FORTUNE(6)                   FreeBSD Games Manual                   FORTUNE(6)

NAME
     fortune - print a random, hopefully interesting, adage

SYNOPSIS
     fortune [-aDefilosw] [-m pattern] [[N%] file/directory/all]

DESCRIPTION
     When fortune is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram.
     Epigrams are divided into several categories, where each category is
     subdivided into those which are potentially offensive and those which are
     not.  The options are as follows:

     -a      Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not.  (See
             the -o option for more information on offensive fortunes.)

     -D      Enable additional debugging output.  Specify this option multiple
             times for more verbose output.  Only available if compiled with
             -DDEBUG.

     -e      Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion
             below on multiple files).

     -f      Print out the list of files which would be searched, but do not
             print a fortune.

     -l      Long dictums only.

     -m pattern
             Print out all fortunes which match the regular expression
             pattern.  See regex(3) for a description of patterns.

     -o      Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms.  Please,
             please, please request a potentially offensive fortune if and
             only if you believe, deep down in your heart, that you are
             willing to be offended.  (And that if you are not willing, you
             will just quit using -o rather than give us grief about it,
             okay?)

                   ... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy
                   of The Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words:
                   we believe in healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of
                   the whole human race, if needs be.
                   Needs be.
                                              --H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"

     -s      Short apothegms only.

     -i      Ignore case for -m patterns.

     -w      Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the
             number of characters in the message.  This is useful if it is
             executed as part of the logout procedure to guarantee that the
             message can be read before the screen is cleared.

     The user may specify alternate sayings.  You can specify a specific file,
     a directory which contains one or more files, or the special word all
     which says to use all the standard databases.  Any of these may be
     preceded by a percentage, which is a number N between 0 and 100
     inclusive, followed by a `%'.  If it is, there will be an N percent
     probability that an adage will be picked from that file or directory.  If
     the percentages do not sum to 100, and there are specifications without
     percentages, the remaining percent will apply to those files and/or
     directories, in which case the probability of selecting from one of them
     will be based on their relative sizes.

     As an example, given two databases funny and not-funny, with funny twice
     as big, saying

           fortune funny not-funny

     will get you fortunes out of funny two-thirds of the time.  The command

           fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny

     will pick out 90% of its fortunes from funny (the "10% not-funny" is
     unnecessary, since 10% is all that is left).  The -e option says to
     consider all files equal; thus

           fortune -e funny not-funny

     is equivalent to

           fortune 50% funny 50% not-funny

ENVIRONMENT
     FORTUNE_PATH      The search path for the data files.  It is a colon-
                       separated list of directories in which fortune looks
                       for data files.  If not set it will default to
                       /usr/share/games/fortune.  If none of the directories
                       specified exist, it will print a warning and exit.

     FORTUNE_SAVESTATE
                       If set, fortune will save some state about what fortune
                       it was up to on disk.

FILES
     /usr/share/games/fortune/*      the fortunes databases (those files
                                     ending "-o" contain the offensive
                                     fortunes)

EXIT STATUS
     The fortune utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.  In
     particular, if -l, -m, or -s is specified, failure to find a matching
     citation in the selected files counts as an error.

SEE ALSO
     arc4random_uniform(3), regcomp(3), regex(3), strfile(8)

HISTORY
     The fortune utility first appeared Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6         January 3, 2021        FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6