tom@rsch.wisc.edu (Thomas Scott Christiansen) (08/04/86)
> checkmail > if ($status != 0) then > mail & > endif wouldn't you rather it exited 0 ( == success ) if it FINDS something, not if it fails? admittedly, unix programs seem to have opposite return values ( 0 == ok, ~0 = ~ok ), but given this model, why not stick to it? the above code would have been more consisely written if ! { checkmail } mail & or, given standard exit conventions, if { checkmail } mail &
silvert@dalcs.UUCP (Bill Silvert) (08/19/86)
(1) so far as touching an empty file to keep track of when you last checked your mail, why not just touch .mailrc, assuming you use it? (2) the checking of dates is easily incorporated in the PD checkmail that was recently posted to the net. Use stat(mailbox, &buf) to get the dates of the mailbox and the comparison file (I use .mailrc), and depending on the order of buf.st_ctime notify the user of new or old mail. I touch $HOME/.mailrc in my .login and .logout files, so that when I login I know whether mail has arrived since I last logged off.
guy@enmasse.UUCP (One Hip Dude) (08/24/86)
In article <1550@vax135.UUCP> cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) writes: >If one isn't using that silly csh, one can simply do "> .m" to create .m. I've had this alias since the first day I used csh: alias ">" "cat /dev/null >" Big deal, huh? -- -- guy k hillyer {decvax!genrad,harvard!talcott}!panda!enmasse!guy panda!enmasse!guy@talcott.arpa
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/28/86)
Bill Silvert suggests using the ".mailrc" file to keep track of the last time you checked for mail programmatically. Well...this is not a real good technique since evil things can happen when the user decides to edit their `.mailrc' file. Instead, I recommend people using "newmail" or "wnewmail" from the Elm Mail System package, available through your local mod.sources site :-) Ah! You say, How often do people touch their .mailrc file? You'd be suprised...IF I were using a mailer that used a .mailrc file I'd be changing it weekly - since I have a LOT of aliases and am constantly changing them as people move, as new routes turn out to be better, and as I find new people worth keeping track of... -- Dave Taylor unbiased author of the Elm Mail System