Re: command-line biff?
-- 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 ...
>
> MAIL If this parameter is set to a file name and the
> MAILPATH variable is not set, bash informs the user
> of the arrival of mail in the specified file.
> MAILCHECK
> Specifies how often (in seconds) bash checks for
> mail. The default is 60 seconds. When it is time
> to check for mail, the shell does so before dis?
> playing the primary prompt. If this variable is
> unset, the shell disables mail checking.
>
> 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...? 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?
--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew@weierophinney.net
http://matthew.weierophinney.net
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