bday

view bday.1 @ 1:8534f0e3a0db

added manpage; adjusted makefile
author meillo@marmaro.de
date Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:52:15 +0100
parents
children dc2f94280b01
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1 .TH bday 1
2 .SH NAME
3 bday \- inform about upcoming birthdays and other events
4 .SH SYNOPSIS
5 .BR bday\ [ -f
6 .IR file ]
7 .RB [ -W
8 .IR defwarn ]
9 .RB [ -M
10 .IR maxwarn ]
11 .RB [ -m
12 .IR minwarn ]
14 .SH DESCRIPTION
15 The
16 .B bday
17 command reads a file, by default
18 .IR ~/.birthdays ,
19 which gives a list of birthdays and events (see section
20 .B FILE FORMAT
21 for details). It produces a list of events which are coming up within the next few weeks.
23 .SH OPTIONS
25 .TP
26 .BI -f\ file
27 Read the events from
28 .I file
29 rather than
30 .IR ~/.birthdays.
31 If
32 .I file
33 is a single hyphen, read the events from the standard input (usually
34 the terminal).
36 .SS List Options
38 .TP
39 .BI -W\ warn
40 Warn
41 .I warn
42 days in advance, for entries that have no
43 .B w
44 flag (see
45 .BR FILE\ FORMAT ).
46 If this switch is not specified, it defaults to 21 days.
47 .TP
48 .BI -M\ max
49 Warn at most
50 .I max
51 days in advance. This overrides any flag given in the file.
52 .TP
53 .BI -m\ min
54 Warn at least
55 .I min
56 days in advance. This overrides any flag given in the file.
59 .SH FILE FORMAT
61 Each line beginning with a hash sign,
62 .RB ` # ',
63 is a comment and will be ignored. Lines beginning with an ampersand,
64 .RB ` & ',
65 are directives. Currently there is only one such directive,
66 .B &include
67 .IR file ,
68 which reads in a seperate file from your
69 .I .birthdays
70 file.
71 .I file
72 should be given with an absolute path, which should not use the tilde notation to specify your home directory.
74 Any other line specifies the name of a person or event, followed by an equals sign and
75 a date and finally some extra options. The date has to be in ISO 8601 date format (YYYY-MM-DD).
76 The extra options are:
77 .TP
78 .B bd
79 This line is a birthday (the default). The year, if given, should be when the person was born. A line designated as a
80 birthday will produce output like
81 .B Erin has a birthday in 3 days' time
82 or
83 .BR "Jemima is 3 in 2 weeks' time" .
84 .TP
85 .B ann
86 This line is an anniversary. The year, if given, should be the year in which the thing happened, producing output like
87 .B Pen exploded 3 years ago tomorrow
88 given a line such as
89 .BR "Pen exploded=1993-09-12 ann" .
90 .TP
91 .B ev
92 This line is an event of some sort. If a year is given, the text will be displayed in that year only; otherwise, it will
93 be displayed every year. The remaining time is simply appended to the text; for instance, the input
94 .B Easter=1996-04-07 ev
95 would give rise to the text
96 .BR "Easter in 1 week's time" .
97 .TP
98 .BI w n
99 Warn
100 .I n
101 days in advance of the date, rather than the default of 21 days or the number given with the
102 .B -W
103 flag.
104 .TP
105 .BI to date
106 The event lasts until
107 .IR date ,
108 which should be in the same format as for the date of the event.
109 .TP
110 .BI for days
111 The event lasts for
112 .B days
113 days.
115 .SH DATE SPECIFICATION
117 This version of of the programm is patched to only handle standard ISO 8601 date format now.
118 The intention to do change this behavior was to eliminate all those problems with different date formats.
119 IMHO we have standards to use them. Backward compatibility is not that important here, in my eyes.
121 .SH EXAMPLE
123 Joe Blow=1974-04-25
125 .SH FILES
127 .TP
128 .I ~/.birthdays
129 Your default birthdays file.
131 .SH SEE ALSO
133 .BR birthday (1),
134 cal (1)
136 .SH BUGS
137 The program cannot warn more than one year in advance of anything.
139 .SH CREDITS
141 This Program is heavily based on birthday. But without all non essential stuff. Nevertheless, much thanks for birthday, Andy!
143 .SH AUTHOR
144 Andy Mortimer <andy.mortimer@zetnet.co.uk> and markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>