talk(1) General Commands Manual talk(1)
NAME
talk - Converses with another user
SYNOPSIS
talk user [tty_name]
STANDARDS
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan-
dards as follows:
talk: XPG4, XPG4-UNIX
Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about in-
dustry standards and associated tags.
OPTIONS
None
OPERANDS
The name of the desired recipient in the form returned by the who util-
ity.
[DIGITAL] If the second user is on a remote host, the name of
the host must be specified in one of the following ways:
user@host host!user host.user host:user If the recipient is
logged in more than once, the tty_name argument can be used to
indicate the appropriate terminal name. If tty_name is not
specified, the talk message is displayed on one or more accessi-
ble terminals in use by the recipient. The format of tty_name
is the same as that returned by the who command.
DESCRIPTION
The talk command allows two users to enter text simultaneously into
windows displayed on each other's terminals. To initiate a conversa-
tion, one user executes talk and specifies the second user's username.
[DIGITAL] When using full domain names, the only valid form for speci-
fying the user and host is user@host. For example,
[email protected] initiates a conversation with user andy at host
host17 in the dev.abc.com domain.
When the first user initiates the conversation, a message is sent to
the second user. If the first user also specifies tty_name, the invi-
tation message is sent to the specified terminal. Otherwise, the invi-
tation is sent to the terminal on the remote host on which the second
user first logged in. Once this invitation is received, talk displays
two windows on the first user's terminal and displays progress messages
until the second user responds to the initial message.
If the second user wants to have the conversation, the second user also
executes talk from any terminal and specifies the first user's account
name and hostname, if appropriate. If the second user accepts the in-
vitation, talk displays two windows on the second user's terminal. One
window displays what is typed by the local user; the other displays
what is typed by the remote user. To end the conversation and close
the connection, either user can press the Interrupt key sequence.
If the second user does not want to permit talk invitations, that user
should issue the mesg n command.
The talk command processes characters as follows: Typing the <alert>
character alerts the recipient's terminal. Typing <Ctrl-L> causes the
sender's screen regions to be refreshed. Typing the Erase and Kill
characters affects the sender's terminal as described on the termios
reference page. Typing the Interrupt or End-of-File characters termi-
nates the local talk program. Once the talk session has been termi-
nated on one side, the other side of the session is notified that the
talk session has been terminated and this side can do nothing except
exit. Typing characters from LC_TYPE classifications print or space
causes those characters to be sent to the recipient's terminal.
The talk command fails when a user lacks the appropriate privileges to
perform the requested action.
NOTES
[DIGITAL] The talk command uses the talk 4.3BSD protocol, which is not
compatible with 4.2BSD versions of talk.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: Successful completion. An er-
ror occurred or your terminal is incapable of supporting talk.
EXAMPLES
If john at host1 wants to talk to fred, who is logged in on host2, john
enters: $ talk fred@host2
The following message is displayed on fred's terminal: Message
from TalkDaemon@host1 at 15:16... talk: connection requested by
john@host1. talk: respond with: talk john@host1
To accept the invitation, fred enters: $ talk john@host1 To talk
to fred only if he is logged in on the console at host2, enter:
$ talk fred@host2 console
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables affect the execution of *cmd*: Pro-
vides a default value for the internationalization variables that are
unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from
the default locale is used. If any of the internationalization vari-
ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the
variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value, over-
rides the values of all the other internationalization variables. De-
termines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of
text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to mult-
byte characters in arguments and input files). If the recipient's lo-
cale does not use an LC_CTYPE equivalent to yours, the results are un-
defined. Determines the locale for the format and contents of diagnos-
tic messages written to standard error. Determines the location of
message catalogues for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
SEE ALSO
Commands: mesg(1), named(8), stty(1), talkd(8), who(1), write(1)
Standards: standards(5)
talk(1)