Editing Fortune (Unix) (section)

==Common options==
Several common options exist that change the way command-line versions of fortune behave:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Option
!Action
|-
!<code>-a</code>
|Choose from all databases, regardless of whether they are considered "offensive" or not
|-
!<code>-e</code>
|Make the probability of choosing a fortune file equal to that of all other files
|-
!<code>-f</code>
|Print out a list of all fortune files that would have been searched, but do not print a fortune
|-
!<code>-i</code>
|When used with <code>-m</code>, make regular expression searching case-insensitive
|-
!<code>-l</code>
|Use only quotations longer than the length specified with <code>-n</code>, or 160 characters if <code>-n</code> is not used
|-
!<code>-m ''[pattern]''</code>
|Print all fortunes matching the [[regular expression]] specified in <code>''[pattern]''</code>
|-
!<code>-n ''[length]''</code>
|Override the length used by <code>-l</code> and <code>-s</code> to determine "long" and "short" messages (default 160 characters)
|-
!<code>-o</code>
|Choose only from "offensive" databases
|-
!<code>-s</code>
|Use only quotations shorter than the length specified with <code>-n</code>, or 160 characters if -n is not used
|-
!<code>-w</code>
|Wait for a period of time before terminating; useful for situations in which a fortune needs to be read before the screen is cleared
|}