scal

scal is a simple wrapper around cal tool, which is used for displaying calendars in the terminal (see man page of cal here).

scal can be used for displaying calendars for several months of a year (or different years). The description for the month(s)-year(s) is given as arguments to scal. For instance, scal jan feb 2015, jan feb 2016 shows the calendars for January and February of 2015 and 2016. scal understands expressions like "april next year" and "last month", for instance, scal next month will display next month's calendar. scal also doesn't care (well, most of the time) about the order you put the year and the numeric value for the month: both scal 1 2015 and scal 2015 1 will display the calendar for January 2015.

scal needs the command line utility cal and Ruby to run.

scal passes options of the form -o or --option to cal.

What follows is a list of examples to illustrate what you can do with scal.

Examples

We will assume that the current month - year is October - 2014.

• Use scal april 2014 or scal April 2014 or scal 4 2014 or scal apr 2014 or scal 2014 april ... to show the calendar for April 2014.

$ scal april 2014
     April 2014     
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
    1  2  3  4  5  6 
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13 
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 
28 29 30             

• Use scal 10 or scal october to show the calendar for October this year.

$ scal 10
    October 2014    
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
       1  2  3  4  5 
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12 
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 
27 28 29 30 31       

• You can actually write scal october current year or scal october this year to show the calendar for October this year.

$ scal october this year
    October 2014    
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
       1  2  3  4  5 
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12 
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 
27 28 29 30 31       

• Use scal next month to show, well, the calendar for the next month.

$ scal next month
    November 2014   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                1  2 
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9 
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 

• It is possible to see calendars for multiple months.

$ scal april june
    April 2014     
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
    1  2  3  4  5  6 
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13 
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 
28 29 30             
                     
     June 2014     
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                   1 
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8 
 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 
30                   

• Use a comma to separate different years.

$ scal april may june 2014, april may june 2015
    April 2014
     ...
     
    May 2014
     ...
     
    June 2014
     ...
     
    April 2015
     ...
     
    May 2015
     ...
     
    June 2015
     ...

Quirks (features?)

• Assuming it is October 2014 now, scal next month next year will show the calendar for November 2015, and scal last month next year will show September 2015.

$ scal next month next year
    November 2015   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                   1 
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8 
 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 
30

$ scal last month next year
   September 2015   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
    1  2  3  4  5  6 
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13 
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 
28 29 30     

• Both scal 2 2014 and scal 2014 2 show the calendar of February 2014, because 2014 must clearly represent the year here. How about scal 2 12 and scal 12 2? Well, in such cases (if there is ambiguity on whether a number represents a year or a month), if there are only two numbers, then the second number represents the year. So scal 12 2 shows the calendar for December 2 (year 2).

$ scal 12 2
     December 2     
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
             1  2  3 
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10 
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

• Note that when we use scal 13 2, 13 cannot be the representation of a month so it must be the year 13. scal 13 2 shows the calendar for February 13.

$ scal 13 2
     February 13    
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
       1  2  3  4  5 
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12 
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 
27 28

• If we have multiple numbers larger than 12, they all must represent years. But scal takes only the last one (in the order they are given) into consideration. So scal feb 2014 2015 2016 shows the calendar for February 2016 and scal feb 2015 2016 2014 shows the calendar for February 2014.

$ scal feb 2014 2015 2016
    February 2016   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7 
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14 
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 
29

$ scal feb 2015 2016 2014
    February 2014   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                1  2 
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9 
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 
24 25 26 27 28

• To see February of 2014, 2015, and 2016, you can use scal feb 2014, feb 2015, feb 2016.

$ scal feb 2014, feb 2015, feb 2016
    February 2014   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                1  2 
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9 
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 
24 25 26 27 28       
                     
    February 2015   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                   1 
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8 
 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 
23 24 25 26 27 28    
                     
    February 2016   
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7 
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14 
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 
29