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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  functions	age, before and	after are provided that	can be
       used in a glob qualifier; they allow 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  as-
       sumed 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.

             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.

             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  de-
       scription.   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 (white-
       space, 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:

             HH:MM[:SS[.FFFFF]] [am|pm|a.m.|p.m.]

             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  ab-
       solute  times  (the  normal format require by the calendar file and the
       age, before and after functions)	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 un-
       usual.  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:

             YYYY/MM/DD

             YYYY-MM-DD

             YYYY/MNM/DD

             YYYY-MNM-DD

             DD[th|st|rd] MNM[,] [ YYYY ]

             MNM DD[th|st|rd][,] [ YYYY ]

             DD[th|st|rd]/MM[,] YYYY

             DD[th|st|rd]/MM/YYYY

             MM/DD[th|st|rd][,] YYYY

             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  al-
       lowed;  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  im-
       plicit).	  When examining calendar files, the scheduled event being ex-
       amined 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  un-
	      less 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 as-
       sumed 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  di-
       rectly  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 to-
	      day  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  as-
	      sumed  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 ap-
		     pended.  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 ar-
		     gument 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 re-
		     peat count, so that it  is	 not  possible	to  query  the
		     schedule for a recurrence of an event in the calendar un-
		     til 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  se-
		     quence;  a	convention that	retains	the formatting appear-
		     ance is XXXXXXXXTXXXXXX.

		     Furthermore, it is	useful to record the next regular  re-
		     currence  (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 ex-
		     isting 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  un-
		     set.
	      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
       age    The function age can be autoloaded and use separately  from  the
	      calendar system, although	it uses	the function calendar_scandate
	      for date formatting.  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  un-
	      derstood	by  the	calendar system, described in the section FILE
	      AND DATE FORMATS above.

	      The function can take one	or two arguments, which	 can  be  sup-
	      plied  either directly as	command	or arguments, or separately as
	      shell parameters.

		     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 rel-
	      ative time introduced 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
	      yesterday, times with no date may	be specified; these  apply  to
	      today.  Obviously	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  second  argument  is	 omitted  it is	taken to be exactly 24
	      hours after the first argument (even if the first	argument  con-
	      tains 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 re-
	      ceives the correct 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 argu-
	      ment passing.  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  ex-
	      plicit argument causes both parameters to	be ignored.

	      Instead  of  an explicit date and	time, it's possible to use the
	      modification time	of a file as the date and time for either  ar-
	      gument by	introducing the	file name with a colon:

		     print *(e-age :file1-)

	      matches  all  files  created  on the same	day (24	hours starting
	      from midnight) 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.

       after
       before The  functions after and before are simpler versions of age that
	      take just	one argument.  The argument is parsed similarly	to  an
	      argument	of age;	if it is not given the variable	AGEREF is con-
	      sulted.  As the names of the functions suggest, a	 file  matches
	      if  its  modification  time is after or before the time and date
	      specified.  If a time only is given the date is today.

	      The two following	examples are therefore equivalent:
		     print *(e-after 12:00-)
		     print *(e-after today:12:00-)

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 as-
		     sumed 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  ro-
       bust  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.

zsh 5.9				 May 14, 2022			  ZSHCALSYS(1)

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