communicating with another uside aside from the "wall" and "write" command

[cc50818j]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest a Unix command or c-shell algorithm to simulate to behavior of "wall" command minus the "all users"? What I'm trying to do is to send a notice to just one particular user but i dont want other remotely-logged-on users to receive the message (on the pseudo-terminals). I cannot use the "write" command for three reasons:
1. I (sender) will not be typing the message from standard input (instead, i will be using a file
input)
2. I (sender) dont want to do rlogin
3. I want the message to appear on all terminals of the intended receiver.

Thanks in advance for your ideas...

[Motoma]

None of these seem to be reasons why you cannot use write. Perhaps you could explain better what you are trying to do (I am assuming automated global messages) and I will do my best to show you how.

Hi,

Can anyone suggest a Unix command or c-shell algorithm to simulate to behavior of "wall" command minus the "all users"? What I'm trying to do is to send a notice to just one particular user but i dont want other remotely-logged-on users to receive the message (on the pseudo-terminals). I cannot use the "write" command for three reasons:
1. I (sender) will not be typing the message from standard input (instead, i will be using a file
input)
2. I (sender) dont want to do rlogin
3. I want the message to appear on all terminals of the intended receiver.

Thanks in advance for your ideas...

[Motoma]

Take a look at this script that I whipped up:

#!/usr/local/bin/bash
# 
# File:
#   massmesssage.sh
#
# Usage:
#   massmessage.sh user_name message_file
#
# Purpose:
#   Sends the body of message_file to user_name via the write command
#   Written by Motoma in response to a question on TheScripts.com
 
 
USERNAME=$1
 
function getUsers()
{
  who | grep $USERNAME | awk '{print $1,$2}'
}
 
while read user terminal ; do
  cat $2 | write $user $terminal
done<<EOF
$(getUsers)
EOF
 

[cc50818j]

Thanks Motoma!

Yes I have seen how I can use write considering conditions 1 and 3... but not 2 (yet).

I use exactly the same algorith as the one who suggested:

1. who-pipe-grep-pipe-awk
2. In a foreach loop, do:
2a. get the pts
2b. cat-pipe-write

Now I have a couple questions related to the way the message is displayed...

- Unlike when I use "wall", there is some extra spaces written at the beginning of the line "Message from ...." How can I remove these extra spaces?
- How can I keep the <EOT> string from being displayed?

Do you have any ideas? Thanks again!