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 March 20, 2010 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 on your terminal 48when mail arrives. 49.Pp 50Affected is the first terminal associated with the standard input, 51standard output or standard error file descriptor, in that order. 52Thus, it is possible to use the redirection facilities of a shell to 53toggle the notification for other terminals than the one 54.Nm 55runs on. 56.Pp 57The following options are available: 58.Bl -tag -width indent 59.It Cm n 60Disable notification. 61.It Cm y 62Enable header notification. 63.It Cm b 64Enable bell notification. 65.El 66.Pp 67When header notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of 68the message will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 69A 70.Dq "biff y" 71command is often included in the file 72.Pa .login 73or 74.Pa .profile 75to be executed at each login. 76.Pp 77When bell notification is enabled, only two bell characters 78.Tn ( ASCII 79\\007) 80will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 81.Pp 82If no arguments are given, 83.Nm 84displays the present notification status of the terminal to the 85standard output. 86.Pp 87The 88.Nm 89utility operates asynchronously. 90For synchronous notification use the 91.Ev MAIL 92variable of 93.Xr sh 1 94or the 95.Va mail 96variable of 97.Xr csh 1 . 98.Sh EXIT STATUS 99The 100.Nm 101utility exits with one of the following values: 102.Bl -tag -width indent 103.It 0 104Notification is enabled. 105.It 1 106Notification is disabled. 107.It >1 108An error occurred. 109.El 110.Sh COMPATIBILITY 111Previous versions of the 112.Nm 113utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first 114trying the standard input or output devices. 115.Sh SEE ALSO 116.Xr csh 1 , 117.Xr mail 1 , 118.Xr sh 1 , 119.Xr comsat 8 120.Sh HISTORY 121The 122.Nm 123command appeared in 124.Bx 4.0 . 125It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 126He died 127in August 1993, at 15. 128