# Fortune Suggestions



## dave (Nov 21, 2013)

Question: how does one suggest or nominate (or contribute) a quote to be added to the list for fortune?

If I could vote for a phrase, I would choose the Stephen Wright quote that SirDice uses in his signature, "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."

Do you have a suggestion for fortune?


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## ShelLuser (Nov 21, 2013)

Have you checked out the fortune(6) manualpage already? It's very easy to add stuff to it. By default fortune will check in /usr/share/games/fortune for its data files. But you can override this by setting FORTUNE_PATH. So simply create a data folder of your own, look into the original datafiles how those are build, and then use strfile(8) to compile a fortune database of your own.

Of course you will need to be sure to specify that fortune should use all databases, or point it specifically to your customized one (but that could get boring really quick if you only have a few home made fortunes ).


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## marwis (Nov 21, 2013)

These are my two personal favorites:

"Real eyes realize real lies."
"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?  (... and why are you not doing it?)"
I'm not sure who the original author is of any of them, however.


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## sossego (Nov 21, 2013)

> It could be worse. You could be Captain Hook with jock itch.


Hee hee.


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## chatwizrd (Nov 21, 2013)

Most annoying program in FreeBSD.


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## dave (Nov 21, 2013)

ShelLuser said:
			
		

> Have you checked out the fortune(6) manualpage already?
> 
> It's very easy to add stuff to it. By default fortune will check in /usr/share/games/fortune for its data files. But you can override this by setting FORTUNE_PATH.
> 
> ...



This is very helpful, but I'm still curious about what the process of getting something approved for the real fortune list is.


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## fonz (Nov 21, 2013)

I too use my own fortune files. In fact, I've integrated it into my mail setup such that a suitable signature is generated from a suitable set of fortune files depending on the current folder/recipient. Mutt hooks and all that 

But unfortunately I can't answer your actual question. If fortune were a port you could contact its maintainer, but it's actually part of the base system so this is probably something you should ask a developer. Perhaps it can be done by submitting a PR, but you'll probably want to ask before doing that. You could PM a FreeBSD developer here on the forums or perhaps try the freebsd-questions@ mailing list.

Hope this helps (at least a little bit).


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## cpm@ (Nov 21, 2013)

Normally, the quotes are compiled from various sources on the web. Here you can find some cookie files and related information. Also, it's useful to make your own collection through a web based generator.


> To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
> - Elbert Hubbard


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## ChalkBored (Nov 22, 2013)

dave said:
			
		

> If I could vote for a phrase, I would choose the Stephen Wright quote that SirDice uses in his signature, "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."



It's already there.
`fortune -m "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."`

```
%% (fortunes)
Olivier's Law:
        Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
```


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## eadler@ (Nov 24, 2013)

I know I'm a bit late to this thread but the easiest way to nominate fortune suggestions is through a PR. However, I think that I'd have no objection to just collecting a bunch of suggestions from the forums and committing them in one go.

(edit) Note that the fortune files are normally 'low traffic' files because of the sheer number of possible quotes.  I'm thinking it may be better to have a single source for these rather than many individual PRs...


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## wblock@ (Nov 24, 2013)

"There is no program so bad that adding layers of security and encryption cannot make it worse." (Me, on IRC, where I was told it should be added to the fortune file).


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## fonz (Nov 24, 2013)

> Security through obscurity doesn't work.


I think it was @SirDice who said that here once.


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