talk(1)                                                             talk(1)




 NAME    [Toc]    [Back]
      talk - talk to another user

 SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]
      talk talk_party [ttyname]

 DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]
      The talk utility is a two-way, screen-oriented communication program.

      The command argument talk_party can take one the following forms:

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

      where user is a login name and host is a host name.

      The optional command argument, ttyname, can be used to specify the
      terminal to be used when contacting a user who is logged in more than
      once. In absence of this argument, talk will try to contact the user
      on the user's most recently used terminal.

      When first invoked, talk sends the following message to the party it
      tries to connect to (callee):

           Message from Talk_Daemon@callee_host
           ...
           talk: connection requested by caller@caller_host
           talk: respond with:  talk caller@caller_host

      At this point, the recipient of the message can reply by typing:

           talk caller@caller_host

      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:

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

      +  Typing <control>-L will cause the sender's screen to be refreshed.

      +  Typing the erase, kill or kill word character will delete the last
         character, line or word on the sender's terminal, with the action
         propagated to the recipient's terminal.

      +  Typing the interrupt character will terminate the local talk
         utility. Once the talk session has been terminated on one side, the



 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 1 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003






 talk(1)                                                             talk(1)




         other side of the talk session will be notified that the session
         has been terminated and will be able to do nothing except exit.

      +  Other non-printable characters typed on the sender's terminal are
         converted to printable characters before they are sent to the
         recipient's terminal.

      Permission to be a recipient of a talk message can be denied or
      granted by using the mesg utility. However, a user may need other
      privileges to be able to access other users' terminals. The talk
      utility will fail when the user lacks the appropriate privileges.

 SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]
      mesg(1), who(1), write(1).

 STANDARDS CONFORMANCE    [Toc]    [Back]
      talk: XPG4


 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 2 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003