1CAL(1)                           User Commands                          CAL(1)
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NAME

6       cal - display a calendar
7

SYNOPSIS

9       cal [options] [[[day] month] year]
10       cal [options] [timestamp|monthname]
11

DESCRIPTION

13       cal  displays  a  simple  calendar.  If no arguments are specified, the
14       current month is displayed.
15
16       The month may be specified as a number (1-12), as a month name or as an
17       abbreviated month name according to the current locales.
18
19       Two  different  calendar systems are used, Gregorian and Julian.  These
20       are nearly identical systems with Gregorian making a  small  adjustment
21       to  the frequency of leap years; this facilitates improved synchroniza‐
22       tion with solar events like  the  equinoxes.   The  Gregorian  calendar
23       reform  was  introduced in 1582, but its adoption continued up to 1923.
24       By default cal uses the adoption date of 3 Sept 1752.  From  that  date
25       forward  the  Gregorian  calendar  is displayed; previous dates use the
26       Julian calendar system.  11 days were removed at the time  of  adoption
27       to  bring  the  calendar in sync with solar events.  So Sept 1752 has a
28       mix of Julian and Gregorian dates by which the 2nd is followed  by  the
29       14th (the 3rd through the 13th are absent).
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31       Optionally,  either the proleptic Gregorian calendar or the Julian cal‐
32       endar may be used exclusively.  See --reform below.
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OPTIONS

35       -1, --one
36              Display single month output.  (This is the default.)
37
38       -3, --three
39              Display three months spanning the date.
40
41       -n , --months number
42              Display number of months, starting from the month containing the
43              date.
44
45       -S, --span
46              Display months spanning the date.
47
48       -s, --sunday
49              Display Sunday as the first day of the week.
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51       -m, --monday
52              Display Monday as the first day of the week.
53
54       --iso  Display    the   proleptic   Gregorian   calendar   exclusively.
55              See --reform below.
56
57       -j, --julian
58              Use day-of-year numbering for all  calendars.   These  are  also
59              called  ordinal  days.   Ordinal days range from 1 to 366.  This
60              option does not switch from the Gregorian to the Julian calendar
61              system, that is controlled by the --reform option.
62
63              Sometimes  Gregorian  calendars using ordinal dates are referred
64              to as Julian calendars.  This can be confusing due to  the  many
65              date  related  conventions that use Julian in their name: (ordi‐
66              nal) julian date, julian (calendar) date, (astronomical)  julian
67              date,  (modified)  julian  date, and more.  This option is named
68              julian, because ordinal days are identified  as  julian  by  the
69              POSIX standard.  However, be aware that cal also uses the Julian
70              calendar system.  See DESCRIPTION above.
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72       --reform val
73              This option sets the adoption date  of  the  Gregorian  calendar
74              reform.  Calendar dates previous to reform use the Julian calen‐
75              dar system.  Calendar dates after reform use the Gregorian  cal‐
76              endar system.  The argument val can be:
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78              · 1752  -  sets  3  September 1752 as the reform date (default).
79                This is when the Gregorian calendar reform was adopted by  the
80                British Empire.
81
82              · gregorian  -  display  Gregorian  calendars exclusively.  This
83                special placeholder sets the reform date  below  the  smallest
84                year  that  cal  can use; meaning all calendar output uses the
85                Gregorian calendar system.  This is called the proleptic  Gre‐
86                gorian  calendar, because dates prior to the calendar system's
87                creation use extrapolated values.
88
89              · iso - alias of gregorian.  The ISO 8601 standard for the  rep‐
90                resentation  of  dates  and  times  in information interchange
91                requires using the proleptic Gregorian calendar.
92
93              · julian - display Julian calendars exclusively.   This  special
94                placeholder  sets  the reform date above the largest year that
95                cal can use; meaning all calendar output uses the Julian  cal‐
96                endar system.
97
98              See DESCRIPTION above.
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100       -y, --year
101              Display a calendar for the whole year.
102
103       -Y, --twelve
104              Display a calendar for the next twelve months.
105
106       -w, --week[=number]
107              Display week numbers in the calendar (US or ISO-8601).
108
109       --color[=when]
110              Colorize  the  output.   The optional argument when can be auto,
111              never or always.  If the when argument is omitted,  it  defaults
112              to  auto.   The colors can be disabled; for the current built-in
113              default see the --help output.  See also the COLORS section.
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115       -V, --version
116              Display version information and exit.
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118       -h, --help
119              Display help text and exit.
120

PARAMETERS

122       Single digits-only parameter (e.g. 'cal 2020')
123              Specifies the year to be displayed; note the year must be  fully
124              specified: cal 89 will not display a calendar for 1989.
125
126       Single string parameter (e.g. 'cal tomorrow' or 'cal August')
127              Specifies  timestamp  or  a  month  name  (or  abbreviated name)
128              according to the current locales.
129
130              The special placeholders are accepted  when  parsing  timestamp,
131              "now"  may  be used to refer to the current time, "today", "yes‐
132              terday", "tomorrow" refer to of the current day, the day  before
133              or the next day, respectively.
134
135              The relative date specifications are also accepted, in this case
136              "+" is evaluated to the current time  plus  the  specified  time
137              span.  Correspondingly, a time span that is prefixed with "-" is
138              evaluated to the current time minus the specified time span, for
139              example '+2days'. Instead of prefixing the time span with "+" or
140              "-", it may also be suffixed with a space and the word "left" or
141              "ago" (for example '1 week ago').
142
143       Two parameters (e.g. 'cal 11 2020')
144              Denote the month (1 - 12) and year.
145
146       Three parameters (e.g. 'cal 25 11 2020')
147              Denote the day (1-31), month and year, and the day will be high‐
148              lighted if the calendar is  displayed  on  a  terminal.   If  no
149              parameters  are  specified, the current month's calendar is dis‐
150              played.
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NOTES

153       A year starts on January 1.  The first day of the week is determined by
154       the locale or the --sunday and --monday options.
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156       The  week numbering depends on the choice of the first day of the week.
157       If it is Sunday then the customary North American  numbering  is  used,
158       where 1 January is in week number 1.  If it is Monday then the ISO 8601
159       standard week numbering is used, where the first Thursday  is  in  week
160       number 1.
161

COLORS

163       Implicit coloring can be disabled as follows:
164
165              touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/cal.disable
166
167       See terminal-colors.d(5) for more details about colorization configura‐
168       tion.
169

BUGS

171       The default cal output uses 3 September 1752 as the Gregorian  calendar
172       reform  date.   The  historical  reform   dates  for the other locales,
173       including its introduction in October 1582, are not implemented.
174
175       Alternative calendars, such as the Umm al-Qura, the  Solar  Hijri,  the
176       Ge'ez, or the lunisolar Hindu, are not supported.
177

HISTORY

179       A cal command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
180

AVAILABILITY

182       The cal command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
183       https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
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187util-linux                       January 2018                           CAL(1)
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