xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/biff/biff.1 (revision 1670a1c2a47d10ecccd001970b859caf93cd3b6e)
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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