cowsay
ASCII cow speech bubble generator
TLDR
SYNOPSIS
cowsay [options] [message]
DESCRIPTION
cowsay generates ASCII art of a cow saying a message. It's a whimsical program that displays text in a speech bubble with various animal ASCII art, commonly used for fun messages, fortune quotes, or MOTD displays.The program supports multiple "cow files" representing different animals and characters, each with their own ASCII art. Messages can be displayed as speech (cowsay) or thoughts (cowthink), and the cow's appearance can be modified with different eye and tongue states.cowsay has become an iconic part of Unix culture, often paired with fortune for random quotes or lolcat for colorful output. While purely for entertainment, it's widely used in login messages, shell prompts, and documentation to add personality to command-line interfaces.
PARAMETERS
-f cowfile
Use the specified cow file.-l
List available cow files on the current COWPATH.-e eyes
Set eye appearance (first two characters; default oo).-T tongue
Set tongue appearance (two characters; default blank).-W width
Word-wrap column (default 40).-n
Disable word wrapping; preserve the input as-is.-b
Borg mode (eyes ==).-d
Dead cow mode (eyes XX, tongue U).-g
Greedy mode (eyes $$).-p
Paranoid mode (eyes @@).-s
Stoned mode (eyes **\*\*, tongue U**).-t
Tired mode (eyes --).-w
Wired mode (eyes OO).-y
Youthful mode (eyes ..).Note: -e and -T are ignored if any mode flag is also given.
AVAILABLE COWS
List all: `cowsay -l`Common ones:- default - Classic cow- dragon - Dragon- tux - Tux the penguin- elephant - Elephant- moose - Moose- stegosaurus - Dinosaur- vader - Darth Vader
WORKFLOW
cowsay "Hello World"
# Thinking cow
cowthink "What to do..."
# Different animal
cowsay -f dragon "Roar!"
# Custom eyes and tongue
cowsay -e ^^ -T "U " "Happy cow"
# Dead cow
cowsay -d "I'm not feeling well"
# Pipe input
fortune | cowsay
# With lolcat
cowsay "Rainbow!" | lolcat
RELATED COMMANDS
cowthink
Thinking cow (thought bubble instead of speech)fortune | cowsay
Random quote from cow
CUSTOMIZATION
Custom cow files in: `/usr/share/cowsay/cows/`Create your own ASCII art cow!
CAVEATS
Pure entertainment value. Large messages may format oddly. Custom cow files need correct format. Some find it unprofessional in serious contexts. Original Perl version, various ports exist.
HISTORY
cowsay was written by Tony Monroe in 1999, becoming a beloved Unix novelty program and inspiring numerous derivatives.
