MAIL (I)                    10/25/72                     MAIL (I)





NAME            mail  --  send mail to another user



SYNOPSIS        mail [ -yn ]

                mail letter person ...

                mail person



DESCRIPTION     mail without an argument searches for a file

                called mailbox, prints it if present, and asks if

                it should be saved.  If the answer is "y", the

                mail is renamed mbox, otherwise it is deleted.

                Mail with a -yn argument works the same way, ex-

                cept that the answer to the question is supplied

                by the argument.



                When followed by the names of a letter and one or

                more people, the letter is appended to each

                person's mailbox.  When a person is specified

                without a letter, the letter is taken from the

                sender's standard input up to an EOT.  Each let-

                ter is preceded by the sender's name and a post-

                mark.



                A person is either a user name recognized by lo-

                gin, in which case the mail is sent to the de-

                fault working directory of that user, or the path

                name of a directory, in which case mailbox in

                that directory is used.



                When a user logs in he is informed of the pres-

                ence of mail.



FILES           /etc/passwd     to identify sender

                                to locate persons

                mailbox         input mail

                mbox            saved mail



SEE ALSO        login(I)



DIAGNOSTICS     "Who are you?"  if the user cannot be identified

                for some reason (a bug).  "Cannot send to user"

                if mailbox cannot be opened.



BUGS            --