If one numeric argument is provided, it is interpreted as the year value, and calendars for the entire year will be generated. Otherwise, nmonths months, starting with month and year, will be generated.
For whole-year calendars (i.e. the -w option is given), the command line arguments are interpreted somewhat differently. By default, all months in the current year are printed, starting with January. If the month argument alone is given, it is expected to be the desired year to print, and prints all of the months in the given year. If both month and year are given, then 12 consecutive months are printed starting at the given month and year. If the month, year, and nmonths arguments are all present, printing begins with the given month and year and nmonths months are printed, rounded up to the nearest multiple of 12.
The Date File
By default, pcal simply prints an empty calendar. Its real power is in its ability to place ``events'' in appropriate days on the calendar, thus allowing the user to create personalized calendars. This is achieved through the use of the ``date file''.
The date file is named .calendar (pcal.dat under MS-DOS), or calendar for compatibility with older versions. Pcal will look in several places for such a file. First, if the environment variable PCAL_DIR is defined, pcal searches the directory indicated by that variable. Next, pcal searches the user's home directory (as specified by the HOME environment variable). If neither PCAL_DIR nor HOME is defined, pcal searches the current directory instead. Finally, the directory where the pcal executable resides will be checked. If no date file is found, an empty calendar is printed; no error is generated.
If a date file is found, it will be searched for lines with leading dates matching the requested month and year. Any text following the dates found will be printed on the calendar under the appropriate day of the month. Dates in the .calendar file may be expressed in any of several formats:
<ordinal> <day_spec> in <month_spec>{*} {<text>}
<day_spec> <prep> <date_spec>{*} {<text>}
<date_spec>{*} {<text>}
Where:
<month_name> := first 3+ characters of name of month, or ``all''
<month_spec> := <month_name>, or ``year''
<day_spec> := first 3+ characters of name of weekday, ``day'',
``weekday'', ``workday'', ``holiday'', ``nonweekday'',
``nonworkday'', ``nonholiday'', ``new_moon'',
``first_quarter'', ``full_moon'', or ``last_quarter''
<ordinal> := any ordinal number (``1st'', ``2nd'', etc.), ``first'' ... ``fifth'',
``last'', ``odd'', ``even'', or ``all''
<prep> := ``before'', ``preceding'', ``after'', ``following'',
``on_or_before'' (``oob''), or ``on_or_after'' (``ooa'')
<sep> := one or more non-numeric, non-space, non-`*' characters
<month> := a numeric month (1-12)
<day> := day of month (1-31)
<year> := a numeric year
If the -A option (American date formats, the default) is given:
<date_spec> := <month_name> <day> | <month><sep><day>{<sep><year>}
If the -E option (European date formats) is given:
<date_spec> := <month_name> <day> | <month><sep><day>{<sep><year>}
Pcal also allows format specifiers in both the text and foot strings (see the -L, -C, -R, and -N options below); each will be replaced by a corresponding string as outlined in the table below. Most of these are derived from the ANSI C strftime() function; the %[louwMD] and %[o0+-] format specifiers are specific to pcal:
%a abbreviated weekday
%A full weekday
%b abbreviated month name
%B full month name
%d day of month (1-31)
%j day of year (1-366)
%l days left in year (0-365)
%m month (1-12)
%U week number (0-53)
%W week number (0-53)
%u week number (1-54)
%w week number (1-54)
%y year w/o century (00-99)
%Y year w/century
%% `%' character
%o print number as ordinal
%0 print number with leading zeroes
%+ use following month or year
%- use previous month or year
%{+N}[DWMY] adjust date by +N days/weeks/months/years
%{-N}[DWMY] adjust date by -N days/weeks/months/years
The %u specifier considers the week containing 1/1 as week 1 and the following logical Sunday (the first day of the week as printed; cf. the -F option below) as the start of week 2; %U considers the first logical Sunday as the first day of week 1. %w and %W behave like %u and %U respectively, but use the first logical Monday instead. Note that %w strftime().
The %o format specifier prints a number as an ordinal, with the appropriate suffix (``st'', ``nd'', ``rd'', or ``th'' in English) appended. For example, %od prints the day of the month as ``1st'', ``2nd'', ``3rd'', etc.
Unlike strftime(), pcal defaults to printing numbers (except %y) without leading zeroes. If leading zeroes are desired, the `0' prefix may be used. For example, %0j prints the first day of year as ``001''.
The %+ and %- format specifiers direct pcal to substitute the following/previous month/year in the following [bBmyY] specifier. For example, %+B prints the name of the next month.
The %{[+-]N}[DWMY] format specifiers do not print anything, but instead adjust the working date by ± Ndays (D), weeks (W), months (M), or years (Y). Subsequent format specifiers use the adjusted date instead of the current date. For example, %+1M %B %Y adjusts the date forward by one month and then prints the resulting month and year (``January 1992'' in December, 1991); %-2W %b %d adjusts the date backward by two weeks and prints the resulting month and day (``Jul 26'' on August 9).
Such date adjustments are normally cumulative; for example, %+1Y%-1D adjusts the date forward by one year and then backward by one day. If %D or %M is specified alone (or if N is zero), pcal restores the original date. Note that %M has a different meaning to the strftime() function.
The ``Notes'' box (see below) uses the first of the current month as the default date. All foot strings use the first of the current month in single-month mode and the first of the starting month in whole-year mode.
Examples:
last Monday in May* Memorial Day Holiday
all Fridays in Oct Status Meeting, 11 AM
first workday in all %-B progress report due
all Fri in all Time card due, 3 PM
all Monday in all Fiscal week %0W
-2nd workday in all Schedule for %+B due %+2D
2nd full_moon in all Blue Moon
Fri on_or_before all 15 Pay Day
even Fridays in year Pay Day
183rd day of year Mid-year (%l days left)
Tue after first Mon in Nov Election Day (USA)
4th Thu in Nov* Thanksgiving
Fri after 4th Thu in Nov* Day after Thanksgiving
12/25/90* Christmas # American
25.12.90* Christmas # European
Dec 25* Christmas # American
25 Dec* Christmas # European
Any non-numeric character may separate numeric dates. Holidays may be flagged by following the date immediately with `*' as in the examples above; this will cause the date to be printed in gray. ``Each'' and ``every'' are accepted as synonyms for ``all'', and any word may be used in place of ``in''. The abbreviations ``oob'' and ``ooa'' may be used in place of the keywords ``on_or_before'' and ``on_or_after'', respectively. ``Nearest'' attempts to match the specified date; if that fails, it tries the day after, then the day before, then two days after, two days before, and so forth until a match occurs.
Wildcard day names are also provided. The keyword ``weekday'' applies to any days which are normally printed in black on the calendar. The keyword ``workday'' is the same, but does not include any holidays. The keyword ``holiday'' includes only those days flagged as holidays. The keywords ``nonweekday'', ``nonworkday'', and ``nonholiday'' are also recognized as negations of the above. See the CAVEATS below for important notes on using these keywords. Moon phases may also appear as wildcards; ``nm'' is accepted as a synonym for ``new_moon'', ``1q'' and ``fq'' for ``first_quarter'', ``fm'' for ``full_moon'', ``3q'' for ``third_quarter'', and ``lq'' for ``last_quarter''.
Ordinal day numbers may be used to specify dates, either relative to the month or to the year. Either words or numeric abbreviations may be used for ``first'' through ``fifth''; higher numbers must be given using the numeric equivalent (e.g. 100th). Negative ordinal numbers may even be used. For example, ``-2nd'' means ``next to last''.
``Odd'' and ``even'' do not refer to the actual date; instead, ``odd'' means ``alternate, starting with the first'', and ``even'' means ``alternate, starting with the second''. Thus, ``odd Fridays in March'' refers to the first, third, and (if present) fifth Fridays in March - not to those Fridays falling on odd dates.
``All'' refers to each individual month; ``year'' refers to the year as an entity. Thus ``odd Fridays in all'' refers to the first, third, and fifth Friday of each month, while ``odd Fridays in year'' refers to the first Friday of January and every other Friday thereafter.
Text in the date file may use C-like escape sequences (i.e. a `\' followed by a character, 1 - 3 octal digits, or `x' followed by 1 - 2 hexadecimal digits). Escaped whitespace (including newline ) and the standard ANSI character escapes (`\a', `\b', `\f', `\n', `\r', `\t', `\v') are all replaced by a single blank.
Lines in the .calendar file consisting of year #### (where #### is a numeric year) can be used to set the year for following entries. This assumes that the following entries do not contain a year; any date entries containing year information will set the remembered year to that year.
Lines in the .calendar file consisting of opt <options> can be used to override the defaults for any command-line options except -c, -e, -f, -h, -u, -v, -D, and -U. Any options specified in this manner are, in turn, overridden by those specified explicitly on the command line.
Lines in the .calendar file consisting of note{/<number>} <month> can be used to place notes regarding the entire month in one of the unused blocks of the calendar. The <month> indicator may be either a number 1 through 12 or an alphabetic month name as described above; ``note all'' will place the associated text in the notes block for each month in the current year. <number> is an optional positive or negative number specifying the empty box where the associated text is to be placed. If positive, pcal counts forward from the first empty box; if negative, pcal counts backward from the last empty box. Thus, ``note/1'' places the associated text in the first empty box; note/-3 in the third-to-last. The default is -1 if no <number> is given (last empty box, immediately preceding the small calendars on the bottom row; cf. -S, -k, and -K, below).
Comments are supported in the .calendar file. Any characters following a `#' character through the end of the line are ignored.
Pcal supports rudimentary cpp-like functionality in the date file, allowing the following constructs: define | undef, if{{n}def} ... {elif ...}* {else ...} endif, and include. Note that these are not preceded by `#' as they are in C. Symbol names defined using these keywords (or via the -D option) are case-insensitive. It is not an error to undef an undefined symbol, nor to define a previously-defined one. An ifdef alone is always false; an ifndef alone is always true. if is accepted as a synonym for ifdef.
The name of the file in the include directive may optionally be surrounded by either "" or <>, both of which are ignored. If the name is not an absolute path, it is taken to be relative to the directory where the file containing the directive is located. Pcal is smart enough to translate ~/ to the user's home directory.
In addition to pre-processing keywords, pcal also accepts boolean expressions in if{{n}def} and elif directives. These expressions consist of symbol names joined by the boolean operators !, &, ^, and |, in order of precedence, high to low. Parentheses may be used to alter the precedence. The synonyms && and || are accepted for & and |. A symbol name evaluates to true if currently defined, false if not; thus:
ifdef A | B | C
...is true if any of the symbols A, B, and C is defined, and:
ifdef A & B & C
...is true if they all are. Note that ifndef <expr> is equivalent to ifdef !( <expr> ).
The Moon File
If a file of the name .moon## (moon##.dat under MS-DOS), where ## is the last two digits of the calendar year, exists in the same directory as the date file (or in the directory where pcal resides), pcal uses the information contained within to calculate the phase of the moon. If no such file exists, pcal uses an approximate algorithm.
Entries in the moon file must conform to the following syntax:
If the -A option (American date formats, the default) is given:
<quarter> <month><sep><day> {<hour><sep><min>}
If the -E option (European date formats) is given:
<quarter> <day><sep><month> {<hour><sep><min>}
Where:
<quarter> := ``nm'', ``fq'' or ``1q'', ``fm'', ``3q'' or ``lq'' (new moon,
first quarter, full moon, last quarter)
<hour> := number 0-23 (24-hour clock)
<min> := number 0-59
This file must contain entries for all quarter moons in the year, in chronological order; if any errors are encountered, pcal will revert to using its default algorithm.
As in the date file, comments start with `#' and run through the end of the given line.
Options
Pcal has many options:
Any option which normally takes an argument may be specified without the argument in order to reset the value to the program default. Note that while the -D option alone clears all the defined symbols, the -U option alone has no effect. The - (or -- as per System V) argument may be used to disambiguate command lines such as:
This could be written instead as one of the following:
If the environment variable PCAL_OPTS is defined, its contents are parsed as a command line. Flags set via PCAL_OPTS override the program defaults, but are overridden by options set via opt lines in the .calendar file or explicitly on the command line.
January 1990
S M Tu W Th F S
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31
If the .calendar file looked like this:
workday on_or_before all 15 payday
3rd Mon in Jan* MLK day
... then pcal would mark the 15th as ``payday'' since at that point in the .calendar file it has no way of knowing that January 15th will later be flagged as a holiday. If the two lines were reversed, such that the holiday preceded the ``workday'' wildcard, then pcal would work as intended, marking instead the 12th as ``payday''. Also, beware of year boundaries which affect the handling of all of the day wildcard keywords. In general, it is best to place monthly wildcards such as the example above at the end of each year to achieve the desired effect.
When the -w and -p options are used together, pcal revises the y-scale factor in order to use the entire portrait page; therefore, the user should avoid using use the -y option when using both the -w and -p options. Use of the -w option in any case effectively disables the -m, -M, -j, and -J options.
The output of the -c option may be used as input to subsequent runs of pcal. Note, however, that opt lines (except for an automatic opt -[A|E]), comments, ``note'' text, and ifdef'd-out source will be lost.
The -S option interacts with note{/<number>}; if used, it should be specified either on the command line or prior to the first note line in the date file.