[GRASSLIST:4087] Re: GRASS5.03 vs GRASS5.7

[Ian MacMillan]

Just to chime in, on my mac running OS 10.3.4, my mail is sent to 
/var/mail/my_user_name.  I also get a message sent to my terminal 
window whenever I have new mail.  This is a new feature for me, but I 
am not sure if it has to do with a change from OS 10.2 to 10.3 or from 
OroborOSX to Apple's X11 or from grass 5.0.0 to 5.3/5.7 (I certainly 
didn't conciously change anything else).  Regardless, the mail function 
now at least serves some purpose for me.  Thanks to whomever.

-Ian



On Aug 2, 2004, at 11:13 PM, Glynn Clements wrote:

>
> Michael Barton wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the information on error messages. Some commands also 
>> indicate
>> that they have completed their processing by sending an email (r.proj 
>> for
>> example).
>
> r.proj doesn't do this. Are you thinking of photo.rectify (part of
> i.ortho.photo)? That sends mail upon completion. But then the imagery
> stuff never was particularly well integrated with the rest of GRASS.
>
>> I *think* (but am not sure) that this goes to sendmail. Since I
>> now have postfix internally--but only use it in some circumstances 
>> for its
>> smtp server--I'm not sure where this ends up.
>
> photo.rectify and the libgis error-handling code both use the "mail"
> program to send notification messages; e.g. (from photo.rectify):
>
>     mail = popen ("mail `whoami`","w");
>
> The mail will end up wherever the "mail" program (assuming that you
> have one) sends it, based upon the username returned by "whoami"
> (whoami returns the username from /etc/passwd corresponding to the
> effective UID).
>
> For a traditional Unix mail program, it will probably go to
> /usr/lib/sendmail or /usr/sbin/sendmail (which may or may not be the
> "actual" sendmail program; most MTAs include a program/script named
> "sendmail" for compatibility purposes).
>
> FWIW, this is essentially the same mechanism used by daemons which
> send email, e.g. crond.
>
> Needless to say, this is all somewhat Unix-specific. If you aren't
> using a "conventional" Unix system (e.g. you don't have a "mail"
> program or an appropriate entry in /etc/passwd), it may not work.
>
> -- 
> Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>
>