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BIFF(1)                     General Commands Manual                    BIFF(1)

NAME
     biff - be notified if mail arrives and who it is from

SYNOPSIS
     biff [n | y]

DESCRIPTION
     biff informs the system whether you want to be notified when mail arrives
     during the current terminal session.

     Options supported by biff:

     n     Disables notification.

     y     Enables notification.

     When mail notification is enabled, the header and first few lines of the
     message will be printed on your screen whenever mail arrives.  A "biff y"
     command is often included in the file .login or .profile to be executed
     at each login.

     When no arguments are present, biff displays the current notification
     status to the standard output.

     biff operates asynchronously.  For synchronous notification use the MAIL
     variable of sh(1) or the mail variable of csh(1).

EXIT STATUS
     The biff utility exits with one of the following values:

     0       Notification was enabled at the time of invocation.

     1       Notification was disabled at the time of invocation.

     >1      An error occurred.

SEE ALSO
     csh(1), from(1), mail(1), sh(1), comsat(8)

HISTORY
     The biff command appeared in 4.0BSD.

NetBSD 10.99                   December 20, 2016                  NetBSD 10.99