NAME

       ddate - convert Gregorian dates to Discordian dates

SYNOPSIS

       ddate [+format] [date]

DESCRIPTION

       ddate prints the date in Discordian date format.

       If  called  with no arguments, ddate will get the current system date, convert this to the
       Discordian date format and print this on the standard output. Alternatively,  a  Gregorian
       date may be specified on the command line, in the form of a numerical day, month and year.

       If a format string is specified, the Discordian date will be printed in a format specified
       by the string. This mechanism works similarly to the format string mechanism  of  date(1),
       only almost completely differently. The fields are:

       %A     Full name of the day of the week (i.e., Sweetmorn)

       %a     Abbreviated name of the day of the week (i.e., SM)

       %B     Full name of the season (i.e., Chaos)

       %b     Abbreviated name of the season (i.e., Chs)

       %d     Ordinal number of day in season (i.e., 23)

       %e     Cardinal number of day in season (i.e., 23rd)

       %H     Name of current Holyday, if any

       %N     Magic code to prevent rest of format from being printed unless today is a Holyday.

       %n     Newline

       %t     Tab

       %X     Number  of  days remaining until X-Day. (Not valid if the SubGenius options are not
              compiled in.)

       %{

       %}     Used to enclose the part of the string which is to be replaced with the words  "St.
              Tib's Day" if the current day is St. Tib's Day.

       %.     Try it and see.

EXAMPLES

       % ddate
       Sweetmorn, Bureaucracy 42, 3161 YOLD

       % ddate +'Today is %{%A, the %e of %B%}, %Y. %N%nCelebrate %H'
       Today is Sweetmorn, the 42nd of Bureaucracy, 3161.

       % ddate +"It's %{%A, the %e of %B%}, %Y. %N%nCelebrate %H" 26 9 1995
       It's Prickle-Prickle, the 50th of Bureaucracy, 3161.
       Celebrate Bureflux

       % ddate +"Today's %{%A, the %e of %B%}, %Y. %N%nCelebrate %H" 29 2 1996
       Today's St. Tib's Day, 3162.

BUGS

       ddate(1)  will  produce  undefined behavior if asked to produce the date for St. Tib's day
       and its format string does not contain the St. Tib's Day delimiters %{ and %}.

NOTE

       After `X-Day' passed without incident, the Church of the SubGenius declared  that  it  had
       got  the  year  upside down - X-Day is actually in 8661 AD rather than 1998 AD.  Thus, the
       True X-Day is Cfn 40, 9827.

AUTHOR

       Original program by Druel the Chaotic aka Jeremy Johnson (mpython@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
       Major rewrite by Lee H:. O:. Smith, KYTP, aka Andrew Bulhak (acb@dev.null.org)
       Five tons of flax.

DISTRIBUTION POLICY

       Public domain. All rites reversed.

SEE ALSO

       date(1),
       http://www.subgenius.com/
       Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Or How I Found Goddess And What I Did To  Her
       When I Found Her

AVAILABILITY

       The   ddate   command   is   part   of  the  util-linux  package  and  is  available  from
       ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.