On 7/13/16 8:37 AM, ikrabbe....@gmail.com wrote:
> Bash Version: 4.3
> Patch Level: 42
> Release Status: release
>
> Description:
> In a bash session where the MAIL variable is not explicitly set, the
> MAIL variable might be auto-set through a compile time definition of
> DEFAULT_MAIL_DIRECTORY. There is no method (no method I know of) to find
> about about these compile time definitions and / or configuration flags.
> To find out about this bevaiour I needed to read the source code and
> finally found this line in CHANGES:
>
> hhh. Improved the mail checking code so it won't check (and possibly
> cause an
> NFS file system mount) until MAILPATH or MAIL is given a value --
> there
> is no default if DEFAULT_MAIL_DIRECTORY is not defined at compile
> time.
>
>
> Repeat-By:
> Install bash and remove all occurences of MAIL= or similar from the
> several profile and rc files.
>
> Fix:
> Please describe the dependency of the MAIL variables on the manual
> page. If you manage to do so, add the value of DEFAULT_MAIL_DIRECTORY and
> it's effects in the generated manual pages.
The precedence of the MAIL and MAILPATH variables is already described in
the man page. I will look at changes to the man page to indicate that
there is no default value for MAILPATH; there is some language in there
that implies bash sets a default value (which it did in the past).
The manual page describes bash as I distribute it. If a vendor or
distribution wishes to change the default, to supply a default for
MAILPATH, for example, I expect them to modify the documentation for
their distribution to reflect that. Some do, many don't.
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU c...@case.edu http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/
