Checking new mail in programs

[Per Andersson]

Hello.

I am writing a program similar to 'finger'. In fact I took finger and 
ripped out the parts I didn't need. But I don't know how to check if
the user has mail/new mail. The SunOS finger program does this, but
I only have source to BSD4.3. Also I have a system V variant, but that
has to be setuid to root, and that is out of the question. Suns is an
ordinary program so it can be done. What approach should I take ?

Per
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Per Andersson
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
perand at admin.kth.se, @nada.kth.se