NAME

     mail - send and receive electronic mail


SYNOPSIS

     mail [-epqr] [-f file]
     mail [-dtv] [-s subject] user [...]


OPTIONS

     -e   Exit with status TRUE or FALSE to indicate if there  is
          mail in mailbox

     -p   Print all mail and then exit

     -q   Quit program if SIGINT received

     -r   Reverse print order, i.e., print oldest first

     -f   Use file instead of /usr/spool/mail/user as mailbox

     -d   Force use of the shell variable MAILER

     -t   Show distribution list as Dist: header in message

     -v   Verbose mode (passed on to MAILER)

     -s   Use Subject: subject


EXAMPLES

     mail ast            # Send a message to ast

     mail                # Read your mail

     cat mail.cdiff | mail -s ''Here's the diff!'' asw
                         # Pipe program output  to  mail  with  a
                         subject line

     mail -f /usr/spool/mail/asw
                         # How root can read asw's mail


DESCRIPTION

     Mail is an extremely simple electronic mail program.  It can
     be used to send or receive email on a single MINIX 3 system,
     in which case it functions as user agent and local  delivery
     agent.  If the flag MAILER is defined in mail.c, it can also
     call a transport agent to handle remote mail  as  well.   No
     such agent is supplied with MINIX 3.

     When called by user with no arguments, it examines the mail-
     box  /usr/spool/mail/user,  prints one message (depending on
     the -r flag), and waits for one of the following commands:


       <newline> Go to the next message
       -         Print the previous message
       !command  Fork off a shell and execute command
       CTRL-D    Update the mailbox and quit (same as q)
       d         Delete the current message and go to the next one
       q         Update the mailbox and quit (same as CTRL-D)
       p         Print the current message again
       s [file]  Save message in the named file
       x         Exit without updating the mailbox

     To send mail, the program is called with the name of one or more recipients as
     arguments.  The mail is sent, along with a postmark line containing the date.
     For local delivery, a file named after each recipient in the directory
     /usr/spool/mail must be writable. If a spool file does not exist for
     a recipient it will be created.

     If the directory /usr/spool/mail does not exist then the mail is
     dumped on the console, so that system programs have a way to notify
     a user on a system that does not have a mail spool.

     The received mail contains a To: header showing the recipient. If there
     are multiple recipients and the -t option is specified each recipient
     will also see a Dist: header line showing the other recipients.

     The -s option allows a subject to be specified. The subject must be
     quoted if it contains spaces. If no subject is specified the mail
     will be delivered with Subject: No subject.


NOTES

     The -s option was added to make  this  simple  mail  program
     consistent  with mail programs found in other *nix variants.
     Many programs, including the  version  of  cron  distributed
     with  MINIX 3 releases 2.0.3 and later, report their outcome
     by piping output to the mail program in order to send a mail
     message  to  root  in lieu of writing a log file.  Such pro-
     grams often expect the mail program to accept a subject line
     using this option.


BUGS

     If an external MAILER is used it is likely  the  conditional
     code  supporting  this  will need some editing to be made to
     work correctly.


AUTHOR

     The original mail program for MINIX 3 was written  by  Peter
     B.  Housel.  The -e and -t options were added by C. W. Rose.
     The -s option was added by A. S.  Woodhull.  This  man  page
     revised by ASW 2003-07-18.