Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.admin:9639 comp.unix.bsd:11672 comp.unix.wizards:28870 alt.unix.wizards:122 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!flash.pax.tpa.com.au!flash.pax.tpa.com.au!not-for-mail From: hart@flash.pax.tpa.com.au (Leigh M Hart) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.wizards,alt.unix.wizards Subject: Re: How does finger get info about mail??? Date: 14 Mar 1993 18:07:54 +0930 Organization: PAX - Public Access Unix (Adelaide) Lines: 37 Message-ID: <1nuqt2INNjb3@flash.pax.tpa.com.au> References: <1993Mar14.000449.24954@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: flash.pax.tpa.com.au robert@triton.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Angelino) writes: >BACKGROUND: > SunOS 4.1.2. SPARC 2. That's cute, I have a solid steel blue background on my Xterm :) > When I do a "finger username" I get some nice goodies about >username. One thing I'm baffled about is the mail information it >displays. How does it do this?? The manual pages say the following: > > [man page deleted, we all know what they look like!] > >What process does finger go through to get the mail information?? Does >it look at the access time of /var/spool/mail/username or is it getting >it from somewhere else?? Each file in a unix filesystem has a few statistics as well as the data. two such stats, are the time_last_accessed and time_last_modified stats. >From this, finger or fingerd (the finger daemon for remote fingering) stats the file, gets the two times and works out what the user has in regards to mail waiting/read/unread etc. Essentially, you answered your own question. >-curious Didn't that kill the cat? (kill -9 %cat) You now have 8 lives left. Don't waste any more :) Leigh -- Leigh M Hart _-_|\ C/- PO Box 758 / \ hart@pax.tpa.com.au North Adelaide 5006 \_.-* / AUSTRALIA v Work: +61-8-267-5966