---
layout: page
category-page: intermediate
category-title: Intermediate commands
tags: cow print say dragon lolcat
author: Joao Tomazoni
title: cowsay
previous-page: pages/cmd/interm/chsh.html
next-page: pages/cmd/interm/curl.html
---

<code>cowsay</code> is a entertainment command, however it's not guaranteed that your terminal is
going to have this command available as default. It most likely won't, however you can download
it yourself using a package manager like <a href="https://brew.sh">brew.sh</a>.<br>

<pre>
cowsay "Hello there"
</pre>

Very useful wouldn't you agree?
You can also pipe commands like ls with cowsay, for example:

<pre>
ls | cowsay
</pre>

It returns the cow saying the list of files in the current directory.<br><br>

<h3>Flags</h3>

<b>-f</b> if you aren't satisfied with the cow, you have other possibilities of
animals instead of cow. One example is the dragon which you can get by using "-f dragon",
it will now draw a fantasy-like dragon.

<pre>
cowsay -f dragon "Burn World"
</pre>

There are more animal drawings for the cowsay command, just type cowsay -l in your terminal for
the list of the animals you can use.<br><br>

<h3>Suggestion: combine with <code>lolcat</code></h3>

<code>lolcat</code> is another entertainment command that is also installed with the brew pack you
installed previously for the <code>cowsay</code> command, and they work perfectly together.
Adding lolcat at the end of the cowsay command and its quote will add random colours for the
drawing.