Automatically checking mail

Automatically checking mail

[Daniel Eisenbud]

Hi.  I've been having trouble getting zsh 2.5.03 to automatically
check my mail folders.  I've set MAILCHECK to various values, and set
mailpath to a colon-delimited list of various files and directories (I
use MH, but I tried with some normal files, too.)  I've also set MAIL
to my system mailbox (in my case ~/.mail).  But I can't get it to do
anything.  Is there some trick to this, or something obvious I'm
missing?

I just wrote to the old list address, but I checked the archive here
and din't think my message got through.  But if it did, and this is a
repeat, my apologies.

-Dan Eisenbud

Re: Automatically checking mail

[Rodger Anderson]

I've been using zsh MAILPATH to check various files for quite some
time now, and have had no problems with it.  Here is the relevant
portion of my .zprofile file:

# How often to check for mail, and where to check.
MAIL=$HOME/Mail/inbox/mbox
MAILCHECK=120
MAILPATH="$MAIL?You have new mail"
MAILPATH="$MAILPATH:/usr/mail/?Someone has mail in /usr/mail/"
MAILPATH="$MAILPATH:$HOME/dead.letter?You have a dead letter"
MAILPATH="$MAILPATH:/tmp/post.messages?You have a post note"

Rodger Anderson

Re: Automatically checking mail

[Daniel Eisenbud]

On Tue, 25 Jul 1995 15:31:06 -0600  Rodger Anderson wrote:
> I've been using zsh MAILPATH to check various files for quite some
> time now, and have had no problems with it.  Here is the relevant
> portion of my .zprofile file:
> 
> # How often to check for mail, and where to check.
> MAIL=$HOME/Mail/inbox/mbox
> MAILCHECK=120
> MAILPATH="$MAIL?You have new mail"
> MAILPATH="$MAILPATH:/usr/mail/?Someone has mail in /usr/mail/"
> MAILPATH="$MAILPATH:$HOME/dead.letter?You have a dead letter"
> MAILPATH="$MAILPATH:/tmp/post.messages?You have a post note"
> 
Hmmm...  this works.  I think I've found a bug in 2.5.03, actually: if
the first element in the MAILPATH is a directory, mailchecking doesn't
work.  With the following, I'm never notified of any mail in my MH
folders:

condor,18:34,500% set | grep MAIL                                           [~]
MAIL=/home/eisenbud/.mail
MAILCALL=NEW MAIL!
MAILCHECK=10
MAILPATH=/home/eisenbud/MH/inbox?You have new mail in $_.:/home/eisenbud/MH/staf
f?You have new mail in $_.:/home/eisenbud/MH/postmaster?You have new mail in $_.
:/home/eisenbud/MH/bugtraq?You have new mail in $_.

But with the following (.mail is a file, the rest are directories) it
does work.  The only thing that's been changed is the MAILPATH, and
there's never any mail going to .mail.  Kinda weird.  It seems very
reproducible.

condor,18:34,502% set | grep MAIL                                           [~]
MAIL=/home/eisenbud/.mail
MAILCALL=NEW MAIL!
MAILCHECK=10
MAILPATH=/home/eisenbud/.mail?You have new mail in $_.:/home/eisenbud/MH/inbox?Y
ou have new mail in $_.:/home/eisenbud/MH/staff?You have new mail in $_.:/home/e
isenbud/MH/postmaster?You have new mail in $_.:/home/eisenbud/MH/bugtraq?You hav
e new mail in $_.

-Dan Eisenbud