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NAME

       cowsay/cowthink - configurable speaking/thinking cow (and a bit more)

SYNOPSIS

       cowsay  [-e  eye_string] [-f cowfile] [-h] [-l] [-n] [-T tongue_string]
       [-W column] [-bdgpstwy]

DESCRIPTION

       Cowsay generates an ASCII picture of a cow saying something provided by
       the  user.   If run with no arguments, it accepts standard input, word-
       wraps the message given at about 40 columns, and prints the cow  saying
       the given message on standard output.

       To  aid in the use of arbitrary messages with arbitrary whitespace, use
       the -n option.  If it is specified, the given message will not be word-
       wrapped.   This is possibly useful if you want to make the cow think or
       speak in figlet(6).  If -n is specified, there must not be any command-
       line arguments left after all the switches have been processed.

       The  -W  specifies  roughly  where  the message should be wrapped.  The
       default is equivalent to -W 40 i.e. wrap words at or  before  the  40th
       column.

       If  any  command-line  arguments  are left over after all switches have
       been processed, they become the cow’s message.  The  program  will  not
       accept standard input for a message in this case.

       There are several provided modes which change the appearance of the cow
       depending on its particular emotional/physical state.   The  -b  option
       initiates  Borg  mode;  -d  causes  the  cow to appear dead; -g invokes
       greedy mode; -p causes a state of paranoia to come  over  the  cow;  -s
       makes  the  cow  appear thoroughly stoned; -t yields a tired cow; -w is
       somewhat the opposite of -t, and initiates wired mode; -y brings on the
       cow’s youthful appearance.

       The  user  may  specify  the  -e option to select the appearance of the
       cow’s eyes, in which case the first  two  characters  of  the  argument
       string eye_string will be used.  The default eyes are ’oo’.  The tongue
       is similarly configurable through -T and tongue_string; it must be  two
       characters  and does not appear by default.  However, it does appear in
       the ’dead’ and ’stoned’ modes.  Any configuration done  by  -e  and  -T
       will be lost if one of the provided modes is used.

       The  -f option specifies a particular cow picture file (‘‘cowfile’’) to
       use.  If the cowfile spec contains ’/’ then it will be interpreted as a
       path  relative to the current directory.  Otherwise, cowsay will search
       the path specified in the COWPATH environment variable.   To  list  all
       cowfiles on the current COWPATH, invoke cowsay with the -l switch.

       If  the  program  is  invoked  as  cowthink then the cow will think its
       message instead of saying it.

COWFILE FORMAT

       A cowfile is made up of a simple block of perl(1) code, which assigns a
       picture  of  a  cow  to  the  variable  $the_cow.   Should  you wish to
       customize the eyes or the tongue of the cow, then the  variables  $eyes
       and  $tongue  may  be  used.  The trail leading up to the cow’s message
       balloon is composed of the character(s) in the $thoughts variable.  Any
       backslashes must be reduplicated to prevent interpolation.  The name of
       a cowfile should end with .cow, otherwise it is assumed  not  to  be  a
       cowfile.   Also,  at-signs  (‘‘@’’) must be backslashed because that is
       what Perl 5 expects.

COMPATIBILITY WITH OLDER VERSIONS

       What older versions? :-)

       Version 3.x is fully backward-compatible with 2.x versions.  If  you’re
       still  using  a 1.x version, consider upgrading.  And tell me where you
       got the older versions, since I didn’t exactly put them up  for  world-
       wide access.

       Oh,  just  so  you  know,  this  manual  page documents version 3.03 of
       cowsay.

ENVIRONMENT

       The COWPATH environment variable, if present, will be  used  to  search
       for  cowfiles.  It contains a colon-separated list of directories, much
       like   PATH   or   MANPATH.    It    should    always    contain    the
       /usr/share/cowsay/cows  directory,  or at least a directory with a file
       called default.cow in it.

FILES

       /usr/share/cowsay/cows holds a sample set of cowfiles.  If your COWPATH
       is not explicitly set, it automatically contains this directory.

BUGS

       If there are any, please notify the author at the address below.

AUTHOR

       Tony   Monroe  (tony@nog.net),  with  suggestions  from  Shannon  Appel
       (appel@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU)  and  contributions   from   Anthony   Polito
       (aspolito@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU).

SEE ALSO

       perl(1), wall(1), nwrite(1), figlet(6)

                         $Date: 1999/11/04 19:50:40 $                cowsay(6)