CALENDAR(1) | General Commands Manual | CALENDAR(1)

# NAME

`calendar` — reminder service

# SYNOPSIS

`calendar` | [`-abw`] [`-A` num] [`-B` num] [`-f` calendarfile] [`-t` [[[cc]yy]mm]dd]

# DESCRIPTION

The `calendar` utility checks the current directory or the directory specified by the `CALENDAR_DIR` environment variable for a file named calendar and displays lines that begin with either today's date or tomorrow's. On Fridays, events on Friday through Monday are displayed.

The options are as follows:

`-A` num
  Print lines from today and next num days (forward, future).
`-a`
  Process the “calendar” files of all users and mail the results to them. This requires superuser privileges.
`-B` num
  Print lines from today and previous num days (backward, past).
`-b`
  Enforce special date calculation mode for Cyrillic calendars.
`-f` calendarfile
  Use calendarfile as the default calendar file.
`-t` [[[cc]yy]mm]dd
  Act like the specified value is “today” instead of using the current date. If yy is specified, but cc is not, a value for yy between 69 and 99 results in a cc value of 19. Otherwise, a cc value of 20 is used.
`-w`
  Print day of the week name in front of each event.

To handle calendars in your national code table you can specify “LANG=<locale_name>” in the calendar file as early as possible. To handle national Easter names in the calendars, “Easter=<national_name>” (for Catholic Easter) or “Paskha=<national_name>” (for Orthodox Easter) can be used.

The “CALENDAR” variable can be used to specify the style. Only ‘Julian’ and ‘Gregorian’ styles are currently supported. Use “CALENDAR=” to return to the default (Gregorian).

The “RECIPIENT_EMAIL” variable can be used to specify recipient of daily mails.

To enforce special date calculation mode for Cyrillic calendars you should specify “LANG=<local_name>” and “BODUN=<bodun_prefix>” where <local_name> can be ru_RU.UTF-8, uk_UA.UTF-8 or by_BY.UTF-8.

Other lines should begin with a month and day. They may be entered in almost any format, either numeric or as character strings. If proper locale is set, national months and weekdays names can be used. A single asterisk (‘*’) matches every month. A day without a month matches that day of every week. A month without a day matches the first of that month. Two numbers default to the month followed by the day. Lines with leading tabs default to the last entered date, allowing multiple line specifications for a single date. “Easter” (may be followed by a positive or negative integer) is Easter for this year. “Paskha” (may be followed by a positive or negative integer) is Orthodox Easter for this year. Weekdays may be followed by “-4” `...` “+5” (aliases last, first, second, third, fourth) for moving events like “the last Monday in April”.

By convention, dates followed by an asterisk (‘*’) are not fixed, i.e., change from year to year.

Day descriptions start after the first <tab> character in the line; if the line does not contain a <tab> character, it isn't printed out. If the first character in the line is a <tab> character, it is treated as the continuation of the previous description.

The calendar file is preprocessed by cpp(1), allowing the inclusion of shared files such as company holidays or meetings. If the shared file is not referenced by a full pathname, cpp(1) searches in the current (or home) directory first, and then in the directory /usr/share/calendar. Empty lines and lines protected by the C commenting syntax (`/* ... */`) are ignored.

Some possible calendar entries (a \t sequence denotes a <tab> character):

    LANG=C
    Easter=Ostern

    #include <calendar.usholiday>
    #include <calendar.birthday>

    6/15\tJune 15 (if ambiguous, will default to month/day).
    Jun. 15\tJune 15.
    15 June\tJune 15.
    Thursday\tEvery Thursday.
    June\tEvery June 1st.
    15 *\t15th of every month.

    May Sun+2\tsecond Sunday in May (Muttertag)
    04/SunLast\tlast Sunday in April,
    \tsummer time in Europe
    Easter\tEaster
    Ostern-2\tGood Friday (2 days before Easter)
    Paskha\tOrthodox Easter

# FILES

calendar
  File in current directory.
~/.calendar
  Directory in the user's home directory (which `calendar` changes into, if it exists).
~/.calendar/calendar
  File to use if no calendar file exists in the current directory.
~/.calendar/nomail
  `calendar` will not send mail if this file exists.
calendar.all
  International and national calendar files.
calendar.birthday
  Births and deaths of famous (and not-so-famous) people.
calendar.canada
  Canadian holidays.
calendar.christian
  Christian holidays (should be updated yearly by the local system administrator so that roving holidays are set correctly for the current year).
calendar.computer
  Days of special significance to computer people.
calendar.croatian
  Croatian calendar.
calendar.discord
  Discordian calendar (all rites reversed).
calendar.fictional
  Fantasy and fiction dates (mostly LOTR).
calendar.french
  French calendar.
calendar.german
  German calendar.
calendar.history
  Miscellaneous history.
calendar.holiday
  Other holidays (including the not-well-known, obscure, and really obscure).
calendar.judaic
  Jewish holidays (should be updated yearly by the local system administrator so that roving holidays are set correctly for the current year).
calendar.music
  Musical events, births, and deaths (strongly oriented toward rock 'n' roll).
calendar.nz
  New Zealand calendar.
calendar.openbsd
  OpenBSD related events.
calendar.pagan
  Pagan holidays, celebrations and festivals.
calendar.russian
  Russian calendar.
calendar.space
  Cosmic history.
calendar.uk
  UK calendar.
calendar.ushistory
  U.S. history.
calendar.usholiday
  U.S. holidays.
calendar.world
  World wide calendar.

# SEE ALSO

at(1), cal(1), cpp(1), mail(1), cron(8)

# STANDARDS

The `calendar` program previously selected lines which had the correct date anywhere in the line. This is no longer true: the date is only recognized when it occurs at the beginning of a line.

# HISTORY

A `calendar` command appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

# BUGS

`calendar` doesn't handle all Jewish holidays or moon phases.

February 21, 2025 | Debian