'' before the terminal name if write permission is denied),
idle time, login time, office location, and phone number
(if they are known) for each current user.
(Idle time is minutes if it is a single integer,
hours and minutes if a colon (:) is present, or days
and hours if a ``d'' is present.)
A longer format also exists and is used by finger whenever a list of names is given. (Account names as well as first and last names of users are accepted.) This is a multi-line format; it includes all the information described above as well as the user's home directory and login shell, any plan which the person has placed in the file .plan in their home directory, and the project on which they are working from the file .project which is also in the home directory.
finger options are:
The comment field corresponds to what appears in the finger output.
For example, in the following /etc/passwd entry:
blf:x:47:5:Brian Foster, Mission, x70, 767-1234
:/u/blf:/bin/sh
the comment field, ``Brian Foster, Mission, x70, 767-1234,'' contains data for the ``In Real Life,'' ``Office,'' and ``Home Phone'' columns of the finger listings.
Idle time is computed as the elapsed time since any activity on the given terminal. This includes previous invocations of finger which may have modified the terminal's corresponding device file /dev/tty??.