talk(1)

NAME

     talk - talk to another user

SYNOPSIS

     talk address [terminal]

DESCRIPTION

     The talk utility is a two-way, screen-oriented communication
     program.

     When first invoked, talk sends a message similar to:

     Message from TalkDaemon@ her_machine at time ...
     talk: connection requested by your_address
     talk: respond with: talk your_address

     to the specified address. At this point,  the  recipient  of
     the message can reply by typing:

     talk your_address

     Once communication is established, the two parties can  type
     simultaneously,  with  their  output  displayed  in separate
     regions of the screen. Characters are processed as follows:

        o  Typing the alert character will alert the  recipient's
           terminal.

        o  Typing  Control-L  will  cause  the  sender's   screen
           regions to be refreshed.

        o  Typing the erase and kill characters will  affect  the
           sender's  terminal  in  the  manner  described  by the
           termios(3C) interface.

        o  Typing the interrupt or end-of-file  (EOF)  characters
           will  terminate  the local talk utility. Once the talk
           session has been terminated on  one  side,  the  other
           side  of  the  talk  session will be notified that the
           talk session has been terminated and will be  able  to
           do nothing except exit.

        o  Typing characters from LC_CTYPE classifications  print
           or space will cause those characters to be sent to the
           recipient's terminal.

        o  When and only when  the  stty  iexten  local  mode  is
           enabled,  additional  special  control  characters and
           multi-byte or single-byte characters are processed  as
           printable   characters   if   their   wide   character
           equivalents are printable.

        o  Typing other non-printable characters will cause  them
           to  be written to the recipient's terminal as follows:
           control characters will appear as a caret (^) followed
           by  the  appropriate  ASCII  character, and characters
           with the high-order bit  set  will  appear  in  "meta"
           notation. For example, `\003' is displayed as `^C' and
           `\372' as `M-z'.

     Permission to be a recipient of a talk message can be denied
     or  granted by use of the mesg(1) utility. However, a user's
     privilege may further constrain the domain of  accessibility
     of  other users' terminals. Certain commands, such as pr(1),
     disallow messages in  order  to  prevent  interference  with
     their  output.  talk  will  fail  when  the  user  lacks the
     appropriate privileges to perform the requested action.

     Certain block-mode terminals do not have all  the  capabili-
     ties  necessary to support the simultaneous exchange of mes-
     sages required for talk. When this type of  exchange  cannot
     be  supported on such terminals, the implementation may sup-
     port  an  exchange  with  reduced  levels  of   simultaneous
     interaction  or  it  may  report  an  error  describing  the
     terminal-related deficiency.

OPERANDS

     The following operands are supported:

     address
           The recipient of the talk session. One form of address
           is the username, as returned by the who(1) utility. If
           you wish to talk to someone on your own machine,  then
           username is just the person's login name.  If you wish
           to talk to a user on another host,  then  username  is
           one of the following forms:

           host!user
           host.user
           host:user
           user@host

           although user@host is perhaps preferred.

     terminal
           If the recipient is logged in more than once, terminal
           can be used to indicate the appropriate terminal name.
           If terminal is not specified, the talk message will be
           displayed  on  one or more accessible terminals in use
           by the recipient. The format of terminal will  be  the
           same as that returned by  who.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

     See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
     variables  that  affect the execution of talk: LANG, LC_ALL,
     LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

     TERM  Determine the name of the invoker's terminal type.  If
           this  variable is unset or null, an unspecified termi-
           nal type will be used.

EXIT STATUS

     The following exit values are returned:

     0     Successful completion.

     >0    An error occurred, or talk was invoked on  a  terminal
           incapable of supporting it.

FILES

     /etc/hosts
           host name database

     /var/adm/utmpx
           user and accounting information for talk

ATTRIBUTES

     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:

     ____________________________________________________________
    |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Availability                | SUNWrcmds                   |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Interface Stability         | Standard                    |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|

SEE ALSO

     mail(1),  mesg(1),   pr(1),   stty(1),   who(1),   write(1),
     termios(3C), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)

NOTES

     Typing Control-L redraws the screen, while the erase,  kill,
     and  word  kill  characters  will work in talk as normal. To
     exit, type an interrupt character. talk then moves the  cur-
     sor to the bottom of the screen and restores the terminal to
     its previous state.