ccal - display a colored calendar

ccal [ options ] [ [ num_month ] year ]

ccal [ options ] [ [ word_month ] year ]

ccal is an enhanced version of the Unix cal command. It is compatible to the Unix version in that it uses the same input arguments and its output may be piped or redirected anywhere.

ccal displays a calendar for a specified year, a specified month and year, or for the current date. By default, it displays a calendar for the current system-date month, with the current day hilighted. It correctly handles the transition from the Julian to Gregorian calendars in September 1752.

A verbally-specified month may be entered without specifying a year in the argument list; however, a single numerical argument will be interpreted as a year. Only the first 3 characters of the month name are significant for a verbally-specified month. The command `cal 10' refers to 10 AD, not October, and not 1910.

The options are explained more fully in the ENHANCEMENTS sections below. The available options are:

-nod[ata]

Do not try to read any appointment data file.

-d[ata-file]=filename

Read appointments from `filename' (default appointment data filename depends on operating system). You may use -d up to 8 times in a commandline to specify multiple data file names.

-f[uture]

If current month is displayed, then show only future appointments from the appointment file, not appointments that are past. NOTE: This switch was -d in previous versions.

-t[oday]

If current month is displayed, then show only appointments for today from the appointment file.

-e[urope]

Use European format (first weekday is Monday).

-a[merican]

Use North American format (first weekday is Sunday), this is the default.

-m[axappts]

Maximum number of appointments to display. Minimum is 8, maximum is 50, default is 24.

-p[ause]

Pause before exiting and prompt for a keystroke.

-8[bit]

Allows the use 8 bit extended ASCII (code page 437) characters in Unix version. It is always allowed in DOS and OS/2 versions

-noc[olor]

Inhibit the use of colors.

-c[olor-file]=filename

Read color definitions from `filename' (default color filename depends on operating system).

ccal -f -d=my_dates

display the current month and future appointments defined in file `my_dates'

ccal 1996

display the entire year of 1996

ccal 9 1752

display the month of September 1752

ccal sep 1752

same as above

ccal January

display January of the current year

ccal help

help message displayed for unrecognized arguments

If displaying the single-month format, ccal will look for a date file (the default file or whatever you specify with the -d option). If found, ccal will read the file, looking for special date descriptions for that month which will be displayed to the right of the calendar. By default, up to 24 appointments (number may be changed with -m) may be displayed per month. If the current date happens to fall on one of these special dates, it will be flagged by an asterisk. If there is room, appointments for the next month may also be displayed (next month's dates having definitions like "2nd Thursday" will be skipped).

The special date descriptions specified in the date file are single lines, formatted as follows:

YYYY MM DD NW xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

where

YYYY

is the year,

MM

is the month (01 - 12),

DD

is the day (00 if the NW field is used),

NW

is the weekday-of-month code (00 if the DD field is used)

xxxx

is the description; it will be truncated as necessary to fit

The data MUST occupy the character fields as shown. If YYYY is specified as -999, the month and day are assumed to be annual events such as holidays, and the description will be displayed for any year. If MM is specified as -9, the day is assumed to be a monthly event for the specified year. In the weekday-of-month code NW, N signifies on which weekday W the special date occurs. For example, 31 indicates the third sunday. Values of W range from 1 to 7, for Sunday to Saturday, respectively. A value of 9 for N indicates "last" as in 95 for "last thursday."

If ALL of the fields contain a positive number and the year is at least 1970, then the description is assumed to be periodic, starting at the given date, with the period in days specified in NW (e.g. 1995 01 06 14 will display the description every 2nd Friday using 6 January 1995 as the base date). The base date does not get displayed.

You can display birthdays and anniversaries by putting the year of birth (or other special event) inside brackets or braces, in the description. This number is converted to the number of years since the year you indicate and the brackets or braces are removed from the output. If braces {} are used the number will have an ordinal suffix, as in 21st, 32nd, 43rd, 54th, etc. If the number in brackets or braces is greater than the current year, the number will be displayed unchanged. Example: "Alex's {1961} birthday" will display as "Alex's 34th birthday" (if the current year is 1995). If you need to include brackets or braces in your output then you can escape them by prefixing it with a '\'. Example: "Alex's \{1961\} birthday" will be displayed as "Alex's {1961} birthday".

NOTE: If ccal is invoked with the -europe switch, then the W values 1-7 denote Monday(1) to Sunday(7) rather than Sunday(1) to Saturday(7). If invoked with the -american switch, then the W values 1-7 denote Sunday(1) to Monday(7). If none of those switches are used it will use the locale definitions (LC_TIME), if available.

A line in cal.dat must start with -999 or a 4-digit number to be considered as data. The data lines may be in any order. All these appointments will be displayed in chronological order, regardless of the ordering in the appointment data file.

If compiled with the USE_REMINDER (this is the default in Debian) flag, ccal will also search for the files dates and .dates in the same places as for the caldat equivalents. The dates file is used by the reminder(1) program and is an alternate, less-powerful format for specifying descriptions. A file in this format cannot be specified with the -data-file= option.

The reminder format consists of text lines of length < screen width in the following format:

DDDDDDDD:N:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:yyyyyy:S

where

DDDDDDDD

is the date in one of the following formats:

M/D/Y

an event occurring on a specific day (year can be two or four digits, but must be two for backward compatibility with reminder)

M/D

an event occurring every year

D

an event occurring every month

DDD

an event occurring every week (day of the week is 'Sun', 'Mon', etc.)

N

is the number of days notice of the event to give the user (ignored by ccal)

xxxxx

the event description

yyyyy

an optional receptor of the event (e.g. Mr. Jones)

S

status flag, either N for normal event or D for a deleted (not displayed) event

Blank lines are ignored. A line otherwise not in the above format is assume to specify a file name from which to read more events. The file is searched for in the usual places.

The -f commandline switch causes any date description older than today's date to be ignored, thereby giving room for other descriptions with future dates to be displayed. As time progresses through the month, old descriptions are discarded and newer ones are used. The -f switch affects only the display for the current month, and not other months.

There is an optional environment variable that can be used by ccal if found. If CALOPT is set then ccal will read it and use any valid command line options found. This allows any commonly used switches to be set in your environment and always used (e.g. -europe). Cal will produce its usage screen when run if any invalid options are set in this variable.

Under MS-DOS or OS/2, commandline arguments may begin with a '/' instead of a '-' character. It works either way.

The default name for the date file under MS-DOS and OS/2 is called cal.dat. It will first look for this file (or whatever you specify with the -d option) in the current directory and if that fails it will look in the directory that the cal program is located in.

ccal modifies the display attributes behind its output in order to display the calendar in attractive colors. Display manipulation is not done if ccal's output is redirected to a file. When ccal starts up, it looks for a file called cal.col (or whatever you specify with the -c option), first in ccal's originating directory, and then in the current directory. The colors have their own defaults if the file is not found.

Under Unix the default filenames and places that are searched for are different. For the calendar date file, ccal searches for the file .caldat in the users home directory. If it is not found ccal will then look for the file caldat in the current directory and then look for it in /usr/lib.

For the default color file, it will look first in the user's home directory for the file .calcol. It then looks for calcol in the current directory and then in /etc/.

Under Debian, ccal will also use the user's locale definitions to determine which day to use as start week day. Currently, only Monday or Sunday are used.

If you do not set the -europe or -american switch, your locale is defined properly, and you see a different start week day different from what you would expect, either ccal or your libc definitions are to blame. If you think this is a bug, please report it. Remember, ccal will not accept a default week day which is not Monday or Sunday.

Example of a color definition file:

15 02 video colors for month name 01 03 video colors for weekday header 07 01 video colors for normal calendar days 13 01 video colors for sundays 14 02 video colors for current day 07 06 bkgd for yearly calendar (space between months) 11 00 video colors for special day descriptions 12 08 video colors for * indicating descr.=today

FG BG

Color definitions must appear as above, as a two-character field for the foreground color, followed by a space, followed by a two-character field for the background color. The color definitions must start on the first line, and must not contain blank lines. Comments may appear after the second field, provided that the total line length does not exceed 80 characters.

Possible colors:

black 0 blue 1 green 2 cyan 3 red 4 violet 5 orange 6 light gray 7

dark gray 8 bright blue 9 bright green 10 bright cyan 11 bright red 12 bright violet 13 yellow 14 white 15

Specifying a background color from 8 to 15 will result in a background color of 0 to 7, with flashing text.

cal.dat

DOS and OS/2 date file

cal.col

DOS and OS/2 color file

~/.caldat

Unix local date file

~/.calcol

Unix local color file

caldat

/usr/lib/caldat

Unix global date files

calcol

/etc/calcol

Unix global color files

~/.dates

date file used with Unix reminder program and can be used with cal.

Alex Matulich - matulich_a@seaa.navsea.navy.mil

...with enhancements and modifications by other contributors.

(c) 1995 by Unicorn Research Corporation. All rights reserved. Inspired by an Amiga program by Gary L. Brant.

date(1), reminder(1), rs(1), locale(1)