zshcalsys(1) - zsh calendar system



  • ZSHCALSYS(1)                General Commands Manual               ZSHCALSYS(1)
    
    
    
    NAME
           zshcalsys - zsh calendar system
    
    DESCRIPTION
           The shell is supplied with a series of functions to replace and enhance
           the traditional Unix calendar programme, which warns the user of  immi-
           nent or future events, details of which are stored in a text file (typ-
           ically calendar in the user's home directory).   The  version  provided
           here includes a mechanism for alerting the user when an event is due.
    
           In addition a function age is provided that can be used in a glob qual-
           ifier; it allows files to  be  selected  based  on  their  modification
           times.
    
           The  format of the calendar file and the dates used there in and in the
           age function are described first, then the functions that can be called
           to examine and modify the calendar file.
    
           The  functions here depend on the availability of the zsh/datetime mod-
           ule which is usually installed with the shell.   The  library  function
           strptime()  must  be  available; it is present on most recent operating
           systems.
    
    FILE AND DATE FORMATS
       Calendar File Format
           The calendar file is by default ~/calendar.  This can be configured  by
           the  calendar-file style, see the section STYLES below.  The basic for-
           mat consists of a series of separate lines, with no  indentation,  each
           including  a  date  and time specification followed by a description of
           the event.
    
           Various enhancements to this format are supported, based on the  syntax
           of Emacs calendar mode.  An indented line indicates a continuation line
           that continues the description of the event  from  the  preceding  line
           (note the date may not be continued in this way).  An initial ampersand
           (&) is ignored for compatibility.
    
           An indented line on which the first non-whitespace character  is  #  is
           not  displayed with the calendar entry, but is still scanned for infor-
           mation.  This can be used to hide information useful  to  the  calendar
           system  but not to the user, such as the unique identifier used by cal-
           endar_add.
    
           The Emacs extension that a date with no description may refer to a num-
           ber of succeeding events at different times is not supported.
    
           Unless the done-file style has been altered, any events which have been
           processed are appended to the file with the same name as  the  calendar
           file with the suffix .done, hence ~/calendar.done by default.
    
           An example is shown below.
    
       Date Format
           The  format of the date and time is designed to allow flexibility with-
           out admitting ambiguity.  (The words `date' and `time' are both used in
           the documentation below; except where specifically noted this implies a
           string that may include both a date and a  time  specification.)   Note
           that  there  is no localization support; month and day names must be in
           English and separator characters are fixed.  Matching is case  insensi-
           tive,  and  only  the first three letters of the names are significant,
           although as a special case a form  beginning  "month"  does  not  match
           "Monday".   Furthermore,  time  zones  are  not  handled; all times are
           assumed to be local.
    
           It is recommended that, rather than exploring the  intricacies  of  the
           system,  users  find a date format that is natural to them and stick to
           it.  This will avoid unexpected effects.  Various key facts  should  be
           noted.
    
           o      In  particular,  note  the  confusion between month/day/year and
                  day/month/year when the month is numeric; these  formats  should
                  be avoided if at all possible.  Many alternatives are available.
    
           o      The  year  must  be  given  in full to avoid confusion, and only
                  years from 1900 to 2099 inclusive are matched.
    
           The following give some obvious examples; users finding here  a  format
           they  like  and  not  subject  to  vagaries  of style may skip the full
           description.  As dates and times are matched  separately  (even  though
           the  time  may  be  embedded in the date), any date format may be mixed
           with any format for the time of day provide the  separators  are  clear
           (whitespace, colons, commas).
    
                  2007/04/03 13:13
                  2007/04/03:13:13
                  2007/04/03 1:13 pm
                  3rd April 2007, 13:13
                  April 3rd 2007 1:13 p.m.
                  Apr 3, 2007 13:13
                  Tue Apr 03 13:13:00 2007
                  13:13 2007/apr/3
    
           More detailed rules follow.
    
           Times  are  parsed and extracted before dates.  They must use colons to
           separate hours and minutes, though a dot is allowed before  seconds  if
           they are present.  This limits time formats to the following:
    
           o      HH:MM[:SS[.FFFFF]] [am|pm|a.m.|p.m.]
    
           o      HH:MM.SS[.FFFFF] [am|pm|a.m.|p.m.]
    
           Here,  square brackets indicate optional elements, possibly with alter-
           natives.  Fractions of a second are recognised but ignored.  For  abso-
           lute  times (the normal format require by the calendar file and the age
           function) a date is mandatory but a  time  of  day  is  not;  the  time
           returned  is  at  the  start of the date.  One variation is allowed: if
           a.m. or p.m. or one of their variants is present,  an  hour  without  a
           minute is allowed, e.g. 3 p.m..
    
           Time  zones  are not handled, though if one is matched following a time
           specification it will be removed to allow  a  surrounding  date  to  be
           parsed.   This  only  happens  if the format of the timezone is not too
           unusual.  The following are examples of forms that are understood:
    
                  +0100
                  GMT
                  GMT-7
                  CET+1CDT
    
           Any part of the timezone that is not numeric must  have  exactly  three
           capital letters in the name.
    
           Dates  suffer from the ambiguity between DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.  It
           is recommended this form is avoided with purely numeric dates, but  use
           of ordinals, eg. 3rd/04/2007, will resolve the ambiguity as the ordinal
           is always parsed as the day of the month.  Years must  be  four  digits
           (and  the  first  two  must  be  19 or 20); 03/04/08 is not recognised.
           Other numbers may have leading zeroes, but they are not required.   The
           following are handled:
    
           o      YYYY/MM/DD
    
           o      YYYY-MM-DD
    
           o      YYYY/MNM/DD
    
           o      YYYY-MNM-DD
    
           o      DD[th|st|rd] MNM[,] [ YYYY ]
    
           o      MNM DD[th|st|rd][,] [ YYYY ]
    
           o      DD[th|st|rd]/MM[,] YYYY
    
           o      DD[th|st|rd]/MM/YYYY
    
           o      MM/DD[th|st|rd][,] YYYY
    
           o      MM/DD[th|st|rd]/YYYY
    
           Here,  MNM is at least the first three letters of a month name, matched
           case-insensitively.  The remainder of the month name may appear but its
           contents  are  irrelevant,  so  janissary,  febrile,  martial, apricot,
           maybe, junta, etc. are happily handled.
    
           Where the year is shown as  optional,  the  current  year  is  assumed.
           There  are  only  two  such cases, the form Jun 20 or 14 September (the
           only two commonly occurring forms, apart from a "the" in some forms  of
           English,  which  isn't currently supported).  Such dates will of course
           become ambiguous in the future, so should ideally be avoided.
    
           Times may follow dates with a colon, e.g. 1965/07/12:09:45; this is  in
           order  to  provide a format with no whitespace.  A comma and whitespace
           are allowed, e.g. 1965/07/12, 09:45.  Currently the order of these sep-
           arators  is  not  checked,  so  illogical formats such as 1965/07/12, :
           ,09:45 will also be matched.  For simplicity such  variations  are  not
           shown in the list above.  Otherwise, a time is only recognised as being
           associated with a date if there is only whitespace in  between,  or  if
           the time was embedded in the date.
    
           Days  of the week are not normally scanned, but will be ignored if they
           occur at the start of the date  pattern  only.   However,  in  contexts
           where it is useful to specify dates relative to today, days of the week
           with no other date specification may be given.  The day is  assumed  to
           be  either  today or within the past week.  Likewise, the words yester-
           day, today and tomorrow are handled.  All matches are case-insensitive.
           Hence  if today is Monday, then Sunday is equivalent to yesterday, Mon-
           day is equivalent to today, but Tuesday gives  a  date  six  days  ago.
           This  is  not generally useful within the calendar file.  Dates in this
           format may be combined with a time specification; for example Tomorrow,
           8 p.m..
    
           For example, the standard date format:
    
                  Fri Aug 18 17:00:48 BST 2006
    
           is  handled  by  matching  HH:MM:SS  and  removing it together with the
           matched (but unused) time zone.  This leaves the following:
    
                  Fri Aug 18 2006
    
           Fri is ignored and the rest is matched according to the standard rules.
    
       Relative Time Format
           In certain places relative times are handled.   Here,  a  date  is  not
           allowed;  instead  a  combination  of  various  supported  periods  are
           allowed, together with an optional time.  The periods must be in  order
           from most to least significant.
    
           In some cases, a more accurate calculation is possible when there is an
           anchor date:  offsets of months or years pick the correct  day,  rather
           than  being  rounded,  and it is possible to pick a particular day in a
           month as `(1st Friday)', etc., as described in more detail below.
    
           Anchors are available in the following cases.  If one or two times  are
           passed  to the function calendar, the start time acts an anchor for the
           end time when the end time is relative  (even  if  the  start  time  is
           implicit).   When  examining  calendar files, the scheduled event being
           examined anchors the warning time when it is given explicitly by  means
           of the WARN keyword; likewise, the scheduled event anchors a repetition
           period when given by the RPT keyword, so that  specifications  such  as
           RPT 2 months, 3rd Thursday are handled properly.  Finally, the -R argu-
           ment to calendar_scandate directly provides an anchor for relative cal-
           culations.
    
           The periods handled, with possible abbreviations are:
    
           Years  years,  yrs,  ys,  year,  yr,  y, yearly.  A year is 365.25 days
                  unless there is an anchor.
    
           Months months, mons, mnths, mths, month, mon, mnth, mth, monthly.  Note
                  that  m, ms, mn, mns are ambiguous and are not handled.  A month
                  is a period of 30 days rather than a calendar month unless there
                  is an anchor.
    
           Weeks  weeks, wks, ws, week, wk, w, weekly
    
           Days   days, dys, ds, day, dy, d, daily
    
           Hours  hours, hrs, hs, hour, hr, h, hourly
    
           Minutes
                  minutes, mins, minute, min, but not m, ms, mn or mns
    
           Seconds
                  seconds, secs, ss, second, sec, s
    
           Spaces  between  the  numbers  are  optional,  but are required between
           items, although a comma may be used (with or without spaces).
    
           The forms yearly to hourly allow  the  number  to  be  omitted;  it  is
           assumed to be 1.  For example, 1 d and daily are equivalent.  Note that
           using those forms with plurals is confusing; 2 yearly is the same as  2
           years, not twice yearly, so it is recommended they only be used without
           numbers.
    
           When an anchor time is present, there is an extension to handle regular
           events  in the form of the nth someday of the month.  Such a specifica-
           tion must occur immediately after any year and month specification, but
           before  any  time  of day, and must be in the form n(th|st|rd) day, for
           example 1st Tuesday or 3rd  Monday.   As  in  other  places,  days  are
           matched  case  insensitively,  must  be  in English, and only the first
           three letters are significant except that a form beginning `month' does
           not match `Monday'.  No attempt is made to sanitize the resulting date;
           attempts to squeeze too many occurrences into a month will push the day
           into  the next month (but in the obvious fashion, retaining the correct
           day of the week).
    
           Here are some examples:
    
                  30 years 3 months 4 days 3:42:41
                  14 days 5 hours
                  Monthly, 3rd Thursday
                  4d,10hr
    
       Example
           Here is an example calendar file.  It uses a consistent date format, as
           recommended above.
    
                  Feb 1, 2006 14:30 Pointless bureaucratic meeting
                  Mar 27, 2006 11:00 Mutual recrimination and finger pointing
                    Bring water pistol and waterproofs
                  Mar 31, 2006 14:00 Very serious managerial pontification
                    # UID 12C7878A9A50
                  Apr 10, 2006 13:30 Even more pointless blame assignment exercise WARN 30 mins
                  May 18, 2006 16:00 Regular moaning session RPT monthly, 3rd Thursday
    
           The  second  entry has a continuation line.  The third entry has a con-
           tinuation line that will not be shown when the entry is displayed,  but
           the  unique  identifier  will be used by the calendar_add function when
           updating the event.  The fourth entry will produce a warning 30 minutes
           before  the  event (to allow you to equip yourself appropriately).  The
           fifth entry repeats after a month on the 3rd Thursday,  i.e.  June  15,
           2006, at the same time.
    
    USER FUNCTIONS
           This  section  describes  functions  that  are  designed  to  be called
           directly by the user.  The first part describes those functions associ-
           ated  with  the  user's  calendar; the second part describes the use in
           glob qualifiers.
    
       Calendar system functions
           calendar [ -abdDsv ] [ -C calfile ] [ -n num ] [  -S  showprog  ]  [  [
           start ] end ](
           calendar  -r  [  -abdDrsv ] [ -C calfile ] [ -n num ] [ -S showprog ] [
           start ]
                  Show events in the calendar.
    
                  With no arguments, show events from the start of today until the
                  end  of  the  next  working day after today.  In other words, if
                  today is Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, show up to the end of  the
                  following Monday, otherwise show today and tomorrow.
    
                  If  end  is given, show events from the start of today up to the
                  time and date given, which is in the  format  described  in  the
                  previous  section.   Note  that  if  this  is a date the time is
                  assumed to be midnight at the start of the date, so that  effec-
                  tively this shows all events before the given date.
    
                  end may start with a +, in which case the remainder of the spec-
                  ification is a relative time format as described in the previous
                  section indicating the range of time from the start time that is
                  to be included.
    
                  If start is also given, show events starting from that time  and
                  date.  The word now can be used to indicate the current time.
    
                  To  implement  an alert when events are due, include calendar -s
                  in your ~/.zshrc file.
    
                  Options:
    
                  -a     Show all items in the calendar, regardless of  the  start
                         and end.
    
                  -b     Brief:   don't  display continuation lines (i.e. indented
                         lines following the line with the  date/time),  just  the
                         first line.
    
                  -B lines
                         Brief:  display at most the first lines lines of the cal-
                         endar entry.  `-B 1' is equivalent to `-b'.
    
                  -C calfile
                         Explicitly specify a calendar file instead of  the  value
                         of the calendar-file style or the default ~/calendar.
    
                  -d     Move  any  events that have passed from the calendar file
                         to the "done" file, as given by the  done-file  style  or
                         the  default  which  is  the  calendar  file  with  .done
                         appended.  This option is implied by the -s option.
    
                  -D     Turns off the option -d, even if the -s  option  is  also
                         present.
    
                  -n num, -num
                         Show  at  least  num  events,  if present in the calendar
                         file, regardless of the start and end.
    
                  -r     Show all the remaining options in the calendar,  ignoring
                         the  given  end  time.   The start time is respected; any
                         argument given is treated as a start time.
    
                  -s     Use the shell's sched command to schedule a  timed  event
                         that  will warn the user when an event is due.  Note that
                         the sched command only runs if the shell is at an  inter-
                         active  prompt;  a  foreground  task blocks the scheduled
                         task from running until it is finished.
    
                         The timed event usually runs the programme  calendar_show
                         to  show  the  event, as described in the section UTILITY
                         FUNCTIONS below.
    
                         By default, a warning of the event is shown five  minutes
                         before  it  is due.  The warning period can be configured
                         by the style warn-time or for a single calendar entry  by
                         including  WARN  reltime  in the first line of the entry,
                         where reltime is one of the usual relative time formats.
    
                         A repeated event may be indicated by including  RPT  rel-
                         date in the first line of the entry.  After the scheduled
                         event has been displayed it will be re-entered  into  the
                         calendar file at a time reldate after the existing event.
                         Note that this is currently the  only  use  made  of  the
                         repeat  count,  so  that  it is not possible to query the
                         schedule for a recurrence of an  event  in  the  calendar
                         until the previous event has passed.
    
                         If  RPT is used, it is also possible to specify that cer-
                         tain recurrences of an  event  are  rescheduled  or  can-
                         celled.   This  is done with the OCCURRENCE keyword, fol-
                         lowed by whitespace and the date and time of  the  occur-
                         rence in the regular sequence, followed by whitespace and
                         either the date and time of the rescheduled event or  the
                         exact  string  CANCELLED.  In this case the date and time
                         must be in exactly the "date with local time" format used
                         by    the    text/calendar    MIME   type   (RFC   2445),
                         <YYYY><MM><DD>T<hh><mm><ss> (note  the  presence  of  the
                         literal character T).  The first word (the regular recur-
                         rence) may be something other than a proper date/time  to
                         indicate  that  the  event  is  additional  to the normal
                         sequence;  a  convention  that  retains  the   formatting
                         appearance is XXXXXXXXTXXXXXX.
    
                         Furthermore,  it  is  useful  to  record the next regular
                         recurrence (as then the  displayed  date  may  be  for  a
                         rescheduled  event  so cannot be used for calculating the
                         regular sequence).  This is specified by RECURRENCE and a
                         time  or date in the same format.  calendar_add adds such
                         an indication when it encounters a recurring  event  that
                         does not include one, based on the headline date/time.
    
                         If  calendar_add  is  used  to update occurrences the UID
                         keyword described there should be  present  in  both  the
                         existing entry and the added occurrence in order to iden-
                         tify recurring event sequences.
    
                         For example,
    
                                Thu May 6, 2010 11:00 Informal chat RPT 1 week
                                  # RECURRENCE 20100506T110000
                                  # OCCURRENCE 20100513T110000 20100513T120000
                                  # OCCURRENCE 20100520T110000 CANCELLED
    
                         The event that occurs  at  11:00  on  13th  May  2010  is
                         rescheduled  an hour later.  The event that occurs a week
                         later is cancelled.  The occurrences are given on a  con-
                         tinuation  line  starting  with a # character so will not
                         usually be displayed as part of the event.  As elsewhere,
                         no  account  of time zones is taken with the times. After
                         the next event occurs the headline date/time will be `Thu
                         May  13,  2010 12:00' while the RECURRENCE date/time will
                         be  `20100513T110000'  (note  that  cancelled  and  moved
                         events  are not taken account of in the RECURRENCE, which
                         records what the next regular recurrence is, but they are
                         accounted for in the headline date/time).
    
                         It  is  safe to run calendar -s to reschedule an existing
                         event (if the calendar file has  changed,  for  example),
                         and also to have it running in multiples instances of the
                         shell since the calendar file is locked when in use.
    
                         By default, expired events are moved to the "done"  file;
                         see the -d option.  Use -D to prevent this.
    
                  -S showprog
                         Explicitly  specify  a  programme  to be used for showing
                         events instead of the value of the show-prog style or the
                         default calendar_show.
    
                  -v     Verbose:   show more information about stages of process-
                         ing.  This is useful for confirming that the function has
                         successfully parsed the dates in the calendar file.
    
           calendar_add [ -BL ] event ...
                  Adds a single event to the calendar in the appropriate location.
                  The event can contain multiple lines, as described in  the  sec-
                  tion  Calendar  File  Format above.  Using this function ensures
                  that the calendar file is sorted in date  and  time  order.   It
                  also makes special arrangements for locking the file while it is
                  altered.  The old calendar is left in a  file  with  the  suffix
                  .old.
    
                  The  option  -B indicates that backing up the calendar file will
                  be handled by the caller and should not be performed  by  calen-
                  dar_add.   The  option  -L  indicates that calendar_add does not
                  need to lock the calendar file as it is already  locked.   These
                  options will not usually be needed by users.
    
                  If the style reformat-date is true, the date and time of the new
                  entry will be rewritten into the standard date format:  see  the
                  descriptions of this style and the style date-format.
    
                  The  function can use a unique identifier stored with each event
                  to ensure that updates to existing events are treated correctly.
                  The  entry  should contain the word UID, followed by whitespace,
                  followed by a word consisting entirely of hexadecimal digits  of
                  arbitrary  length (all digits are significant, including leading
                  zeroes).  As the UID is not directly useful to the user,  it  is
                  convenient  to hide it on an indented continuation line starting
                  with a #, for example:
    
                         Aug 31, 2007 09:30  Celebrate the end of the holidays
                           # UID 045B78A0
    
                  The second line will not be shown by the calendar function.
    
                  It is possible to specify the RPT keyword followed by  CANCELLED
                  instead  of  a  relative time.  This causes any matched event or
                  series of events to be cancelled (the original  event  does  not
                  have  to be marked as recurring in order to be cancelled by this
                  method).  A UID is required in order to match an existing  event
                  in the calendar.
    
                  calendar_add  will attempt to manage recurrences and occurrences
                  of repeating events as described for event scheduling by  calen-
                  dar  -s  above.   To  reschedule or cancel a single event calen-
                  dar_add should be called with an entry that includes the correct
                  UID  but  does  not  include the RPT keyword as this is taken to
                  mean the entry applies to a series of repeating events and hence
                  replaces  all  existing  information.   Each rescheduled or can-
                  celled occurrence must have an OCCURRENCE keyword in  the  entry
                  passed  to  calendar_add  which will be merged into the calendar
                  file.  Any existing reference to the occurrence is replaced.  An
                  occurrence  that  does  not  refer  to a valid existing event is
                  added as a one-off occurrence to the same calendar entry.
    
           calendar_edit
                  This calls the user's editor to  edit  the  calendar  file.   If
                  there  are  arguments,  they are taken as the editor to use (the
                  file name is appended to the commands); otherwise, the editor is
                  given by the variable VISUAL, if set, else the variable EDITOR.
    
                  If  the  calendar  scheduler was running, then after editing the
                  file calendar -s is called to update it.
    
                  This function locks out the calendar  system  during  the  edit.
                  Hence  it  should  be used to edit the calendar file if there is
                  any possibility of a calendar event occurring  meanwhile.   Note
                  this  can  lead to another shell with calendar functions enabled
                  hanging waiting for a lock, so it is necessary to quit the  edi-
                  tor as soon as possible.
    
           calendar_parse calendar-entry
                  This  is the internal function that analyses the parts of a cal-
                  endar entry, which is passed as the only argument.  The function
                  returns status 1 if the argument could not be parsed as a calen-
                  dar entry and status 2 if the wrong  number  of  arguments  were
                  passed; it also sets the parameter reply to an empty associative
                  array.  Otherwise, it returns status 0 and sets elements of  the
                  associative array reply as follows:
    
                  time   The  time  as  a  string  of  digits in the same units as
                         $EPOCHSECONDS
                  schedtime
                         The regularly scheduled time.  This may differ  from  the
                         actual  event  time time if this is a recurring event and
                         the next occurrence  has  been  rescheduled.   Then  time
                         gives the actual time and schedtime the time of the regu-
                         lar recurrence before modification.
                  text1  The text from the line not including the date and time of
                         the  event,  but  including  any WARN or RPT keywords and
                         values.
                  warntime
                         Any warning time given by the WARN keyword as a string of
                         digits  containing  the time at which to warn in the same
                         units as $EPOCHSECONDS.  (Note this is an absolute  time,
                         not the relative time passed down.)  Not set no WARN key-
                         word and value were matched.
                  warnstr
                         The raw string  matched  after  the  WARN  keyword,  else
                         unset.
                  rpttime
                         Any  recurrence time given by the RPT keyword as a string
                         of digits containing the time of the  recurrence  in  the
                         same  units  as $EPOCHSECONDS.  (Note this is an absolute
                         time.)  Not set if no RPT keyword and value were matched.
                  schedrpttime
                         The next regularly scheduled occurrence  of  a  recurring
                         event before modification.  This may differ from rpttime,
                         which is the actual time of the event that may have  been
                         rescheduled from the regular time.
                  rptstr The raw string matched after the RPT keyword, else unset.
                  text2  The  text from the line after removal of the date and any
                         keywords and values.
    
           calendar_showdate [ -r ] [ -f fmt ] date-spec ...
                  The given date-spec is interpreted and  the  corresponding  date
                  and time printed.  If the initial date-spec begins with a + or -
                  it is treated as relative to the current time; date-specs  after
                  the  first are treated as relative to the date calculated so far
                  and a leading + is optional in that case.  This  allows  one  to
                  use  the  system  as  a  date  calculator.   For example, calen-
                  dar_showdate '+1 month, 1st Friday' shows the date of the  first
                  Friday of next month.
    
                  With  the option -r nothing is printed but the value of the date
                  and time in seconds since the epoch is stored in  the  parameter
                  REPLY.
    
                  With  the option -f fmt the given date/time conversion format is
                  passed to strftime; see notes on the date-format style below.
    
                  In order to avoid ambiguity with negative relative date specifi-
                  cations,  options  must occur in separate words; in other words,
                  -r and -f should not be combined in the same word.
    
           calendar_sort
                  Sorts the calendar file into date and  time  order.     The  old
                  calendar is left in a file with the suffix .old.
    
       Glob qualifiers
           The function age can be autoloaded and use separately from the calendar
           system, although it uses the function calendar_scandate for  date  for-
           matting.   It  requires the zsh/stat builtin, but uses only the builtin
           zstat.
    
           age selects files having a given modification time for use  as  a  glob
           qualifier.   The  format  of the date is the same as that understood by
           the calendar system, described in the section  FILE  AND  DATE  FORMATS
           above.
    
           The  function  can  take  one  or  two arguments, which can be supplied
           either directly as command or arguments, or separately as shell parame-
           ters.
    
                  print *(e:age 2006/10/04 2006/10/09:)
    
           The example above matches all files modified between the start of those
           dates.  The second argument may alternatively be a relative time intro-
           duced by a +:
    
                  print *(e:age 2006/10/04 +5d:)
    
           The example above is equivalent to the previous example.
    
           In  addition  to the special use of days of the week, today and yester-
           day, times with no date may be specified; these apply to today.   Obvi-
           ously such uses become problematic around midnight.
    
                  print *(e-age 12:00 13:30-)
    
           The example above shows files modified between 12:00 and 13:00 today.
    
                  print *(e:age 2006/10/04:)
    
           The example above matches all files modified on that date.  If the sec-
           ond argument is omitted it is taken to be exactly 24  hours  after  the
           first argument (even if the first argument contains a time).
    
                  print *(e-age 2006/10/04:10:15 2006/10/04:10:45-)
    
           The example above supplies times.  Note that whitespace within the time
           and date specification must be quoted to ensure age receives  the  cor-
           rect  arguments,  hence the use of the additional colon to separate the
           date and time.
    
                  AGEREF=2006/10/04:10:15
                  AGEREF2=2006/10/04:10:45
                  print *(+age)
    
           This shows the same example before using another form of argument pass-
           ing.   The dates and times in the parameters AGEREF and AGEREF2 stay in
           effect until unset, but will be overridden if any argument is passed as
           an explicit argument to age.  Any explicit argument causes both parame-
           ters to be ignored.
    
           Instead of an explicit date and time, it's possible to use the  modifi-
           cation  time  of  a  file  as  the date and time for either argument by
           introducing the file name with a colon:
    
                  print *(e-age :file1-)
    
           matches all files created on the same day (24 hours starting from  mid-
           night) as file1.
    
                  print *(e-age :file1 :file2-)
    
           matches  all  files  modified  no  earlier than file1 and no later than
           file2; precision here is to the nearest second.
    
    STYLES
           The zsh style mechanism using the zstyle command is describe in zshmod-
           ules(1).  This is the same mechanism used in the completion system.
    
           The  styles  below are all examined in the context :datetime:function:,
           for example :datetime:calendar:.
    
           calendar-file
                  The location of the main calendar.  The default is ~/calendar.
    
           date-format
                  A strftime format string (see strftime(3)) with the  zsh  exten-
                  sions providing various numbers with no leading zero or space if
                  the number is a single digit as  described  for  the  %D{string}
                  prompt  format  in  the section EXPANSION OF PROMPT SEQUENCES in
                  zshmisc(1).
    
                  This is used for outputting dates in calendar, both  to  support
                  the  -v option and when adding recurring events back to the cal-
                  endar file, and in calendar_showdate as the final output format.
    
                  If the style is not set, the default used is similar  the  stan-
                  dard  system format as output by the date command (also known as
                  `ctime format'): `%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y'.
    
           done-file
                  The location of the file to which events which have  passed  are
                  appended.   The  default  is the calendar file location with the
                  suffix .done.  The style may be set to an empty string in  which
                  case a "done" file will not be maintained.
    
           reformat-date
                  Boolean, used by calendar_add.  If it is true, the date and time
                  of new entries added to the calendar will be reformatted to  the
                  format  given by the style date-format or its default.  Only the
                  date and time of the event itself is reformatted; any subsidiary
                  dates and times such as those associated with repeat and warning
                  times are left alone.
    
           show-prog
                  The programme run by calendar for showing events.   It  will  be
                  passed  the  start time and stop time of the events requested in
                  seconds since the epoch followed by the event text.   Note  that
                  calendar -s uses a start time and stop time equal to one another
                  to indicate alerts for specific events.
    
                  The default is the function calendar_show.
    
           warn-time
                  The time before an event at which a warning will  be  displayed,
                  if  the  first line of the event does not include the text EVENT
                  reltime.  The default is 5 minutes.
    
    UTILITY FUNCTIONS
           calendar_lockfiles
                  Attempt to lock the files given in  the  argument.   To  prevent
                  problems  with  network  file  locking this is done in an ad hoc
                  fashion by attempting to create a symbolic link to the file with
                  the  name  file.lockfile.   No  other system level functions are
                  used for locking, i.e. the file can be accessed and modified  by
                  any  utility  that  does not use this mechanism.  In particular,
                  the user is not prevented from editing the calendar file at  the
                  same time unless calendar_edit is used.
    
                  Three  attempts  are made to lock the file before giving up.  If
                  the module zsh/zselect is available, the times of  the  attempts
                  are  jittered so that multiple instances of the calling function
                  are unlikely to retry at the same time.
    
                  The files locked are appended  to  the  array  lockfiles,  which
                  should be local to the caller.
    
                  If  all files were successfully locked, status zero is returned,
                  else status one.
    
                  This function may be used as a general  file  locking  function,
                  although  this  will only work if only this mechanism is used to
                  lock files.
    
           calendar_read
                  This is a backend used by various other functions to  parse  the
                  calendar  file, which is passed as the only argument.  The array
                  calendar_entries is set to the list of events in  the  file;  no
                  pruning  is  done  except  that  ampersands are removed from the
                  start of the line.  Each entry may contain multiple lines.
    
           calendar_scandate
                  This is a generic function to parse dates and times that may  be
                  used  separately  from  the  calendar system.  The argument is a
                  date or time specification as described in the section FILE  AND
                  DATE FORMATS above.  The parameter REPLY is set to the number of
                  seconds since the epoch corresponding to that date or time.   By
                  default,  the  date and time may occur anywhere within the given
                  argument.
    
                  Returns status zero if  the  date  and  time  were  successfully
                  parsed, else one.
    
                  Options:
                  -a     The  date and time are anchored to the start of the argu-
                         ment; they will not be  matched  if  there  is  preceding
                         text.
    
                  -A     The  date and time are anchored to both the start and end
                         of the argument; they will not be matched if the  is  any
                         other text in the argument.
    
                  -d     Enable additional debugging output.
    
                  -m     Minus.   When  -R  anchor_time is also given the relative
                         time is calculated backwards from anchor_time.
    
                  -r     The argument passed is to be parsed as a relative time.
    
                  -R anchor_time
                         The argument passed is to be parsed as a  relative  time.
                         The  time  is  relative to anchor_time, a time in seconds
                         since the epoch, and the returned value is  the  absolute
                         time  corresponding to advancing anchor_time by the rela-
                         tive time given.  This allows lengths  of  months  to  be
                         correctly  taken into account.  If the final day does not
                         exist in the given month, the last day of the final month
                         is given.  For example, if the anchor time is during 31st
                         January 2007 and the relative time is 1 month, the  final
                         time is the same time of day during 28th February 2007.
    
                  -s     In addition to setting REPLY, set REPLY2 to the remainder
                         of the  argument  after  the  date  and  time  have  been
                         stripped.  This is empty if the option -A was given.
    
                  -t     Allow  a  time  with  no date specification.  The date is
                         assumed to be today.  The behaviour is unspecified if the
                         iron tongue of midnight is tolling twelve.
    
           calendar_show
                  The  function  used  by default to display events.  It accepts a
                  start time and end time for events, both in epoch  seconds,  and
                  an event description.
    
                  The  event is always printed to standard output.  If the command
                  line editor is active (which will usually be the case) the  com-
                  mand line will be redisplayed after the output.
    
                  If  the parameter DISPLAY is set and the start and end times are
                  the same (indicating a scheduled event), the function  uses  the
                  command xmessage to display a window with the event details.
    
    BUGS
           As  the system is based entirely on shell functions (with a little sup-
           port from the zsh/datetime module)  the  mechanisms  used  are  not  as
           robust as those provided by a dedicated calendar utility.  Consequently
           the user should not rely on the shell for vital alerts.
    
           There is no calendar_delete function.
    
           There is no localization support for dates and times, nor  any  support
           for the use of time zones.
    
           Relative periods of months and years do not take into account the vari-
           able number of days.
    
           The calendar_show function is currently hardwired to use  xmessage  for
           displaying  alerts on X Window System displays.  This should be config-
           urable and ideally integrate better with the desktop.
    
           calendar_lockfiles hangs the shell while waiting for a lock on a  file.
           If called from a scheduled task, it should instead reschedule the event
           that caused it.
    
    
    
    ATTRIBUTES
           See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
    
    
           +---------------+------------------+
           |ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE  |
           +---------------+------------------+
           |Availability   | shell/zsh        |
           +---------------+------------------+
           |Stability      | Volatile         |
           +---------------+------------------+
    NOTES
           This    software    was    built    from    source     available     at
           https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland.    The  original  community
           source     was      downloaded      from       http://downloads.source-
           forge.net/project/zsh/zsh/5.0.7/zsh-5.0.7.tar.bz2
    
           Further information about this software can be found on the open source
           community website at http://www.zsh.org/.
    
    
    
    zsh 5.0.7                       October 7, 2014                   ZSHCALSYS(1)
    


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