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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="LinuxDoc-Tools 0.9.21">
<TITLE>Fortune Mini-HOWTO (english)</TITLE>
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<H1>Fortune Mini-HOWTO (english)</H1>
<H2>Walter Harms </H2>Version 0.01, 19.05.2004
<HR>
<EM>How to use use fortune to generate cookies. </EM>
<HR>
<H2><A NAME="s1">1. Introduction</A></H2>
<P>When a user logs into a system normally the /etc/motd is displayed. ( You can
disable this by creating the file ~/.hushlogin.) You will be greeted
by something like ''welcome to 127.0.0.1''. That is boring.</P>
<P>Here comes ''fortune'' to the rescue. The package comes with 3 programs:
fortune,strfile and unstr. </P>
<H2><A NAME="s2">2. Usage of fortune, strfile and unstr</A></H2>
<P>The programs have clear distinguished jobs: presentation, assembly and
disassembly of the fortune databases. </P>
<H2><A NAME="ss2.1">2.1 Fortune</A>
</H2>
<P>fortune is the presenter program. A simple application is to call the
program in the crontab and modify the /etc/motd. e.g.:
<HR>
<PRE>
*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/fortune >/etc/motd
To select a given database with quotes simply add the database as argument.
*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/fortune myquotes >/etc/motd
</PRE>
<HR>
You can also specify more than one database file. Then fortune will consider
both files equally often.
<HR>
<PRE>
> fortune myquotes startrek
</PRE>
<HR>
Some people like some quotes more than others. So your can manipulate the
equilibrium by adding probabilities.
<HR>
<PRE>
> fortune 90% myquotes 10% startrek
</PRE>
<HR>
fortune has some additional command line switches but its beyond the
scope of this document to explain them. check the man page instead.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss2.2">2.2 generating a fortune database</A>
</H2>
<P>Now we come to terms. Pick a list of quotes. There are several sources.
Of cause the Internet will provide you with a long list. Choose quotes
you like they will appear regularly now. Collect the quotes in one file.
Every quote separated with a line containing a single % e.g.:
<HR>
<PRE>
quote 1
%
quote 2
%
quote 3
%
quote 5
</PRE>
<HR>
This is not a very effective way. Therefor is the strfile program.It will
process the ASCII-file and add a binary helper. The <myquotes> will
accompanied by <myquotes>.dat .
<HR>
<PRE>
> strfile myquotes
</PRE>
<HR>
The <myquotes>.dat will by copied into the directory where the datafiles are stored.
This is usually <CODE>/usr/share/fortune</CODE>. Check the installation with:
<HR>
<PRE>
>fortune myquotes
</PRE>
<HR>
</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss2.3">2.3 unstr</A>
</H2>
<P>This is what the man-page says:
<HR>
<PRE>
The purpose of unstr is to undo the work of strfile. It prints out the
strings contained in the file source_file in the order that they are
listed in the header file source_file.dat to standard output. It is
possible to create sorted versions of input files by using -o when strfile
is run and then using unstr to dump them out in the table order.
</PRE>
<HR>
</P>
<H2><A NAME="s3">3. other files to have fun with</A></H2>
<P>An other possible target is <CODE>.signature</CODE>.
Any selfrespecting mailprogram will add that to an outgoing mail.</P>
<H2><A NAME="s4">4. remarks</A></H2>
<P>The patchnames mentioned here are based on the actual fortune package.
Distribution may change the place to somewhere.</P>
<P>Beside fortune there are several other programs that select random
quotes from a database. </P>
<P>Be carefull when choosing quotes. There are people who take them serious like:
<HR>
<PRE>
====### legal notice ###====-------------------------------------------
Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing this work in any form, in
whole or in part. License to distribute this post is available to Microsoft
for $499. Posting without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms.
walter@linux:~/bericht/fortune> fortune myquotes
"You have the right to remain silent, but I wouldn't encourage you to do
so. Anything you say will be taken down, altered to my satisfaction and
used in a court of law to send you down for a good many years!"
</PRE>
<HR>
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