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birthday(1)		    General Commands Manual		   birthday(1)

NAME
       birthday	- warn about upcoming birthdays	and other events

SYNOPSIS
       birthday	[-w|-c]	[-f  file]  [-W	defwarn] [-M maxwarn] [-m minwarn] [-l
       lines] [-p weeks] [-d total] [-i	width]

DESCRIPTION
       The birthday command reads a file, by default ~/.birthdays, which gives
       a list of events	in the near future (see	section	FILE  FORMAT  for  de-
       tails). It can then produce either a list of events which are coming up
       within  the  next  few weeks, or	a text-based calendar with a few lines
       for each	day.

OPTIONS
       -w     Display a	list of	upcoming events. This is the default.

       -c     Display a	calendar, designed to be piped to lpr(1).

       -f file
	      Read the events from file	rather than ~/.birthdays.  If file  is
	      a	 single	 hyphen, read the events from the standard input (usu-
	      ally the terminal).

   List	Options
       -W warn
	      Warn warn	days in	advance, for entries that have no w flag  (see
	      FILE FORMAT).   If  this switch is not specified,	it defaults to
	      21 days.

       -M max Warn at most max days in advance.	This overrides any flag	 given
	      in the file.

       -m min Warn at least min	days in	advance. This overrides	any flag given
	      in the file.

   Calendar Options
       -l lines
	      Print lines lines	for every day.

       -p weeks
	      Print  weeks  weeks  on every page of the	calendar. If set to 0,
	      the default, disables page breaks.

       -d days
	      Print the	calendar for up	to days	days in	advance.

       -i width
	      Print the	calendar  width	 characters  wide.  This  affects  the
	      length  of the lines separating each day,	and the	point at which
	      events will be word-wrapped.

FILE FORMAT
       Each line beginning with	a hash sign, `#', is a comment and will	be ig-
       nored. Lines beginning with an ampersand,  `&',	are  directives.  Cur-
       rently  there is	only one such directive, &include file,	which reads in
       a seperate file from your .birthdays file.  file	should be  given  with
       an  absolute  path,  which should not use the tilde notation to specify
       your home directory.

       Any other line specifies	the name of a person or	event, followed	by  an
       equals  sign  and a date	(DD/MM,	DD/MM/YY or DD/MM/YYYY,	where the form
       DD/MM/YY	is assumed to give a date in the 20th century and is now  dep-
       recated), and finally some extra	options. These options are:

       bd     This  line  is  a	 birthday  (the	 default). The year, if	given,
	      should be	when the person	was  born.  A  line  designated	 as  a
	      birthday will produce output like	Erin has a birthday in 3 days'
	      time or Jemima is	3 in 2 weeks' time.

       ann    This  line  is an	anniversary. The year, if given, should	be the
	      year in which the	thing happened,	producing output like Pen  ex-
	      ploded  3	 years	ago  tomorrow  given  a	 line  such as Pen ex-
	      ploded=12/09/93 ann.

       ev     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 be  dis-
	      played  every year. The remaining	time is	simply appended	to the
	      text; for	instance, the input Easter=7/4/1996 ev would give rise
	      to the text Easter in 1 week's time.

       wn     Warn n days in advance of	the date, rather than the  default  of
	      21 days or the number given with the -W flag.

       todate The  event  lasts	until date, which should be in the same	format
	      as for the date of the event.

       fordays
	      The event	lasts for days days.

DATE SPECIFICATION
       The file	format documented here handles dates in	a couple  of  slightly
       non-standard  ways.   Firstly, the dates	are given in British format of
       DD/MM/YYYY, as opposed to the more normal US format MM/DD/YYYY.

       Secondly, dates with a two-digit	year are assumed to  be	 in  the  20th
       century	(19xx),	rather than taking the standard	convention of assuming
       all two-digit years less	than 70	are in the 21st	century.  This is  for
       reasons	of compatibility with older data files,	since many people have
       birthdays before	1970, and the program was written before I came	across
       the Y2K issues. :-(  You	should probably	avoid this format.

EXAMPLE
       Joe Blow=25/04/1974

FILES
       ~/.birthdays
	      Your default birthdays file.

SEE ALSO
       cal(1)

BUGS
       Both the	"features" in the DATE SPECIFICATION  section  could  be  con-
       strued as bugs, and are mostly present for backwards compatibility.

       The calendar mode should	be a seperate program.

       The program cannot warn more than one year in advance of	anything.

AUTHOR
       Andy Mortimer <andy.mortimer@zetnet.co.uk>

								   birthday(1)

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