NAME

binmail − send or receive mail among users

SYNOPSIS

/usr/bin/mail person ... 
/usr/bin/mail [ −e ] [ −r|−b ] [ −p ] [ −q ] [ −f file ]

DESCRIPTION

Note: This is the old version 7 UNIX system mail program, with modifications to provide X/Open conformance.  The default mail command is described in Mail(1), and its binary is in the directory /usr/ucb.

mail with no argument prints a user’s mail, message-by-message, in last-in, first-out order; the optional argument −r (or −b) displays the mail messages in first-in, first-out order.  For each message, it reads a line from the standard input to direct disposition of the message. 

newline
Go on to next message.

d Delete message and go on to the next. 

p Print message again. 

− Go back to previous message. 

s [ file ] ...
Save the message in the named files (‘mbox’ default). 

w [ file ] ...
Save the message, without a header, in the named files (‘mbox’ default). Note that in version 7 systems, there is only one line of header; thus only the first line is stripped. 

m [ person ] ...
Mail the message to the named persons (yourself is default). 

EOT (control-D)
Put unexamined mail back in the mailbox and stop.

q Same as EOT. 

!command
Escape to the Shell to do command.

?  Print a command summary. 

The flag −e causes mail to just check for the presence of mail; if there is mail, it returns an exit status of zero, if not then it returns 1.  When this option is used, mail always exits immediately and does not alter the contents of the mailbox. 

The optional argument −p causes mail to just print the messages with no user interaction. 

After an interrupt, mail normally continues.  The optional argument −q causes mail to terminate leaving the mail file unchanged. 

When persons are named, mail takes the standard input up to an end-of-file (or a line with just ‘.’) and adds it to each person’s ‘mail’ file.  The message is preceded by the sender’s name and a postmark.  Lines that look like postmarks are prepended with ‘>’.  A person is usually a user name recognized by login(1). To denote a recipient on a remote system, prefix person by the system name and exclamation mark (see uucp(1C)).

The −f option causes the named file, for example, ‘mbox’, to be printed as if it were the mail file. 

When a user logs in he is informed of the presence of mail. 

FILES

/etc/passwdto identify sender and locate persons
/var/spool/mail/∗incoming mail for user ∗
mboxsaved mail
/var/tmp/ma∗temp file
/var/spool/mail/∗.locklock for mail directory
dead.letterunmailable text

SEE ALSO

Mail(1), write(1), uucp(1C), uux(1C), sendmail(8)

BUGS

Race conditions sometimes result in a failure to remove a lock file. 

7th Edition  —  Revision 1.5 of 09/10/90