mail(1)

NAME

     mail - send and receive electronic mail

SYNOPSIS

     mail [-dpqrv] [-f file] [user]

OPTIONS

     -d   Force use of the shell variable MAILER

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

     -p   Print all mail and then exit

     -q   Quit program if SIGINT received

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

     -v   Verbose mode

EXAMPLES

     mail ast            # Send a message to ast

     mail                # Read your mail

DESCRIPTION

     Mail is an extremely simple electronic mail program.  It can be  used  to
     send  or  receive  email  on  a  single  MINIX  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.

     When  called  by  user  with  no  arguments,  it  examines  the   mailbox
     /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 the recipient as  an
     argument.   The  mail  is sent, along with a postmark line containing the
     date.  For local delivery, a  file  named  after  the  recipient  in  the
     directory /usr/spool/mail must be writable.

     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.