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.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/biff/biff.1,v 1.21 2006/12/28 04:58:38 ru Exp $ 30.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/biff/biff.1,v 1.3 2007/09/16 00:59:13 pavalos Exp $ 31.\" 32.Dd August 9, 2002 33.Dt BIFF 1 34.Os 35.Sh NAME 36.Nm biff 37.Nd "be notified if mail arrives and who it is from" 38.Sh SYNOPSIS 39.Nm 40.Op Cm n | y | b 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42The 43.Nm 44utility informs the system whether you want to be notified on your terminal 45when mail arrives. 46.Pp 47Affected is the first terminal associated with the standard input, 48standard output or standard error file descriptor, in that order. 49Thus, it is possible to use the redirection facilities of a shell to 50toggle the notification for other terminals than the one 51.Nm 52runs on. 53.Pp 54The following options are available: 55.Bl -tag -width indent 56.It Cm n 57Disable notification. 58.It Cm y 59Enable header notification. 60.It Cm b 61Enable bell notification. 62.El 63.Pp 64When header notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of 65the message will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 66A 67.Dq "Li biff y" 68command is often included in the file 69.Pa .login 70or 71.Pa .profile 72to be executed at each login. 73.Pp 74When bell notification is enabled, only two bell characters 75.Tn ( ASCII 76\\007) 77will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 78.Pp 79If no arguments are given, 80.Nm 81displays the present notification status of the terminal to the 82standard output. 83.Pp 84The 85.Nm 86utility operates asynchronously. 87For synchronous notification use the 88.Ev MAIL 89variable of 90.Xr sh 1 91or the 92.Va mail 93variable of 94.Xr csh 1 . 95.Sh EXIT STATUS 96The 97.Nm 98utility exits with one of the following values: 99.Bl -tag -width indent 100.It 0 101Notification is enabled. 102.It 1 103Notification is disabled. 104.It >1 105An error occurred. 106.El 107.Sh COMPATIBILITY 108Previous versions of the 109.Nm 110utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first 111trying the standard input or output devices. 112.Sh SEE ALSO 113.Xr csh 1 , 114.Xr mail 1 , 115.Xr sh 1 , 116.Xr comsat 8 117.Sh HISTORY 118The 119.Nm 120command appeared in 121.Bx 4.0 . 122It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 123He died 124in August 1993, at 15. 125