what does finger do

[pcs are junk]

what does finger do in network utilities? thanks!

 

[stridemat]

is one of the earliest forms of status updates that are now done using Facebook and Twitter nowadays. I think you can still use it if you wish but I do not know of anyone who uses it.

EDIT*

Naive old Apple

 

[GoKyu]

Finger was really popular in the early-mid 90's, when college students were finally getting access to the Internet through UNIX shell accounts. It was an easy way to do a quick check if someone was online or not (assuming they didn't block Finger from working...that was possible to do too.

I haven't used that command now in at least 12 or 13 years, I think...

 

[Jshwon]

Open terminal then "man finger"

 

[calderone]

Open terminal then "man finger"

Come on man, keep it clean 😉

 

[pcs are junk]

what will that command do?

 

[Nermal]

"man" means "manual". It'll show the documentation for the finger command. Press Q to get back to the prompt.

 

[pdjudd]

what will that command do?

the “man” command will bring up the manual for any particular program. In this case, it will bring up the manual for Finger and tell you all about it.

 

[calderone]

I find this a bit more readable:

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/index.html

 

[theone09]

what does finger do in network utilities? thanks!

i remember when i was in college, i usualy "finger" my friends to see if they were online.. 🙂