From:
[email protected]
The mail checking facility in bash now seems to report newmail
"You have mail in /var/spool/mail/tconnors"
everytime after you recieve new mail, without seeming to check whether
the access time of the mailbox is newer than the modify/change time.
It does check the access time. The process is actually very simple:
everything runs off the modification time. If the mailbox's mod time
has changed since the last time bash checked it, bash checks the access
time.
If the access time is later or the same as the mod time, bash figures
that the user has probably run some program to manipulate the mail file.
It checks the size, too -- if the file hasn't grown, it figures that you probably just ran your mail reader, and doesn't report anything.
If the mod time is greater than the access time, and the file has grown,
bash figures you have new mail, and reports it. If the mod time and
the access time are the same, and the file has grown, bash just reports
that you have mail (which is what is happening in your case).
If you're using a client (like, say, mutt) that doesn't update the mod
time when it updates the mail file, and you don't do these checks, you'll
miss new mail.
Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet )
Live...Laugh...Love
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU
[email protected] http://tiswww.tis.cwru.edu/~chet/
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)