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 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 Li 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 (ASCII \\007) 78will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 79.Pp 80If no arguments are given, 81.Nm 82displays the present notification status of the terminal to the 83standard output. 84.Pp 85The 86.Nm 87utility operates asynchronously. 88For synchronous notification use the 89.Ev MAIL 90variable of 91.Xr sh 1 92or the 93.Ev mail 94variable of 95.Xr csh 1 . 96.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 97The 98.Nm 99utility exits with one of the following values: 100.Bl -tag -width Ds 101.It 0 102Notification is enabled. 103.It 1 104Notification is disabled. 105.It >1 106An error occurred. 107.El 108.Sh COMPATIBILITY 109Previous versions of the 110.Nm 111utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first 112trying the standard input or output devices. 113.Sh SEE ALSO 114.Xr csh 1 , 115.Xr mail 1 , 116.Xr sh 1 , 117.Xr comsat 8 118.Sh HISTORY 119The 120.Nm 121command appeared in 122.Bx 4.0 . 123It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 124He died 125in August 1993, at 15. 126