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 standards as follows:

       talk:  XCU5.0

       Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.

OPTIONS

       None

OPERANDS

       The name of the desired recipient in the form returned by the who utility.

	      [Tru64 UNIX]  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 accessible  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.

       [Tru64 UNIX]  When using full domain  names,  the  only	valid  form  for  specifying  the  user  and  host  is	user@host.   For  example,
       andy@host17.dev.abc.com 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 invitation 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 mes-
       sages 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 invitation, talk displays two windows on the second user's ter-
       minal.  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 terminates 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

       [Tru64 UNIX]  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 error 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*: Provides 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,
       overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables.  Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences  of  bytes
       of  text  data  as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multbyte characters in arguments and input files). If the recipient's
       locale does not use an LC_CTYPE equivalent to yours, the results are undefined.	Determines the locale for the format and contents of diag-
       nostic 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)