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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!rna!dan
From: dan@rna.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Checking for new mail...
Message-ID: <198@rna.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jan-84 13:40:31 EST
Article-I.D.: rna.198
Posted: Mon Jan 16 13:40:31 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jan-84 03:04:03 EST
Lines: 15


	Well to answer my own question, at least partially...
	Berkeley Mail does hand fiddle the atime of the mail file, either
by utime() or by sleep(), open(), read(), as I had guessed. Csh know about
this and gets new mail right.
	USG mail doesn't fiddle with atime, and (at the version I have of)
the Bourne shell can't tell the difference between new mail and a partially
deleted old mail file. Terrible.
	It just seems strange that you can't tell if the last program that
touched a file did only writes, and that mail has to hand fiddle the atime
of a file to get new mail to flag unambiguously.

					Cheers,
					Dan Ts'o
					...cmcl2!rna!dan