetBSD version assumed a Linux
-system, and thus caused it to fail under other platforms, including BSD.
-The source code has since been made more generic, and currently works on
-SunOS 4.x as well as Linux, with support for more platforms expected in
-the future. Note that some bugs were inadvertently discovered and fixed
-during this process.
-.PP
-At a guess, a great many people have worked on this program, many without
-leaving attributions.
-.SH SEE ALSO
-.BR re_comp "(3), " regcomp "(3), " strfile "(1), "
-.BR unstr (1)
projects / fortune-mod / commitdiff