1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)biff.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd June 6, 1993 36.Dt BIFF 1 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm biff 40.Nd "be notified if mail arrives and who it is from" 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Cm n | y | b 44.Sh DESCRIPTION 45The 46.Nm 47utility informs the system whether you want to be notified when mail arrives 48during the current terminal session. 49.Pp 50The following options are available: 51.Bl -tag -width indent 52.It Cm n 53Disable notification. 54.It Cm y 55Enable header notification. 56.It Cm b 57Enable bell notification. 58.El 59.Pp 60When header notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of 61the message will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 62A 63.Dq Li biff y 64command is often included in the file 65.Pa \&.login 66or 67.Pa \&.profile 68to be executed at each login. 69.Pp 70When bell notification is enabled, only two bell characters (ASCII \\007) 71will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 72.Pp 73The 74.Nm 75utility operates asynchronously. 76For synchronous notification use the 77.Ev MAIL 78variable of 79.Xr sh 1 80or the 81.Ev mail 82variable of 83.Xr csh 1 . 84.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 85The 86.Nm 87utility exits with one of the following values: 88.Bl -tag -width Ds 89.It 0 90Notification is enabled. 91.It 1 92Notification is disabled. 93.It >1 94An error occurred. 95.El 96.Sh SEE ALSO 97.Xr csh 1 , 98.Xr mail 1 , 99.Xr sh 1 , 100.Xr comsat 8 101.Sh HISTORY 102The 103.Nm 104command appeared in 105.Bx 4.0 . 106It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 107He died 108in August 1993, at 15. 109