Re: Proposal: Add option to add dates to write(1)

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden%schemamania.org@localhost>]

On Mon, 21 May 2012 17:24:46 -0400 (EDT)
Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost> wrote:

> >> Possibly, if you can come up with a way for "the receiver's
> >> environment" to be (a) well-defined and (b) accessible to the
> >> sender.
> > ps(1) uses kvm_getenvv2(3).  I guess we'd agree that satisifies (a)
> > but not (b) unless the sender is the super-user?
> 
> I wouldn't.  Part of the reason I mentioned (a) is that write is
> writing to a tty, whereas environments are attached to processes;

That's a distinction without a difference.  Users own processes, and
only one user is logged in to any terminal.  who(1) manages to report
who's on what terminal.  

If that strikes you as a leap of logic, I can only say it's commonly
made:  

        $ man -k user | grep -E '^write|^wall'
        wall (1) - write a message to users
        write (1) - send a message to another user

I grant maybe using the user's environment to express a preference to
another process wasn't the brightest idea.  We can both think of better
ways; I offered another.  Are you opposed to the notion that the
recipient be able to express a preference for the write(1) message date
format, or are you really convinced it's technically infeasible or
unreliable?  

--jkl