.TH TALK 1 local
.SH NAME
talk \- talk to another user
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B talk
.I user
[
.I ttyname
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Talk
is identical to
.IR write (1)
except that transmission takes place one character at a time, without
waiting for the newline at the end of each line.
.I Talk
copies characters from your terminal to that of
another user.
When first called,
it sends the message
.PP
     yourname yourttyname talking...
.PP
The recipient of the message should talk back at this point.
Communication continues until an interrupt (DEL) or EOT (CTRL-d) is sent.
At that point
.I talk
writes `EOT' on the other terminal and exits.
.PP
If you want to talk to a user who is logged in more than once,
the
.I ttyname
argument may be used to indicate the appropriate terminal name.
.PP
Permission to talk may be denied or granted by use of the
.I mesg
command.
At the outset talking is allowed.
Certain commands, in particular
.I nroff
and
.IR pr (1)
disallow messages in order to prevent messy output.
.PP
If the character `!' is found at the beginning of a line,
.I talk
calls the shell to execute the rest of the line as a command.
.PP
The following protocol is suggested for using
.IR talk :
when you first talk to another user, wait for her to
talk back before starting to send.
Each party should end each message with a distinctive
signal \(em \fB(o)\fR
for `over' is conventional \(em so that the other may reply.
.B (oo)
for `over and out' is suggested when conversation
is about to be terminated.
.SH FILES
/etc/utmp	to find user
.br
/bin/sh		to execute `!'
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR write (1), 
.IR mesg (1), 
.IR who (1), 
.IR mail (1)