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: src/usr.bin/biff/biff.1,v 1.21 2006/12/28 04:58:38 ru Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/biff/biff.1,v 1.3 2007/09/16 00:59:13 pavalos Exp $ 35.\" 36.Dd August 9, 2002 37.Dt BIFF 1 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm biff 41.Nd "be notified if mail arrives and who it is from" 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm 44.Op Cm n | y | b 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Nm 48utility informs the system whether you want to be notified on your terminal 49when mail arrives. 50.Pp 51Affected is the first terminal associated with the standard input, 52standard output or standard error file descriptor, in that order. 53Thus, it is possible to use the redirection facilities of a shell to 54toggle the notification for other terminals than the one 55.Nm 56runs on. 57.Pp 58The following options are available: 59.Bl -tag -width indent 60.It Cm n 61Disable notification. 62.It Cm y 63Enable header notification. 64.It Cm b 65Enable bell notification. 66.El 67.Pp 68When header notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of 69the message will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 70A 71.Dq "Li biff y" 72command is often included in the file 73.Pa .login 74or 75.Pa .profile 76to be executed at each login. 77.Pp 78When bell notification is enabled, only two bell characters 79.Tn ( ASCII 80\\007) 81will be printed on your terminal whenever mail arrives. 82.Pp 83If no arguments are given, 84.Nm 85displays the present notification status of the terminal to the 86standard output. 87.Pp 88The 89.Nm 90utility operates asynchronously. 91For synchronous notification use the 92.Ev MAIL 93variable of 94.Xr sh 1 95or the 96.Va mail 97variable of 98.Xr csh 1 . 99.Sh EXIT STATUS 100The 101.Nm 102utility exits with one of the following values: 103.Bl -tag -width indent 104.It 0 105Notification is enabled. 106.It 1 107Notification is disabled. 108.It >1 109An error occurred. 110.El 111.Sh COMPATIBILITY 112Previous versions of the 113.Nm 114utility affected the terminal attached to standard error without first 115trying the standard input or output devices. 116.Sh SEE ALSO 117.Xr csh 1 , 118.Xr mail 1 , 119.Xr sh 1 , 120.Xr comsat 8 121.Sh HISTORY 122The 123.Nm 124command appeared in 125.Bx 4.0 . 126It was named after the dog of Heidi Stettner. 127He died 128in August 1993, at 15. 129