One of the handiest Unix utilities is cal, which—logically—is a calendar. Find out what today’s date is, what day of the week December 31 is, or what the calendar year looks like. As Code Listing 15.1 shows, all you have to do is type cal and any specific options you want.
1. | cal Type cal at the shell prompt to see the current month’s calendar, as shown in Code Listing 15.1. Then, start playing with options, as shown in the next few steps. |
2. | cal -j Use cal -j to see the Julian calendar, which shows each day numbered from the beginning of the year. (This argument doesn’t work on all systems.) |
3. | cal 2004 | more Pipe cal 2004 to more to see the whole year’s calendar. |
4. | cal 12 1941 Type cal plus specific dates to view dates for a particular year. |
✓ Tips
Note that cal is Y2K compliant. If you ask for cal 98, you’ll get the calendar for the year 98. That is, 1, 900 and a few years ago.
Put cal into your startup configuration files to get a reminder of the date whenever you log in. Check out Chapter 8 for details.
[jdoe@frazz jdoe]$ cal January 2003 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 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 [jdoe@frazz jdoe]$ cal -j 3 2004 March 2004 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 [jdoe@frazz jdoe]$ cal 2004 | more 2004 January February March Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 29 28 29 30 31 April May June Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 4 5 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 25 26 27 28 29 30 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 27 28 29 30 30 31 July August September Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 25 26 27 28 29 30 3129 30 31 26 27 28 29 30 October November December Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 28 29 30 26 27 28 29 30 31 31 [jdoe@frazz jdoe]$ cal 12 1941 December 1941 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 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 [jdoe@frazz jdoe]$ |