FORTUNE(6)FORTUNE(6)NAMEfortune - print a random, hopefully interesting, adage
SYNOPSISfortune [ -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
subdivided 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.
-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 pat‐
tern. 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 will‐
ing 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 executed 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
preceded by a percentage, which is a number N between 0 and 100 inclu‐
sive, followed by a % . If it is, there will be a N percent probabil‐
ity 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
AUTHOR
Ken Arnold
SEE ALSOregex(3), regcmp(3), strfile(8)4th Berkeley Distribution June 23, 1990 FORTUNE(6)
