Re: command-line biff?
on Sun, 23 Feb 2003 09:44:37PM -0500, Matthew Weier O'Phinney insinuated:
> -- Nori Heikkinen <nori@sccs.swarthmore.edu> wrote
> (on Sunday, 23 February 2003, 02:21 PM -0500):
> > on Sun, 23 Feb 2003 07:02:37PM +0100, Marcio Rosa da Silva insinuated:
> > > Maybe I don't get the point, but aren't the 'MAIL' and 'MAILCHECK'
> > > vars in bash or 'mail' in tcsh for this?
> >
> > I didn't know about these, but they don't seem to be what i want ...
[...]
> > i'm looking for something that will tell me how many new messages i
> > have in what box at any given time.
>
> I assume you're using bash...?
well, zsh, but close enough.
> In the bash man page, right below the two you list above:
>
> MAILPATH
> A colon-separated list of file names to be checked for mail.
> The message to be printed when mail arrives in a particular
> file may be specified by separating the file name from the
> message with a `?'. When used in the text of the message, $_
> expands to the name of the current mailfile.
> Example:
> MAILPATH='/var/mail/bfox?"You have mail":~/shell-mail?"$_ has
> mail!"' Bash supplies a default value for this variable, but
> the location of the user mail files that it uses is system
> dependent (e.g., /var/mail/$USER).
>
> Is that what you want?
no, it is not what i want. this will only tell me when a mailbox
specified in the MAILPATH receives mail. i do *not* want a
notification program, i want something that keeps tabs on how much new
mail i have where. if i log in to a console and don't want to open
every single mailbox i have to find out which has _mail that is marked
as new_ --- not necessarily mail that just got delivered, or mail that
is new since i last opened the box. the MAILPATH variable as
specified above will not do this.
</nori>
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