Being bored

Every once in while everybody gets bored a bit. And what does a nerd/geek do when bored? Yes, he will write a bogus man page for some non-existing Linux feature.

Read my man page about the happy yes device.

The yes device

Appendix A: The "yes device" man page

A.1 NAME

yes - The yes device

A.2 SYNOPSIS

The yes device (and it's ascendants) produces a constant flow of positive answers.

When called by it's descendant name /dev/yes.1 (the non-rewinding yes device), the positive answers will increase in positivity, from "yes", through "Yes" up to "YES" in a round-robin fashion.

A.3 THE BASICS

The yes device can be used to start the day on a very positive basis. Some people do have a more negative attitude, but these are encouraged to use the /dev/no device.

If you are not completely sure what kind of day it will be, you can fall back to the /dev/maybe device.

For the /dev/no and the /dev/maybe device you can refer to their respective man pages.

A.4 OPTIONS

The supported command line options for the yes device are:

-i
Let the yes device produce case insensitive output
-q
Quiet, no output will be produced. In fact this one is totally useless, but it keeps the system busy and beeps nicely at the end
-v
Verbose, all output will be written to the verbose device
-t [seconds]
Outputs yes in seconds intervals. Defaults to 1 sec.
-z
Pipe all output from /dev/yes right into /dev/kmem. (Only root can do this, as this requires write privileges on /dev/kmem) For further remarks, take a look at the -q option.

A.5 SEE ALSO

/dev/no

/dev/maybe

A.6 FILES

/dev/yes
The master yes device
/dev/yes.1
The non rewinding yes device
/dev/yes.s
The secure yes device, nobody may read it, not even root
/dev/yes.r
The random yes device, outputs random strings of yes
/dev/yes.i
The ignore case yes device
/dev/yes.u
The uppercase yes device
/dev/yes.l
The lowercase yes device
/dev/yes.s
The silent yes device
/dev/yes.no
The inverted yes device, says yes and means no. This is mostly a link to /dev/no or to the woman device (/dev/woman)
/dev/yes.z
The compressed yes device. Can be read by /dev/gzip.1 (the non-rewinding gzip device)
/dev/yes.c
The color yes device. Non racist version, so can also be black
/dev/yes.C
The choose color yes device. You can choose any color, as long as it's black
/dev/yes.marriage
This is a POSIX 4.1 extension, making the yes device output the text i do
/dev/yes.lite
This is also a POSIX 4.1 extension, making the yes device output translucent words of yes
/dev/yes.ncc1701d
This is a POSIX 42 extension, meaning the yes device will resist outputting text, but this being a futile reaction

And any possible combination of the above, e.g.

/dev/yes.1.r.C.s.no
The non-rewinding, random, black colored, secure, saying yes and meaning no yes device, a.k.a. /dev/idontknow.1

A.7 EXIT CODES

The exit codes of the yes device are completely bogus and are generated by the /dev/random device.

A.8 KNOWN BUGS / HIDDEN FEATURES

When the systems timezone is set to Moskva the /dev/yes.no outputs the text "Njet". Be aware of this for security applications.

humor 

See also