talk(1)                                                             talk(1)

NAME
     talk - talk to another user

SYNOPSIS
     talk loginname[ ttyname]

DESCRIPTION
     talk enables you to communicate with another user working at a termi-
     nal on the same or a different host. talk copies input lines from your
     terminal to the recipient's terminal. talk is architecture dependent;
     it works only between machines that have the same architecture.

     loginname
          Login name of the user you want to communicate with. If this user
          is logged in more than once, the ttyname argument may be used to
          indicate the appropriate terminal.

          If the user is working on another system, you have to enter:

          loginname@systemname

     ttyname
          Name of the terminal on which the user with whom you want to talk
          is working. You need only enter ttyname if the recipient login-
          name is logged in more than once. The who command enables you to
          see which terminals loginname is logged in on.

FUNCTIONALITY
     In a talk conversation, there is an originator and a recipient. The
     user who calls talk is the originator, while the user whose login name
     is specified is the recipient.

     When the originator calls talk, the following appears on the
     recipient's terminal:

     Message from TalkDaemon@targetsystem at time
     talk: connection requested by originator@sourcesystem
     talk: respond with: talk originator@sourcesystem

     and the following on the originator's:

     Waiting for your party to respond

     This is on condition that the recipient's login name is defined, the
     recipient is logged in and the connection could be set up success-
     fully.

     At this point, the recipient can accept the call by entering:

     talk originator@sourcesystem

     The screens of the originator and the recipient then divide into two



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talk(1)                                                             talk(1)

     windows, the upper for writing messages, the lower for reading mes-
     sages. Both parties can read and write messages simultaneously.

     To refuse a call, the recipient presses <DEL>, at which point the
     shell prompt appears and the user can continue working normally.

     Input made while the connection is established is handled as follows:

     -  Printable characters are forwarded to the recipient

     -  The bell is forwarded to the recipient

     -  You can refresh the screen with <CTRL-L>

     -  You terminate communication by pressing <DEL>. The message

        Connection closing. Exiting

        is output and the shell prompt appears at the bottom of the screen,
        followed by the cursor.

     You can use the mesg command to grant (mesg -y) or deny (mesg -n)
     other users permission to set up a communication connection to your
     terminal with talk. The default setting for mesg is y. Certain com-
     mands, such as pr, automatically disallow messages in order to prevent
     messy output.

ERROR MESSAGES

     No connection yet

     The connection with the recipient could not be set up yet. It is
     advisable to wait a while, and then try again if the message Waiting
     for your party to respond does not appear on your screen after a few
     seconds.

     Your party is not logged on

     The login name you specified as originator or recipient is not
     defined, or the user is currently not logged in.

     Your party is refusing messages

     Permission to write messages to the terminal is denied (see mesg).










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talk(1)                                                             talk(1)

LOCALE
     The LCMESSAGES environment variable governs the language in which
     message texts are displayed. If LCMESSAGES is undefined or is defined
     as the null string, it defaults to the value of LANG. If LANG is like-
     wise undefined or null, the system acts as if it were not internation-
     alized.

     The LCALL environment variable governs the entire locale. LCALL
     takes precedence over all the other environment variables which affect
     internationalization.

EXAMPLES
     Example 1

     You want to communicate with the user walter who is working on the
     same system as you:

     $ talk walter
     ...

     Example 2

     You want to communicate with the user lindsay who is working at termi-
     nal tty003 on the system munich:

     $ talk lindsay@munich tty003
     ...

FILES
     /etc/hosts
          This file is required to locate the recipient's system.

     /var/adm/utmp
          This file is required to locate the recipient's terminal. All
          users who are logged in are recorded in this file.

SEE ALSO
     mail(1), mesg(1), pr(1), who(1), write(1).
















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