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 details). 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 (usually 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 ignored. Lines
       beginning with an ampersand, `&',  are  directives.  Currently  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 deprecated), 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 exploded 3 years ago tomorrow given a
              line such as Pen exploded=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 displayed 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 construed 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)