NAME¶
quiz —
random knowledge tests
SYNOPSIS¶
quiz |
[-t]
[-i file]
[question answer] |
DESCRIPTION¶
The
quiz utility tests your knowledge of random facts. It has
a database of subjects from which you can choose. With no arguments,
quiz displays the list of available subjects.
The options are as follows:
- -t
- Use tutorial mode, in which questions are repeated later if
you didn't get them right the first time, and new questions are presented
less frequently to help you learn the older ones.
- -i
- Specify an alternative index file.
Subjects are divided into categories. You can pick any two categories from the
same subject.
quiz will ask questions from the first
category and it expects answers from the second category. For example, the
command “quiz victim killer” asks questions which are the names of
victims, and expects you to answer with the cause of their untimely demise,
whereas the command “quiz killer victim” works the other way
around.
If you get the answer wrong,
quiz lets you try again. To see
the right answer, enter a blank line.
Index and Data File Syntax¶
The index and data files have a similar syntax. Lines in them consist of several
categories separated by colons. The categories are regular expressions formed
using the following meta-characters:
- pat|pat
- alternative patterns
- {pat}
- optional pattern
- [pat]
- delimiters, as in pat[pat|pat]pat
In an index file, each line represents a subject. The first category in each
subject is the pathname of the data file for the subject. The remaining
categories are regular expressions for the titles of each category in the
subject.
In data files, each line represents a question/answer set. Each category is the
information for the question/answer for that category.
The backslash character (``\'') is used to quote syntactically significant
characters, or at the end of a line to signify that a continuation line
follows.
If either a question or its answer is empty,
quiz will refrain
from asking it.
FILES¶
- /usr/share/games/bsdgames/quiz
- The default index and data files.
BUGS¶
quiz is pretty cynical about certain subjects.