.\" 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
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\" @(#)fortune.6 8.2 (Berkeley) %G%
.Nd "print a random, hopefully interesting, adage"
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
The options are as follows:
Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not.
option for more information on offensive fortunes.)
Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion below
Print out the list of files which would be searched, but don't
Print out all fortunes which match the regular expression
for a description of patterns.
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
(And that if you are, you'll just quit using
.Bd -filled -offset indent
\&... 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.
.Bd -filled -offset indent-two -compact
--H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"
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
which says to use all the standard databases.
Any of these may be preceded by a percentage, which is a number
between 0 and 100 inclusive, followed by a
If it is, there will be a
percent probability that an adage will be picked from that file
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
.Bd -literal -offset indent
will get you fortunes out of
.Bd -literal -offset indent
fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny
will pick out 90% of its fortunes from
(the ``10% not-funny'' is unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left).
option says to consider all files equal;
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Bd -literal -offset indent
fortune 50% funny 50% not
.Bl -tag -width Pa -compact
.It Pa /usr/share/games/fortune
projects / unix-history / blob