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From: tom@rsch.wisc.edu (Thomas Scott Christiansen)
Newsgroups: net.sources.d
Subject: Re: checkmail (a cute little mailchecking utility)
Message-ID: 
Date: Mon, 4-Aug-86 11:25:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: rsch.2569
Posted: Mon Aug  4 11:25:07 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Aug-86 21:13:33 EDT
References: 
Sender: tom@rsch.wisc.edu
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 17
In-Reply-To: mesches@sunybcs.UUCP (Scott Mesches) article  in net.sources  of 04 Aug 86 00:50:43 GMT.


>           checkmail
>           if ($status != 0) then
>                mail &
>           endif

wouldn't you rather it exited 0 ( == success ) if it FINDS something,
not if it fails?  admittedly, unix programs seem to have opposite
return values ( 0 == ok, ~0 = ~ok ), but given this model, why not
stick to it?

the above code would have been more consisely written

		if ! { checkmail } mail &

or, given standard exit conventions, 

		if { checkmail } mail &