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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)biff.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 29.\" 30.Dd April 28, 2013 31.Dt BIFF 1 32.Os 33.Sh NAME 34.Nm biff 35.Nd "be notified if mail arrives and who it is from" 36.Sh SYNOPSIS 37.Nm 38.Op Cm n | y | b 39.Sh DESCRIPTION 40The 41.Nm 42utility informs the system whether you want to be notified on your terminal 43when mail arrives. 44.Pp 45Affected is the first terminal associated with the standard input, 46standard output or standard error file descriptor, in that order. 47Thus, it is possible to use the redirection facilities of a shell to 48toggle the notification for other terminals than the one 49.Nm 50runs on. 51.Pp 52The following options are available: 53.Bl -tag -width indent 54.It Cm n 55Disable notification. 56.It Cm y 57Enable header notification. 58.It Cm b 59Enable bell notification. 60.El 61.Pp 62When header notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of 63the message will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 64A 65.Dq "biff y" 66command is often included in the file 67.Pa .login 68or 69.Pa .profile 70to be executed at each login. 71.Pp 72When bell notification is enabled, only two bell characters 73.Tn ( ASCII 74\\007) 75will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 76.Pp 77If no arguments are given, 78.Nm 79displays the present notification status of the terminal to the 80standard output. 81.Pp 82The 83.Nm 84utility operates asynchronously. 85For synchronous notification use the 86.Ev MAIL 87variable of 88.Xr sh 1 89or the 90.Va mail 91variable of 92.Xr csh 1 . 93.Sh EXIT STATUS 94The 95.Nm 96utility exits with one of the following values: 97.Bl -tag -width indent 98.It 0 99Notification was enabled at the time of invocation. 100.It 1 101Notification was disabled at the time of invocation. 102.It >1 103An error occurred. 104.El 105.Sh COMPATIBILITY 106Previous versions of the 107.Nm 108utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first 109trying the standard input or output devices. 110.Sh SEE ALSO 111.Xr csh 1 , 112.Xr mail 1 , 113.Xr sh 1 , 114.Xr comsat 8 115.Sh HISTORY 116The 117.Nm 118command appeared in 119.Bx 4.0 . 120It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 121He died 122in August 1993, at 15. 123