4.3BSD-Reno/share/man/cat6/fortune.0

FORTUNE(6)		      1990		       FORTUNE(6)



NNAAMMEE
     fortune - print a random, hopefully interesting, adage

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
     ffoorrttuunnee [ --aaeeffiilloossww ] [ --mm _p_a_t_t_e_r_n ] [ [ _N% ] _f_i_l_e/_d_i_r/_a_l_l ]

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
     When _f_o_r_t_u_n_e 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:

     --aa   Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and
	  not.

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

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

     --ll   Long dictums only.

     --mm   Print out all fortunes which match the regular expres-
	  sion _p_a_t_t_e_r_n.  See rreeggeexx(3) for a description of pat-
	  terns.

     --oo   Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.
	  PPlleeaassee,, pplleeaassee,, pplleeaassee rreeqquueesstt aa ppootteennttiiaallllyy ooffffeennssiivvee
	  ffoorrttuunnee iiff aanndd oonnllyy iiff yyoouu bbeelliieevvee,, ddeeeepp ddoowwnn iinn yyoouurr
	  hheeaarrtt,, tthhaatt yyoouu aarree wwiilllliinngg ttoo bbee ooffffeennddeedd..  ((AAnndd tthhaatt
	  iiff yyoouu aarree,, yyoouu''llll jjuusstt qquuiitt uussiinngg --oo rraatthheerr tthhaann ggiivvee
	  uuss ggrriieeff aabboouutt iitt,, ookkaayy??))

	  ... 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"

     --ss   Short apothegms only.

     --ii   Ignore case for --mm patterns.

     --ww   Wait before termination for an amount of time calcu-
	  lated 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.




Printed 7/27/90               June				1






FORTUNE(6)		      1990		       FORTUNE(6)



     The user may specify alternate sayings.  You can specify a
     specific file, a directory which contains one or more files,
     or the special word aallll which says to use all the standard
     databases.  Any of these may be preceded 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 probabil-
     ity of selecting from one of them will be based on their
     relative sizes.

     As an example, given two databases ffuunnnnyy and nnoott--ffuunnnnyy ,,
     with ffuunnnnyy twice as big, saying
	  fortune funny not-funny
     will get you fortunes out of ffuunnnnyy two-thirds of the time.
     The command
	  fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny
     will pick out 90% of its fortunes from ffuunnnnyy (the ``10%
     not-funny'' is unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left).
     The --ee option says to consider all files equal; thus
	  fortune -e
     is equivalent to
	  fortune 50% funny 50% not-funny

FFIILLEESS
     /usr/share/games/fortune

AAUUTTHHOORR
     Ken Arnold

SSEEEE AALLSSOO
     regex(3), regcmp(3), strfile(8)





















Printed 7/27/90               June				2