Cowsay

cowsay is a configurable text filter that generates an ASCII art image of a cow (or other creatures) saying or thinking a message. Originally created by Tony Monroe in 1999, the program is written in Perl and has become a light-hearted tool often found in terminal screenshots, IRC, and documentation.

Besides the default cow, users can choose from a wide variety of alternative character templates (called ".cow" files), including Tux the Penguin and various fantasy animals. A companion program, , renders messages as thoughts (using thought bubbles instead of speech bubbles).

The cow’s expression and behavior can be customized using parameters that alter its eyes, tongue, or replace it entirely. Cowsay has achieved cult status in hacker culture and continues to be included in many Linux distributions. It was even featured as Debian’s “Package of the Day” in 2007.

Usage

A typical use case involves piping output from the  command into :

[user@hostname ~]$ fortune | cowsay
 ________________________________________
/ You have Egyptian flu: you're going to \
\ be a mummy.                            /
 ----------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

To use a different character template, such as Tux:

[user@hostname ~]$ fortune | cowsay -f tux
 _________________________________________
/ You are only young once, but you can    \
\ stay immature indefinitely.             /
 -----------------------------------------
   \
    \
        .--.
       |o_o |
       |:_/ |
      //   \ \
     (|     | )
    /'\_   _/`\
    \___)=(___/

List all available cow templates:

[user@hostname ~]$ cowsay -l
Cow files in /usr/share/cowsay/cows:
apt beavis.zen bong bud-frogs bunny calvin cheese cock cower daemon default
dragon dragon-and-cow duck elephant elephant-in-snake eyes flaming-sheep
ghostbusters gnu head-in hellokitty kiss kitty koala kosh luke-koala
mech-and-cow meow milk moofasa moose mutilated pony pony-smaller ren sheep
skeleton snowman sodomized-sheep stegosaurus stimpy suse three-eyes turkey
turtle tux unipony unipony-smaller vader vader-koala www

 References 

 Sandra Henry-Stocker (Dec 15, 2020). "Creating your own cowsay messenger". *Network World*. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
 c't Spaß mit Technik (2018): *Einfache Computerprojekte zum Selbermachen*. p.120. Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG. .
 Sreenath (5 July 2023). "Moo! There is a Cow in My Linux Terminal". *It's FOSS*. Retrieved 21 September 2023.

 Other websites 


Category:Computer programming