Thanks: it's working now, but I'm not quite sure how. I copied the first few fortunes into another file, and ran strfile on that and it worked. I then added the other fortunes in chunks to the new file, re-running strfile each time (I was hoping to narrow down where the problem was). However, I couldn't find the problem, it just worked: I guess I must have changed something unwittingly, but as long as it works ...
Thanks again Rich Mark Brown wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 08, 1999 at 07:19:09PM +0000, Richard Harran wrote: > > > into something suitable for the fortune program. I tried putting a '%' > > (percentage - in case that symbol doesn't travel) on each blank line > > between each comment, then running > > It must be a % and only a % - no trailing spaces. For example (assuming > this makes it through the mail OK): > > % > Computers are useless --- they can only give you answers > -- Pablo Picasso > % > Don't give all your baskets to one egghead. > -- Arthur C. Clarke > % > > If you have other characters on the line, strfile won't be happy. > > > strfile <filename> > > which gave the following (discouraging) output: > > "<filename>.dat" created > > There was 1 string > > Longest string: 41927 bytes > > Shortest string: 41927 bytes > > That's the correct procudure - check the format of your file. > > > I also tried: > > /usr/games/fortune <filename>.dat > > expecting it to just dump the whole file, but instead got > > fortune:<filename>.dat not a fortune file or directory > > Could someone please point me in the right direction to create a fortune > > file from my own gibberish. > > Point fortune at the cookie file, not the index. > > -- > Mark Brown mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trying to avoid grumpiness) > http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/ > EUFS http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/ > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
