Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff From: tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5 Subject: Bug in mailx(1) Summary: mailx -e leaves dangling .lock file in /usr/mail Message-ID: <14551@bfmny0.UUCP> Date: 15 Aug 89 20:21:36 GMT Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) Organization: Lucky Dog Pet Food Store Lines: 16 System V/386 Release 3.2, Release 2.1. Monday, 3:23 PM. My partner is Bill Gannon... OOPS wrong show. never mind :-) Anyway, when you run mailx(1), which I'm not sure why anyone in his right mind would to begin with, the -e option (check for mail and report results via the exit code) leaves a very nice little lock file dangling after it exits (e.g., /usr/mail/tneff.lock). I found this out because I had a "mailx -e" in my profile to check for pending mail at login time, and when I installed the useful little agent "deliver" it had mild coronaries at the perennial presence of this .lock file. Deliver could be modified to actually read the lock file and verify the process number, but there's still a bug in mailx. -- "We walked on the moon -- (( Tom Neff you be polite" )) tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET