Comments on: Unix cal command: a key part of my calendaring solution

By: J-L

J-L — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:14:46 +0000

I love the Unix “cal” command. It’s so convenient when I want to check what day of the week a specific day falls on. (I wish there was a Windows equivalent that was just as easy to use.)

Recently I learned how to mentally calculate the day of the week for any date since 1800. When I come across a date in a book or article I’m reading, I like to figure out the day of the week it falls on, and then use the “cal” command to check my answer.

(Incidentally, I use John Conway’s “Doomsday Rule” to mentally calculate the day of the week of any given date. If you’re interested in checking it out, you can look up “Doomsday Rule” on Wikipedia.)

By: Lisa Harrold

Lisa Harrold — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:44:46 +0000

Why in AIX does my cal 2007 command only give me my calendar with 2 months across instead of 3. I want it 3 months across. Can anyone help?

By: Patrick Logan

Patrick Logan — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:42:46 +0000

Another useful one I use in Ubuntu or it just comes with gnome I think…

zenity –calendar

pops up a calendar for the current month but you can click around by month and by year.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:21:50 +0000

I do it all the time!

By: swisswuff

swisswuff — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 06:10:31 +0000

I run GeekTool on OS X. This allows me to run the output of terminal commands as part of the “desktop background”. Also, I disabled all Finder Icons on the desktop background using a utility called “Cocktail”. You can then have some logs to always run on your desktop, and also the output of “cal -y”. I would like to use a more modern version that also has the -m option (my weeks start on Monday), and Apple only includes an 1994 version of the cal command.

By: Heiko Liebfried

Heiko Liebfried — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:10:10 +0000

Cal is very useful. I like it too.
If you need a cli program for dates and appointments
you can use ‘when’. Perhaps now you don’t need separate paper calendars anymore.

http://www.lightandmatter.com/when/when.html

Another program i can recommend is DevTodo.
It has nothing to do with calendars, but i find it extremly useful.

Think of you have to clean up a directory.
When you enter it – DevTodo can remember you to do it!
It saves directory dependent todo lists.

http://swapoff.org/DevTodo

By: Tim Converse

Tim Converse — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 18:21:19 +0000

Wayne – if you’re literally typing ‘cal 07′, then you’re looking at the calendar for 7 A.D.

By: Tim Converse

Tim Converse — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 18:18:10 +0000

Yes, guilty too.

One of the nice things about the Mac’s transformation to Unix under the hood is that it now comes with cal support built in!

By: Beach

Beach — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:16:56 +0000

Hey Chad,

I have this calendar concept rolling around in my head… I’ve been talking with bradley and a ton of others about it. I’d like to run it by you when you have a moment, I’ll ping ya soon.

By: Wayne Goldsmith

Wayne Goldsmith — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 21:22:11 +0000

I didn’t know the cal command even existed… Never done much in Unix. That’s one reason I read other people’s blogs on a regualr basis!

Works great in OS X terminal. I noticed that to view 2006 data you need to say cal 07… I had to type cal 06 twice to realize i was looking at ’05 data. This of course makes sense but it did surprise me the first time.