Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:2262 comp.unix.questions:15442
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: "you have mail"
Keywords: mail, informix
Message-ID: <10671@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 4 Aug 89 21:12:02 GMT
References: <4881@macom1.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 12

In article <4881@macom1.UUCP> larry@macom1.UUCP (Larry Taborek) writes:
>... we will get a message that says "you have mail".  When we then fire
>up our mail package, it says "No mail.".
>Questions:  Is this caused by informix or the OS?  After that,
>how do we stop this?

Usually it's printed by the shell.  The shell manual entry should explain
exactly how it works, and whether MAILPATH is supported, etc.

Some shells fail to note that a 0-length mailbox that has been recently
modified is not "new mail", but rather "what is left after reading old
mail".  That's probably what's causing the misleading report.