ching(6) [netbsd man page]

CHING(6)							 BSD Games Manual							  CHING(6)

NAME

     ching -- the book of changes and other cookies

SYNOPSIS

     ching [hexagram]

DESCRIPTION

     The I Ching or Book of Changes is an ancient Chinese oracle that has been in use for centuries as a source of wisdom and advice.

     The text of the oracle (as it is sometimes known) consists of sixty-four hexagrams, each symbolized by a particular arrangement of six
     straight (---) and broken (- -) lines.  These lines have values ranging from six through nine, with the even values indicating the broken
     lines.

     Each hexagram consists of two major sections.  The Judgement relates specifically to the matter at hand (e.g., ``It furthers one to have
     somewhere to go.'') while the Image describes the general attributes of the hexagram and how they apply to one's own life (``Thus the
     superior man makes himself strong and untiring.'')

     When any of the lines have the values six or nine, they are moving lines; for each there is an appended judgement which becomes significant.
     Furthermore, the moving lines are inherently unstable and change into their opposites; a second hexagram (and thus an additional judgement)
     is formed.

     Normally, one consults the oracle by fixing the desired question firmly in mind and then casting a set of changes (lines) using yarrow-stalks
     or tossed coins.  The resulting hexagram will be the answer to the question.

     Using an algorithm suggested by S. C. Johnson, the UNIX oracle simply reads a question from the standard input (up to an EOF) and hashes the
     individual characters in combination with the time of day, process id and any other magic numbers which happen to be lying around the system.
     The resulting value is used as the seed of a random number generator which drives a simulated coin-toss divination.  The answer is then piped
     through nroff(1) for formatting and will appear on the standard output.

     For those who wish to remain steadfast in the old traditions, the oracle will also accept the results of a personal divination using, for
     example, coins.  To do this, cast the change and then type the resulting line values as an argument.

     The impatient modern may prefer to settle for Chinese cookies; try fortune(6).

DIAGNOSTICS

     The great prince issues commands,

     Founds states, vests families with fiefs.

     Inferior people should not be employed.

SEE ALSO

     It furthers one to see the great man.

BUGS

     Waiting in the mud

     Brings about the arrival of the enemy.

     If one is not extremely careful,

     Somebody may come up from behind and strike him.

     Misfortune.

BSD
								   May 31, 1993 							       BSD

Check Out this Related Man Page

PASTE(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						  PASTE(1)

NAME

     paste -- merge corresponding or subsequent lines of files

SYNOPSIS

     paste [-s] [-d list] file ...

DESCRIPTION

     The paste utility concatenates the corresponding lines of the given input files, replacing all but the last file's newline characters with a
     single tab character, and writes the resulting lines to standard output.  If end-of-file is reached on an input file while other input files
     still contain data, the file is treated as if it were an endless source of empty lines.

     The options are as follows:

     -d list	 Use one or more of the provided characters to replace the newline characters instead of the default tab.  The characters in list
		 are used circularly, i.e., when list is exhausted the first character from list is reused.  This continues until a line from the
		 last input file (in default operation) or the last line in each file (using the -s option) is displayed, at which time paste
		 begins selecting characters from the beginning of list again.

		 The following special characters can also be used in list:

		 
    newline character
		 	    tab character
		 \    backslash character
		     Empty string (not a null character).

		 Any other character preceded by a backslash is equivalent to the character itself.

     -s 	 Concatenate all of the lines of each separate input file in command line order.  The newline character of every line except the
		 last line in each input file is replaced with the tab character, unless otherwise specified by the -d option.

     If '-' is specified for one or more of the input files, the standard input is used; standard input is read one line at a time, circularly,
     for each instance of '-'.

     The paste utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

     cut(1)

STANDARDS

     The paste utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible.

BSD
								   June 6, 1993 							       BSD

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

ching(6) [netbsd man page]

Check Out this Related Man Page