Cowsay

cowsay
Original author(s)	Tony Monroe
Initial release	1999
Stable release	3.8.4 / 30 November 2024;59 days ago
Repository	github.com/cowsay-org/cowsay ;
Written in	Perl
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	English
License	Artistic License / GNU General Public License
Website	http://nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml (archived)

Last updated January 29, 2025

cowsay is a program that generates ASCII art pictures of a cow with a message.^[2] It can also generate pictures using pre-made images of other animals, such as Tux the Penguin, the Linux mascot. It is written in Perl. There is also a related program called cowthink, with cows with thought bubbles rather than speech bubbles. .cow files for cowsay exist which are able to produce different variants of cows, with different kinds of eyes, and so forth.^[3] It is sometimes used on IRC, desktop screenshots, and in software documentation. It is more or less a joke within hacker culture, but has been around long enough that its use is rather widespread. In 2007, it was highlighted as a Debian package of the day.^[4]

Example

The Unix command fortune can also be piped into the cowsay command:

[user@hostname ~]$ fortune|cowsay  ________________________________________/ You have Egyptian flu: you're going to \\ be a mummy.                            / ----------------------------------------        \   ^__^         \  (oo)\_______            (__)\       )\/\                ||----w |                ||     ||

Using the parameter -f followed by tux, one can replace the cow with other beings, such as Tux, the Linux mascot:

[user@hostname ~]$ fortune|cowsay-ftux  _________________________________________/ You are only young once, but you can    \\ stay immature indefinitely.             / -----------------------------------------   \    \        .--.       |o_o |       |:_/ |      //   \ \     (|     | )    /'\_   _/`\    \___)=(___/

Using the parameter -l shows all available cow files:

[user@hostname ~]$ cowsay-l Cow files in /usr/share/cowsay/cows:apt beavis.zen bong bud-frogs bunny calvin cheese cock cower daemon defaultdragon dragon-and-cow duck elephant elephant-in-snake eyes flaming-sheepghostbusters gnu head-in hellokitty kiss kitty koala kosh luke-koalamech-and-cow meow milk moofasa moose mutilated pony pony-smaller ren sheepskeleton snowman sodomized-sheep stegosaurus stimpy suse three-eyes turkeyturtle tux unipony unipony-smaller vader vader-koala www

Parameters

Option	Purpose
-n	Disables word wrap, allowing the cow to speak FIGlet or to display other embedded ASCII art. Width in columns becomes that of the longest line, ignoring any value of -W.
-W	Specifies width of the speech balloon in columns, i.e. characters in a monospace font. Default value is 40.

-b	“Borg mode”, uses == in place of oo for the cow′s eyes.
-d	“Dead”, uses XX, plus a descending U to represent an extruded tongue, also used on Linux kernel oops.
-g	“Greedy”, uses $$.
-p	“Paranoid”, uses @@.
-s	“Stoned”, uses ** to represent bloodshot eyes, plus a descending U to represent an extruded tongue.
-t	“Tired”, uses --.
-w	“Wired”, uses OO.
-y	“Youthful”, uses .. to represent smaller eyes.

-e eye_string	Manually specifies the cow′s eye-type, e.g. `cowsay -e ^^` (see Eastern-style emoticon).^[5]
-T tongue_string	Manually specifies the cow′s tongue shape, e.g. `cowsay -T ` for a pair of parentheses.^[5]
-f cowfile	Specifies a .cow file from which to load alternative ASCII art. Accepts both absolute file-paths and those relative to the environment variable COWPATH.
-l	Lists the names of available cow-files in the COWPATH directory instead of displaying a quote.

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References

↑ "Release 3.8.4". 30 November 2024. Retrieved 29 December 2024.
↑ Orr, Mike (June 2001). "cowsay--ASCII Art for Your Screen". Linux Gazette. Archived from the original on 2012-03-19. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
↑ Newborough, Philip (2007-10-05). "A Virtual Richard Stallman for Cowsay Hack". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25.
↑ Beshenov, Alexey (2007-10-28). "cowsay: a configurable talking and thinking cow". Debian Package of the Day. Archived from the original on 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
1 2 Characters other than printable in C0 controls and basic Latin (U+0021–U+007E) will not display properly as these parameters accept only the first two bytes of input value. Using a pre-defined cow-face will over-ride any value of -e and -T.

Sandra Henry-Stocker (Dec 15, 2020). "Creating your own cowsay messenger". Unix as a Second Language; Network World. networkworld.com. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
c't Spaß mit Technik (2018): Einfache Computerprojekte zum Selbermachen. p. 120. c't-Redaktion; Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG. ISBN 9783957882073. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
Sreenath (5 July 2023). "Moo! There is a Cow in My Linux Terminal". It's FOSS. itsfoss.com. Retrieved 21 September 2023.

External links

"Official website". Archived from the original on February 25, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2004.
Cowsay Android package at the F-Droid repository

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[wikidata-e69529acf496e7b8382066681648b6c6e59a7e54-v18-1] "Release 3.8.4". 30 November 2024. Retrieved 29 December 2024.

[2] Orr, Mike (June 2001). "cowsay--ASCII Art for Your Screen". Linux Gazette. Archived from the original on 2012-03-19. Retrieved 2012-04-24.

[RMS_for_cowsay-3] Newborough, Philip (2007-10-05). "A Virtual Richard Stallman for Cowsay Hack". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25.

[Debian_PotD-4] Beshenov, Alexey (2007-10-28). "cowsay: a configurable talking and thinking cow". Debian Package of the Day. Archived from the original on 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2022-01-31.

[7F-5] 1 2 Characters other than printable in C0 controls and basic Latin (U+0021–U+007E) will not display properly as these parameters accept only the first two bytes of input value. Using a pre-defined cow-face will over-ride any value of -e and -T.

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