xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/biff/biff.1 (revision a84d91d81a6f3eeb4949c4fb3440e0634f2b953a)
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28.Dd April 28, 2013
29.Dt BIFF 1
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm biff
33.Nd "be notified if mail arrives and who it is from"
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.Nm
36.Op Cm n | y | b
37.Sh DESCRIPTION
38The
39.Nm
40utility informs the system whether you want to be notified on your terminal
41when mail arrives.
42.Pp
43Affected is the first terminal associated with the standard input,
44standard output or standard error file descriptor, in that order.
45Thus, it is possible to use the redirection facilities of a shell to
46toggle the notification for other terminals than the one
47.Nm
48runs on.
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 "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
71.Tn ( ASCII
72\\007)
73will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives.
74.Pp
75If no arguments are given,
76.Nm
77displays the present notification status of the terminal to the
78standard output.
79.Pp
80The
81.Nm
82utility operates asynchronously.
83For synchronous notification use the
84.Ev MAIL
85variable of
86.Xr sh 1
87or the
88.Va mail
89variable of
90.Xr csh 1 .
91.Sh EXIT STATUS
92The
93.Nm
94utility exits with one of the following values:
95.Bl -tag -width indent
96.It 0
97Notification was enabled at the time of invocation.
98.It 1
99Notification was disabled at the time of invocation.
100.It >1
101An error occurred.
102.El
103.Sh COMPATIBILITY
104Previous versions of the
105.Nm
106utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first
107trying the standard input or output devices.
108.Sh SEE ALSO
109.Xr csh 1 ,
110.Xr mail 1 ,
111.Xr sh 1 ,
112.Xr comsat 8
113.Sh HISTORY
114The
115.Nm
116command appeared in
117.Bx 4.0 .
118It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner.
119He died
120in August 1993, at 15.
121