.TH REMIND 1 "2024-04-02" "User Commands" "VERSION 04.03.06" .UC 4 .SH NAME remind \- a sophisticated reminder service .SH SYNOPSIS .B remind [\fIoptions\fR] \fIfilename\fR [\fIdate\fR] [\fI*rep\fR] [\fItime\fR] .SH DESCRIPTION \fBRemind\fR reads the supplied \fIfilename\fR and executes the commands found in it. The commands are used to issue reminders and alarms. Each reminder or alarm can consist of a message sent to standard output, or a program to be executed. .PP If \fIfilename\fR is specified as a single dash '-', then \fBRemind\fR takes its input from standard input. This also implicitly enables the \fB\-o\fR option, described below. .PP If \fIfilename\fR happens to be a directory rather than a plain file, then \fBRemind\fR reads all of the files in that directory that match the pattern "*.rem". The files are read in sorted order; the sort order may depend on your locale, but should match the sort order used by the shell to expand "*.rem". .PP \fBRemind\fR reads its files starting from the beginning to the end, or until it encounters a line whose sole content is "__EOF__" (without the quotes.) Anything after the __EOF__ marker is completely ignored. .SH OPTIONS \fBRemind\fR has a slew of options. If you're new to the program, ignore them for now and skip to the section "REMINDER FILES". .TP .B \-\-version The \fB\-\-version\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to print its version number to standard output and then exit. .TP .B \-n The \fB\-n\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to print the \fBnext\fR occurrence of each reminder in a simple calendar format. You can sort this by date by piping the output through \fBsort(1)\fR. Note that the \fB\-n\fR option causes any \fB\-g\fR option to be \fIignored\fR. .TP .B \-j\fR[\fIn\fR] Runs \fBRemind\fR in "purge" mode to get rid of expired reminders. See the section PURGE MODE for details. .TP .B \-r The \fB\-r\fR option disables \fBRUN\fR directives and the \fBshell()\fR function. .TP .B \-c\fI[flags]\fIn\fR The \fB\-c\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to produce a calendar that is sent to standard output. If you supply a number \fIn\fR, then a calendar will be generated for \fIn\fR months, starting with the current month. By default, a calendar for only the current month is produced. .RS .PP You can precede \fIn\fR (if any) with a set of flags. The flags are as follows: .TP .B '+' causes a calendar for \fIn\fR weeks to be produced. .TP .B 'a' causes \fBRemind\fR to display reminders on the calendar on the day they actually occur \fIas well as\fR on any preceding days specified by the reminder's \fIdelta\fR. This \fIalso\fR causes \fBRemind\fR to include text outside %"...%" sequences that would otherwise be removed (though the actual %" markers themselves are removed.) \"" Add comment to avoid Emacs highlighting problems .TP .B 'l' causes \fBRemind\fR to use VT100 line-drawing characters to draw the calendar. The characters are hard-coded and will only work on terminals that emulate the VT00 line-drawing character set. .TP .B 'u' is similar to 'l', but causes \fBRemind\fR to use UNICODE line-drawing characters to draw the calendar. The characters are hard-coded and will only work on terminals that are set to UTF-8 character encoding. This flag also enables the use of the UNICODE "left-to-right" mark that can fix up formatting problems with right-to-left languages in the calendar display. .TP .B 'c' causes \fBRemind\fR to use VT100 escape sequences to approximate SPECIAL COLOR reminders. Note that this flag is kept for backwards-compatibility; you should use the \fB\-@\fI[n][,m][,b]\fR command-line option instead. .RE .TP .B \-@\fR[\fIn\fR][,\fIm\fR][,\fIb\fR] Tells \fBRemind\fR to approximate SPECIAL COLOR and SHADE reminders using VT100 escape sequences. The approximation is (of necessity) very coarse, because the VT100 only has eight different color sequences, each with one of two brightnesses. A color component greater than 64 is considered "on", and if any of the three color components is greater than 128, the color is considered "bright". .RS .PP If you supply the optional numeric parameters, the have the following meanings: \fIn\fR=0 tells \fBRemind\fR to use the standard 16 VT100 colors. \fIn\fR=1 tells it to use an extended 256-color palette supported by many terminal emulators such as xterm. And \fIn\fR=2 tells it to use escape sequences that support true 24-bit colors, again supported by many terminal emulators such as xterm. .PP If the optional \fIm\fR parameter is supplied following a comma, then \fIm\fR=0 tells \fBRemind\fR that the terminal background is dark, and \fBRemind\fR will brighten up dark colors to make them visible. If \fIm\fR=1, then \fBRemind\fR assumes the terminal background is light and it will darken bright colors to make them visible. If \fIm\fR is specified as 2, then \fBRemind\fR does not perform any adjustments, and some reminders may be hard or impossible to see if the color is too close to the terminal background color. If you supply the letter \fBt\fR rather than a number, then Remind attempts to guess the background color of the terminal, \fIeven if\fR stdout is not a terminal. .PP On startup, if the standard output is a terminal, \fBRemind\fR attempts to determine if the terminal background is dark or light by sending a special escape sequence to determine the background color. The \fIm\fR parameter can override this check (or force it if \fIm\fR is given as \fBt\fR.) .PP If the optional \fIb\fR parameter is supplied following a comma, then \fIb=0\fR tells \fBRemind\fR to ignore SPECIAL SHADE reminders (the default) and \fIb=1\fR tells \fBRemind\fR to respect SPECIAL SHADE reminders by emitting VT100 escape codes to color the background of the calendar cell. Note that SHADE does not work well unless you are using the extended 256-color palette (\fIn\fR=1) or the true 24-bit colors (\fIn\fR=2). Note that for calendar cells that are shaded, the clamping mechanism described earlier for \fIm=0\fR or \fIm=1\fR is skipped; it is assumed that if you set \fIboth\fR the foreground color of a reminder and the background color of a cell, then you know what you are doing. .RE .TP .B \-w\fR\fIcol\fR[,\fIpad\fR[,\fIspc\fR]]] The \fB\-w\fR option specifies the output width, padding and spacing of the formatted calendar output. \fICol\fR specifies the number of columns in the output device. If \fIcol\fR is not specified, or is specified as 0, it defaults to the larger of 71 or the actual width of your terminal, or to 80 if standard output is not a terminal. If \fIcol\fR is specified as the letter \fBt\fR, then \fBRemind\fR attempts to get the width of the \fB/dev/tty\fR terminal device. This is useful, for example, if you pipe calendar output into \fBless\fR; even though standard output is a pipe, you want the calendar to be sized correctly for your terminal window: .RS .PP .nf remind -c -wt .reminders | less .fi .RE .RS .PP Note that the value of \fIcol\fR is also used to set the system variable $FormWidth, which is initialized to \fIcol\fR - 8. See "SYSTEM VARIABLES" for details. .PP \fIPad\fR specifies how many lines to use to "pad" empty calendar boxes. This defaults to 5. If you have many reminders on certain days that make your calendar too large to fit on a page, you can try reducing \fIpad\fR to make the empty boxes smaller. \fISpc\fR specifies how many blank lines to leave between the day number and the first reminder entry. It defaults to 1. .PP Any of \fIcol\fR, \fIpad\fR or \fIspc\fR can be omitted, providing you provide the correct number of commas. Don't use any spaces in the option. .RE .TP .B \-s\fR[\fBa\fR]\fIn\fR The \fB\-s\fR option is very similar to the \fB\-c\fR option, except that the output calendar is not formatted. It is listed in a "simple format" that can be used as input for more sophisticated calendar-drawing programs. If \fIn\fR starts with "+", then it is interpreted as a number of weeks. If you immediately follow the \fBs\fR with the letter \fBa\fR, then \fBRemind\fR displays reminders on the calendar on the day they actually occur \fIas well as\fR on any preceding days specified by the reminder's \fIdelta\fR. .TP .B \-p\fR[\fBa\fR][\fBp\fR][\fBp\fR][\fBq\fR]\fIn\fR The \fB\-p\fR option is very similar to the \fB\-s\fR option, except that the output contains additional information for use by the \fBRem2PS\fR program, which creates a PostScript calendar, and various other back-end programs. For this option, \fIn\fR cannot start with "+"; it must specify a number of months. The format of the \fB\-p\fR output is described in the \fBrem2ps(1)\fR man page. If you immediately follow the \fBp\fR with the letter \fBa\fR, then \fBRemind\fR displays reminders on the calendar on the day they actually occur \fIas well as\fR on any preceding days specified by the reminder's \fIdelta\fR. If you follow the \fBp\fR with another \fBp\fR, then \fBRemind\fR uses a more comprehensive JSON-based format rather than the "simple calendar" format. This format is also documented in the \fBrem2ps(1)\fR man page. Finally, if you use three p's, as in \fB\-ppp\fR, then \fBRemind\fR uses a pure JSON format, again documented in \fBrem2ps(1)\fR. If you include a \fBq\fR letter with this option, then the normal calendar-mode substitution filter is disabled and the %"...%" sequences are preserved in the output. .RS .PP Note that the \fB\-pp\fR or \fB\-ppp\fR options also enable the \fB\-l\fR option. .RE .TP .B \-l If you use the \-l option in conjunction with the \-p option, then \fBRemind\fR outputs additional information for back-end programs such as \fBrem2ps\fR. This additional information lets the back-end programs correlate a reminder with the source file and line number that produced it. .TP .B \-m The \fB\-m\fR option causes the \fB\-c\fR or \fB\-p\fR options to produce a calendar whose first column is Monday rather than Sunday. (This conforms to the international standard.) .TP .B \-v The \fB\-v\fR option makes the output of \fBRemind\fR slightly more verbose. Currently, this causes \fBRemind\fR to echo a bad line in case of an error, and to print a security message if a script tests the $RunOff system variable. .TP .B \-o The \fB\-o\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to ignore all \fBONCE\fR directives. .TP .B \-t The \fB\-t\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to trigger all non-expired reminders, regardless of the \fIdelta\fR supplied for each reminder. .TP .B \-t\fR\fIn\fR If you supply a number \fIn\fR after the \fB\-t\fR option, then \fBRemind\fR pretends that echo \fBREM\fR command has a delta of \+\+\fIn\fR, regardless of any existing delta. .TP .B \-tz\fR If you supply the letter \fBz\fR after the \fB\-t\fR option, then \fBRemind\fR sets all REM statements' deltas to zero, regardless of the value supplied in the REM statement itself. In effect, this disables all deltas of the form \fB\+\fIn\fR and \fB\+\+\fIn\fR. .TP .B \-tt\fR[\fIn\fR] The \fB-tt\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to assume a default delta of \fIn\fR minutes for all timed reminders. If \fB\-tt\fR is given with no \fIn\fR, a default delta of 5 minutes is used. .TP .B \-h The \fB\-h\fR option ("hush...") suppresses certain warning and information messages. In particular, if no reminders are triggered, this mode produces no output. .TP .B \-a The \fB\-a\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR not to immediately trigger timed reminders that trigger on the current day. It also causes \fBRemind\fR not to place timed reminders in a calendar. If you supply two or more \fB\-a\fR options, then \fBRemind\fR \fIwill\fR trigger timed reminders that are in the future, but will not trigger timed reminders whose time has passed. (Regardless of how many \fB\-a\fR options you supply, \fBRemind\fR will not include timed reminders in the calendar if at least one \fB\-a\fR option is used.) .TP \fB\-q\fR The \fB\-q\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR not to queue timed reminders for later execution. .TP \fB\-f\fR The \fB\-f\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to remain in the foreground when processing queued reminders, rather than forking off a background process to handle them. .TP .B \-e The \fB\-e\fR option diverts error messages (normally sent to the standard error stream) to the standard output stream. .TP .B \-d\fR\fIchars\fR The \fB-d\fR option enables certain debugging modes. The \fIchars\fR specify which modes to enable: .RS 2 .TP .B e Echo all input lines .TP .B x Trace all expression evaluation .TP .B t Display all trigger date computation .TP .B v Dump the variable table after execution of the reminder script .TP .B l Echo lines when displaying error messages .TP .B f Trace the reading of reminder files .TP .B s Upon exit, print the high-water mark of the operator and value stacks used for expression-parsing. This is unlikely to be useful unless you're intimately familiar with Remind's source code. .RE .TP \fB\-g\fR[\fBa|d\fR[\fBa|d\fR[\fBa|d\fR[\fBa|d\fR]]]] Normally, reminders are issued in the order in which they are encountered in the reminder script. The \fB\-g\fR option cause \fBRemind\fR to sort reminders by date and time prior to issuing them. The optional \fBa\fR and \fBd\fR characters specify the sort order (ascending or descending) for the date, time and priority fields. See the section "SORTING REMINDERS" for more information. Note that \fB\-g\fR is \fIignored\fR if you use the \fB\-n\fR option. .TP \fB\-b\fR[\fIn\fR] Set the time format for the calendar and simple-calendar outputs. \fIN\fR can range from 0 to 2, with the default 0. A value of 0 causes times to be inserted in 12-hour (am/pm) format. 1 causes times to be inserted in 24-hour format, and 2 inhibits the automatic insertion of times in the calendar output. .TP \fB\-x\fR[\fIn\fR] Sets the iteration limit for the \fBSATISFY\fR clause of a \fBREM\fR command. Defaults to 1000. .TP \fB\-k\fR\fIcmd\fR Instead of simply printing \fBMSG\fR-type reminders, this causes them to be passed to the specific \fIcmd\fR. You must use '%s' where you want the body to appear, and may need to enclose this option in quotes. Note that all shell characters in the body of the reminder are escaped with a backslash, and the entire body of the reminder is passed as a single argument. Note that this option \fBoverrides\fR the \fB\-r\fR option and the \fBRUN OFF\fR command. .PP .RS As an example, suppose you have an X Window program called \fBxmessage\fR that pops up a window and displays its invocation arguments. You could use: .PP .nf remind '\-kxmessage %s &' ... .fi .PP to have all of your \fBMSG\fR-type reminders processed using xmessage. .PP A word of warning: It is very easy to spawn dozens of xmessage processes with the above technique. So be very careful. Because all shell and whitespace characters are escaped, the program you execute with the \fB\-k\fR option must be prepared to handle the entire message as a single argument. .PP If you follow the \fB\-k\fR option with a colon, then the command is applied only to queued timed reminders. Normal reminders are handled as usual. In the above example, if you want normal reminders to simply be displayed as usual, but queued reminders to be sent to notify-send, you could use: .PP .nf remind '\-k:notify-send %s &' ... .fi .PP You use both \fB\-k\fR\fIcmd1\fR and \fB\-k:\fR\fIcmd2\fR to use different commands for queued versus non-queued reminders. .RE .TP \fB\-z\fR[\fIn\fR] Runs \fBRemind\fR in "daemon mode". If \fIn\fR is supplied, it specifies how often (in minutes) \fBRemind\fR should wake up to check if the reminder script has been changed. \fIN\fR defaults to 1, and can range from 1 to 60. Note that the use of the \fB\-z\fR option also enables the \fB\-f\fR option. .PP .RS If \fBRemind\fR is compiled on a system that supports \fBinotify\fR(7), then if the reminder script supplied on the command-line is actually a directory, \fBRemind\fR additionally checks if all files within that directory have been modified since startup. .PP If you supply the option \fB\-zj\fR, \fBRemind\fR runs in a special mode called \fBserver mode\fR. This is documented in the tkremind man page; see tkremind(1). The older server mode option \fB\-z0\fR still works, but is deprecated; it uses an ad-hoc method to communicate with the client rather than using JSON to communicate with the client. .RE .TP \fB\-u\fR\fIname\fR Runs \fBRemind\fR with the uid and gid of the user specified by \fIname\fR. The option changes the uid and gid as described, and sets the environment variables HOME, SHELL and USER to the home directory, shell, and user name, respectively, of the specified user. LOGNAME is also set to the specified user name. This option is meant for use in shell scripts that mail reminders to all users. Note that as of Remind 3.00.17, using \fB\-u\fR implies \fB\-r\fR -- the RUN directive and shell() functions are disabled. However, if you prefix \fIname\fR with a \fB+\fR-sign, then RUN and shell() are \fInot\fR disabled. That is, \fB\-uwhatever\fR switches the user to \fBwhatever\fR and disables RUN, whereas \fB\-u+whatever\fR switches the user to \fBwhatever\fR but leaves RUN enabled. .PP .RS Non-root users can also use the \fB\-u\fR option. However, in this case, it only changes the environment variables as described above. It does not change the effective uid or gid. .RE .TP \fB\-+\fIusername\fR Causes \fBRemind\fR to trust files owned by the user \fIusername\fR. Normally, if \fBRemind\fR reads a file that you do not own, it disables RUN and the shell() function. This option causes it to also trust files owned by \fIusername\fR. You can supply multiple \fB\-+\fR options to trust multiple users, up to a limit of 20 trusted users. .TP \fB-y\fR Causes \fBRemind\fR to synthesize a tag for any reminder that lacks a TAG clause. .TP \fB\-i\fR\fIvar\fR\fB=\fR\fIexpr\fR Sets the value of the specified \fIvar\fR to \fIexpr\fR, and \fBpreserves\fR \fIvar\fR. \fIExpr\fR can be any valid \fBRemind\fR expression. See the section "INITIALIZING VARIABLES ON THE COMMAND LINE" for more details. .TP \fB\-i\fR\fIfunc\fR(\fIargs\fR)=\fIdefinition\fR Allows you to define a function on the command line. .PP If you supply a \fIdate\fR on the command line, it must consist of \fIday month year\fR, where \fIday\fR is the day of the month, \fImonth\fR is at least the first three letters of the English name of the month, and \fIyear\fR is a year (all 4 digits) from 1990 to about 2075. You can leave out the \fIday\fR, which then defaults to 1. .PP If you do supply a \fIdate\fR on the command line, then \fBRemind\fR uses it, rather than the actual system date, as its notion of "today." This lets you create calendars for future months, or test to see how your reminders will be triggered in the future. Similarly, you can supply a \fItime\fR to set \fBRemind\fR's notion of "now" to a particular time. Supplying a \fItime\fR on the command line also implicitly enables the \fB\-q\fR option and disables the \fB\-z\fR option. The \fItime\fR may be specified in 24-hour format (eg, 13:20) or common "AM/PM" format (1:20pm). .PP If you would rather specify the date more succinctly, you can supply it as YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY/MM/DD. You can even supply a date and time on the command line as one argument: YYYY-MM-DD@HH:MM. .PP In addition, you can supply a \fIrepeat\fR parameter, which has the form *\fIrep\fR. This causes \fBRemind\fR to be run \fIrep\fR times, with the date incrementing on each iteration. You may have to enclose the parameter in quotes to avoid shell expansion. See the subsection "Repeated Execution" in the section "CALENDAR MODE" for more information. .SH REMINDER FILES .PP \fBRemind\fR uses scripts to control its operation. You can use any text editor capable of creating plain-text files to create a \fBRemind\fR script. The commands inside a script can range from the very simple and almost immediately understandable: .PP .nf REM Mar 31 MSG International Transgender Day of Visibility .fi .PP to the baroque and obscure: .PP .nf REM [date(thisyear, 1, 1) + 180] ++5 OMIT \\ sat sun BEFORE MSG [ord(thisyear-1980)] payment due %b! .fi .PP A reminder file consists of commands, with one command per line. Several lines can be continued using the backslash character, as in the above example. In this case, all of the concatenated lines are treated as a single line by \fBRemind\fR. Note that if an error occurs, \fBRemind\fR reports the line number of the last line of a continued line. .PP \fBRemind\fR ignores blank lines, and lines beginning with the '#' or ';' characters. You can use the semicolon as a comment character if you wish to pass a \fBRemind\fR script through the C pre-processor, which interprets the '#' character as the start of a pre-processing directive. .PP Note that \fBRemind\fR processes line continuations before anything else. For example: .PP .nf # This is a comment \\ This line is part of the comment because of line continuation \\ and so on. REM MSG This line is not ignored (no \\ above) .fi .PP \fBRemind\fR is not case sensitive; you can generally use any mixture of upper- or lower-case for commands, parameters, invocation options, etc. .SH THE REM COMMAND .PP The most powerful command in a \fBRemind\fR script is the \fBREM\fR command. This command is responsible for issuing reminders. Its syntax is: .PP .RS \fBREM\fR [\fBONCE\fR] [\fIdate_spec\fR] [\fIback\fR] [\fIdelta\fR] [\fIrepeat\fR] [\fBPRIORITY\fR \fIprio\fR] [\fBSKIP\fR | \fBBEFORE\fR | \fBAFTER\fR] [\fBOMIT\fR \fIomit_list\fR] [\fBADDOMIT\fR] [\fBNOQUEUE\fR] [\fBOMITFUNC\fR \fIomit_function\fR] [\fBAT\fR \fItime\fR [\fItdelta\fR] [\fItrepeat\fR]] [\fBSCHED\fR \fIsched_function\fR] [\fBWARN\fR \fIwarn_function\fR] [\fBUNTIL\fR \fIexpiry_date\fR | \fBTHROUGH\fR \fIlast_date\fR] [\fBSCANFROM\fR \fIscan_date\fR | \fBFROM\fR \fIstart_date\fR] [\fBDURATION\fR \fIduration\fR] [\fBTAG\fR \fItag\fR] <\fBMSG\fR | \fBMSF\fR | \fBRUN\fR | \fBCAL\fR | \fBSATISFY\fR | \fBSPECIAL\fR \fIspecial\fR | \fBPS\fR | \fBPSFILE\fR> .I body .RE .PP The parts of the \fBREM\fR command can be specified in any order, except that the \fIbody\fR must come immediately after the \fBMSG\fR, \fBRUN\fR, \fBCAL\fR, \fBPS\fR, \fBPSFILE\fR or \fBSATISFY\fR keyword. .PP The \fBREM\fR token is optional, providing that the remainder of the command cannot be mistaken for another \fBRemind\fR command such as \fBOMIT\fR or \fBRUN\fR. The portion of the \fBREM\fR command before the \fBMSG\fR, \fBMSF\fR \fBRUN\fR, \fBCAL\fR or \fBSATISFY\fR clause is called a \fItrigger\fR. .PP .B "MSG, MSF, RUN, CAL, SPECIAL, PS and PSFILE" .PP These keywords denote the \fItype\fR of the reminder. (\fBSATISFY\fR is more complicated and will be explained later.) A \fBMSG\fR-type reminder normally prints a message to the standard output, after passing the \fIbody\fR through a special substitution filter, described in the section "THE SUBSTITUTION FILTER." However, if you have used the \fB\-k\fR command-line option, then \fBMSG\fR-type reminders are passed to the appropriate program. Note that the options \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-s\fR, \fB\-p\fR and \fB\-n\fR disable the \fB\-k\fR option. .PP Note that you can omit the reminder type, in which case it defaults to \fBMSG\fR. So you can write: .PP .nf 6 January Dianne's Birthday .fi .PP although this is not recommended. .PP The \fBMSF\fR keyword is almost the same as the \fBMSG\fR keyword, except that the reminder is formatted to fit into a paragraph-like format. Three system variables control the formatting of \fBMSF\fR-type reminders - they are \fB$FirstIndent\fR, \fB$SubsIndent\fR and \fB$FormWidth\fR. They are discussed in the section "SYSTEM VARIABLES." The \fBMSF\fR keyword causes the spacing of your reminder to be altered - extra spaces are discarded, and two spaces are placed after periods and other characters, as specified by the system variables \fB$EndSent\fR and \fB$EndSentIg\fR. Note that if the body of the reminder includes newline characters (placed there with the %_ sequence), then the newlines are treated as the beginnings of new paragraphs, and the \fB$FirstIndent\fR indentation is used for the next line. You can use two consecutive newlines to have spaced paragraphs emitted from a single reminder body. .PP A \fBRUN\fR-type reminder also passes the \fIbody\fR through the substitution filter, but then executes the result as a system command. A \fBCAL\fR-type reminder is used only to place entries in the calendar produced when \fBRemind\fR is run with the \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-s\fR or \fB\-p\fR options. .PP A \fBPS\fR or \fBPSFILE\fR-type reminder is used to pass PostScript code directly to the printer when producing PostScript calendars. This can be used to shade certain calendar entries (see the psshade() function), include graphics in the calendar, or almost any other purpose you can think of. You should not use these types of reminders unless you are an expert PostScript programmer. The \fBPS\fR and \fBPSFILE\fR reminders are ignored unless \fBRemind\fR is run with the \fB\-p\fR option. See the section "More about PostScript" for more details. .PP A \fBSPECIAL\fR-type reminder is used to pass "out-of-band" information from \fBRemind\fR to a calendar-producing back-end. It should be followed by a word indicating the type of special data being passed. The type of a special reminder depends on the back-end. For the \fBRem2PS\fR back-end, \fBSPECIAL PostScript\fR is equivalent to a \fBPS\fR-type reminder, and \fBSPECIAL PSFile\fR is equivalent to a \fBPSFILE\fR-type reminder. The body of a \fBSPECIAL\fR reminder is obviously dependent upon the back-end. A back-end \fImust\fR ignore a \fBSPECIAL\fR that it does not recognize. .PP .B DATE SPECIFICATIONS .PP A \fIdate_spec\fR consists of zero to four parts. These parts are .I day (day of month), .I month (month name), .I year and .I weekday. .I Month and .I weekday are the English names of months and weekdays. At least the first three characters must be used. The following are examples of the various parts of a .I date_spec: .TP .I day: 1, 22, 31, 14, 3 .TP .I month: JANUARY, feb, March, ApR, may, Aug .TP .I year: 1990, 1993, 2030. The year can range from 1990 to 2075. .TP .I weekday: Monday, tue, Wed, THU, Friday, saturday, sundAy .PP Note that there can be several .I weekday components separated by spaces in a .I date_spec. .PP .B INTERPRETATION OF DATE SPECIFICATIONS .PP The following examples show how date specifications are interpreted. .PP 1. Null date specification - the reminder is triggered every day. The trigger date for a specific run is simply the current system date. For example: .PP .nf REM MSG This is triggered every time Remind runs .fi .PP 2. Only .I day present. The reminder is triggered on the specified day of each month. The trigger date for a particular run is the closest such day to the current system date. For example: .PP .nf REM 1 MSG First of every month. REM 31 MSG 31st of every month that has 31 days. .fi .PP 3. Only .I month present. The reminder is triggered every day of the specified month. Example: .PP .nf REM Feb MSG Every day in February .fi .PP 4. .I day and .I month present. Examples: .PP .nf REM 6 Jan MSG Every 6th of January REM Feb 29 MSG Every 29th of February .fi .PP 5. Only .I year present. Example: .PP .nf REM 1991 MSG Every day in 1991 .fi .PP 6. .I year and .I day present. Examples: .PP .nf REM 1 1990 MSG 1st of every month in 1990 REM 1992 23 MSG 23rd of every month in 1992 .fi .PP 7. .I year and .I month present. Examples: .PP .nf REM Feb 1991 MSG Every day in Feb 1991 REM 1992 September MSG Every day in Sept 1992 .fi .PP 8. .I year, month and .I day present. Examples: .PP .nf REM 8 Jan 1991 MSG 8th January 1991. REM 1992 March 9 MSG 9th March 1992. .fi .PP 9. .I weekday only. Examples: .PP .nf REM Sat MSG Every Saturday REM Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri MSG Every working day REM Monday Wednesday MSG Every Monday and Wednesday .fi .PP 10. .I weekday and .I day present. Examples: .PP .nf REM Sat 1 MSG First Saturday of every month REM Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 15 \\ MSG 1st working day on or after 15th of every month .fi .PP 11. .I weekday and .I month present. Examples: .PP .nf REM Mon March MSG Every Monday in March REM Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Feb MSG Every working day in February .fi .PP 12. .I weekday, month and .I day present. Examples: .PP .nf REM Mon 1 March MSG First Monday in March REM Sat Sun 15 July MSG First Sat or Sun on or after 15 July .fi .PP 13. .I weekday and .I year present. Example: .PP .nf REM Sat Sun 1991 MSG Every Saturday and Sunday in 1991 .fi .PP 14. .I weekday, day and .I year present. Examples: .PP .nf REM Mon 15 1990 MSG 1st Mon after 15th of every month in 1990 REM Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 1 1990 \\ MSG 1st working day of every month in 1990 .fi .PP 15. .I weekday, month and .I year present. Example: .PP .nf REM Mon Wed 1991 Feb MSG Every Mon and Wed in Feb 1991. .fi .PP 16. .I weekday, day, month and .I year present. Example: .PP .nf REM Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 28 Oct 1990 \\ MSG 1st working day on or after 28 October 1990. .fi .PP Note that when both .I weekday and .I day are specified, .B Remind chooses the first date on or after the specified .I day that also satisfies the .I weekday constraint. It does this by picking the first date on or after the specified .I day that is listed in the list of .I weekdays. Thus, a reminder like: .PP .nf REM Mon Tue 28 Oct 1990 MSG Hi .fi .PP would be issued only on Monday, 29 October, 1990. It would not be issued on Tuesday, 30 October, 1990, since the 29th is the first date to satisfy the .I weekday constraints. .PP .B SHORT-HAND DATE SPECIFICATIONS .PP In addition to spelling out the day, month and year separately, you can specify YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY/MM/DD. For example, the following statements are equivalent: .PP .nf REM 5 June 2010 MSG Cool! REM 2010-06-05 MSG Cool! .fi .PP You can also specify a date and time as YYYY-MM-DD@HH:MM. These statements are equivalent: .PP .nf REM 19 Dec 2010 AT 16:45 MSG Hi REM 2010-12-19@16:45 MSG Hi .fi .PP There's one subtlety with short-hand date specifications: The following statements are \fInot\fR equivalent: .PP .nf REM 19 Dec 2010 AT 16:45 +60 MSG Hi REM 2010-12-19@16:45 +60 MSG Hi .fi .PP In the second statement, the "+60" is a \fIdelta\fR that applies to the date rather than a \fItdelta\fR that applies to the time. We recommend explicitly using the AT keyword with timed reminders. .PP .B THE REMIND ALGORITHM .PP \fBRemind\fR uses the following algorithm to compute a trigger date: Starting from the current date, it examines each day, one at a time, until it finds a date that satisfies the date specification, or proves to itself that no such date exists. (Actually, \fBRemind\fR merely \fIbehaves\fR as if it used this algorithm; it would be much too slow in practice. Internally, \fBRemind\fR uses much faster techniques to calculate a trigger date.) See DETAILS ABOUT TRIGGER COMPUTATION for more information. .PP .B BACKWARD SCANNING .PP Sometimes, it is necessary to specify a date as being a set amount of time before another date. For example, the last Monday in a given month is computed as the first Monday in the next month, minus 7 days. The \fIback\fR specification in the reminder is used in this case: .PP .nf REM Mon 1 \-7 MSG Last Monday of every month. .fi .PP A \fIback\fR is specified with one or two dashes followed by an integer. This causes \fBRemind\fR to move "backwards" from what would normally be the trigger date. The difference between \-\-7 and \-7 will be explained when the \fBOMIT\fR keyword is described. .PP .B ADVANCE WARNING .PP For some reminders, it is appropriate to receive advance warning of the event. For example, you may wish to be reminded of someone's birthday several days in advance. The \fIdelta\fR portion of the \fBREM\fR command achieves this. It is specified as one or two "+" signs followed by a number \fIn\fR. Again, the difference between the "+" and "++" forms will be explained under the \fBOMIT\fR keyword. \fBRemind\fR will trigger the reminder on computed trigger date, as well as on each of the \fIn\fR days before the event. Here are some examples: .PP .nf REM 6 Jan +5 MSG Remind me of birthday 5 days in advance. .fi .PP The above example would be triggered every 6th of January, as well as the 1st through 5th of January. .PP .B PERIODIC REMINDERS .PP We have already seen some built-in mechanisms for certain types of periodic reminders. For example, an event occurring every Wednesday could be specified as: .PP .nf REM Wed MSG Event! .fi .PP However, events that do not repeat daily, weekly, monthly or yearly require another approach. The \fIrepeat\fR component of the \fBREM\fR command fills this need. To use it, you must completely specify a date (year, month and day, and optionally weekday); this is the start date of the repetition period. The \fIrepeat\fR component is an asterisk followed by a number specifying the repetition period in days. .PP For example, suppose you get paid every second Wednesday, and your last payday was Wednesday, 28 October, 1992. You can use: .PP .nf REM 28 Oct 1992 *14 MSG Payday .fi .PP This issues the reminder every 14 days, starting from 28 Oct 1992. You can use \fIdelta\fR and \fIback\fR with \fIrepeat.\fR Note, however, that the \fIback\fR is used only to compute the starting date; thereafter, the reminder repeats with the specified period. Similarly, if you specify a weekday, it is used only to calculate the starting date, and does not affect the repetition period. .PP .B SCANFROM \fRand\fB FROM .PP The \fBSCANFROM\fR and \fBFROM\fR keywords are for advanced \fBRemind\fR programmers only, and will be explained in the section "DETAILS ABOUT TRIGGER COMPUTATION" near the end of this manual. Note that \fBSCANFROM\fR is available only in versions of \fBRemind\fR from 03.00.04 up. \fBFROM\fR is available only from 03.01.00 and later. .PP .B PRIORITY .PP The \fBPRIORITY\fR keyword must be followed by a number from 0 to 9999. It is used in calendar mode and when sorting reminders. If two reminders have the same trigger date and time, then they are sorted by priority. If the \fBPRIORITY\fR keyword is not supplied, a default priority of 5000 is used. (This default can be changed by adjusting the system variable \fB$DefaultPrio\fR. See the section "SYSTEM VARIABLES" for more information.) .PP .B EXPIRY DATES .PP Some reminders should be issued periodically for a certain time, but then expire. For example, suppose you have a class every Friday, and that your last class is on 11 December 1992. You can use: .PP .nf REM Fri UNTIL 11 Dec 1992 MSG Class today. .fi .PP Another example: Suppose you have jury duty from 30 November 1992 until 4 December 1992. The following reminder will issue the message every day of your jury duty, as well as 2 days ahead of time: .PP .nf REM 1992-11-30 *1 +2 UNTIL 1992-12-04 MSG Jury duty .fi .PP Note that the \fIrepeat\fR of *1 is necessary; without it, the reminder would be issued only on 30 November (and the two days preceding.) .PP As a special case, you can use the \fBTHROUGH\fR keyword instead of *1 and \fBUNTIL\fR. The following two \fBREM\fR commands are equivalent: .PP .nf REM 1992-11-30 *1 +2 UNTIL 1992-12-04 MSG Jury duty REM 1992-11-30 +2 THROUGH 1992-12-04 MSG Jury duty .fi .PP If you have an expiry date via the use of \fBTHROUGH\fR or \fBUNTIL\fR, then Remind will \fInever\fR trigger the reminder after the expiry date. For example, if you have this: .PP .nf OMIT 2021-01-08 REM 2021-01-01 THROUGH 2021-01-08 AFTER MSG Test .fi .PP the reminder will not be triggered on 2021-01-08, and nor will it be triggered on 2021-01-09; even though the AFTER keyword would normally move the 8th's reminder to the 9th, the expiry date of 2021-01-08 overrides that. .PP .B THE ONCE KEYWORD .PP Sometimes, it is necessary to ensure that reminders are run only once on a given day. For example, if you have a reminder that makes a backup of your files every Friday: .PP .nf REM Fri RUN do_backup .fi .PP (Here, \fIdo_backup\fR is assumed to be a program or shell script that does the work.) If you run \fBRemind\fR from your .login script, for example, and log in several times per day, the \fIdo_backup\fR program will be run each time you log in. If, however, you use the \fBONCE\fR keyword in the reminder, the \fBRemind\fR checks the last access date of the reminder script. If it is the same as the current date, \fBRemind\fR assumes that it has already been run, and will not issue reminders containing the \fBONCE\fR keyword. .PP Note that if you view or edit your reminder script, the last access date will be updated, and the \fBONCE\fR keyword will not operate properly. If you start \fBRemind\fR with the \fB\-o\fR option, then the \fBONCE\fR keyword will be ignored. .PP .B LOCALLY OMITTING WEEKDAYS .PP The \fBOMIT\fR portion of the \fBREM\fR command is used to "omit" certain days when counting the \fIdelta\fR or \fIback\fR. It is specified using the keyword \fBOMIT\fR followed by a list of weekdays. Its action is best illustrated with examples: .PP .nf REM 1 +1 OMIT Sat Sun MSG Important Event .fi .PP This reminder is normally triggered on the first of every month, as well as the day preceding it. However, if the first of the month falls on a Sunday or Monday, then the reminder is triggered starting from the previous Friday. This is because the \fIdelta\fR of +1 does not count Saturday or Sunday when it counts backwards from the trigger date to determine how much advance warning to give. .PP Contrast this with the use of "++1" in the above command. In this case, the reminder is triggered on the first of each month, as well as the day preceding it. The omitted days are counted. .PP .nf REM 1 \-1 OMIT Sat Sun MSG Last working day of month .fi .PP Again, in the above example, the \fIback\fR of \-1 normally causes the trigger date to be the last day of the month. However, because of the \fBOMIT\fR clause, if the first of the month falls on a Sunday or Monday, the trigger date is moved backwards past the weekend to Friday. (If you have globally omitted holidays, the reminder will be moved back past them, also. See "The OMIT command" for more details.) .PP By comparison, if we had used "\-\-1", the reminder would be triggered on the last day of the month, regardless of the \fBOMIT\fR. .PP If you locally omit weekdays but also have globally-omitted weekdays, then the list of omitted weekdays is the union of the two. Consider this example: .PP .nf OMIT Sat Sun REM 15 OMIT Fri Sat MSG Whatever .fi .PP In the REM command, the effective list of omitted weekdays will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. .PP .B COMPUTED LOCAL OMITS .PP The \fBOMITFUNC\fR phrase of the \fBREM\fR command allows you to supply a function that determines whether or not a date is omitted. The function is passed a single parameter of type \fBDATE\fR, and must return a non-zero integer if the date is considered "omitted" and 0 otherwise. Here's an example: .PP .nf FSET _third(x) (day(x) % 3) || \\ (wkdaynum(x) == 0) || \\ (wkdaynum(x) == 6) REM OMITFUNC _third AFTER MSG Working day divisible by 3 .fi .PP In the example above, the reminder is triggered every Monday to Friday whose day-of-month number is divisible by three. Here's how it works: .TP .B o The \fBOMITFUNC _third\fR portion causes all days for which \fB_third(x)\fR returns non-zero to be considered "omitted". This causes all days whose day-of-month number is \fInot\fR a multiple of three to be omitted. Note that _third also returns non-zero if the weekday is Sunday or Saturday. .TP .B o The \fBAFTER\fR keyword causes the reminder to be moved after a block of omitted days. .PP The combination of OMITFUNC and AFTER keyword causes the reminder to be issued on all days whose day-of-month number is divisible by three, but not on Saturday or Sunday. .PP Note that if you use \fBOMITFUNC\fR, then a local \fBOMIT\fR is \fIignored\fR as are \fIall global OMITs\fR. If you want to omit specific weekdays, your omit function will need to test for them specifically. If you want to take into account the global \fBOMIT\fR context, then your omit function will need to test for that explicitly (using the \fBisomitted()\fR function.) .PP Note that an incorrect \fBOMITFUNC\fR might cause all days to be considered omitted. For that reason, when \fBRemind\fR searches through omitted days, it terminates the search after the \fBSATISFY\fR iteration limit (command-line option \fB\-x\fR.) .PP .B ADDING TRIGGER DATES TO THE OMIT CONTEXT .PP If the \fBADDOMIT\fR keyword appears in a \fBREM\fR command, then the trigger date (if one could be calculated) is automatically added to the list of global OMITs. .PP The command: .PP .nf REM ... whatever ... ADDOMIT MSG Foo .fi .PP is identical in behaviour to the sequence: .PP .nf REM ... whatever ... SATISFY 1 IF trigvalid() OMIT [trigdate()] MSG Foo ENDIF .fi .PP .B TIMED REMINDERS .PP Timed reminders are those that have an \fBAT\fR keyword followed by a \fItime\fR and optional \fItdelta\fR and \fItrepeat\fR. The \fItime\fR may be specified in 24-hour format, with 0:00 representing midnight, 12:00 representing noon, and 23:59 representing one minute to midnight. Alternatively, it may be specified in common "AM/PM" format; in this case, the hour must range from 1 to 12. 12:00am represents midnight, 12:00pm represents noon, and 11:59pm represents one minute to midnight. The "am" and "pm" portions are case-insensitive and the "m" is optional. .PP You can use either a colon or a period to separate the hours from the minutes. That is, 13:39 and 13.39 are equivalent. .PP \fBRemind\fR treats timed reminders specially. If the trigger date for a timed reminder is the same as the current system date, the reminder is queued for later activation. When \fBRemind\fR has finished processing the reminder file, it puts itself in the background, and activates timed reminders when the system time reached the specified time. Note that if you use the \fBNOQUEUE\fR modifier in the \fBREM\fR command, then this queuing and background activation is \fInot\fR performed. \fBNOQUEUE\fR is useful if you want a time to be associated with a reminder (eg, in the calendar) but are not interested in a popup reminder happening at the specified time. .PP If the trigger date is \fInot\fR the same as the system date, the reminder is not queued. .PP For example, the following reminder, triggered every working day, will emit a message telling you to leave at 5:00pm: .PP .nf REM Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri AT 17:00 MSG Time to leave! .fi .PP The following reminder will be triggered on Thursdays and Fridays, but will only be queued on Fridays: .PP .nf REM Fri ++1 AT 1:00PM MSG Lunch at 1pm Friday. .fi .PP The \fItdelta\fR and \fItrepeat\fR have the same form as a \fIrepeat\fR and \fIdelta\fR, but are specified in minutes. For example, this reminder will be triggered at 12:00pm as well as 45 minutes before: .PP .nf REM AT 12:00 +45 MSG Example .fi .PP The following will be issued starting at 10:45, every half hour until 11:45, and again at noon. .PP .nf REM AT 12:00 +75 *30 MSG Example2 .fi .PP The "+75" means that the reminder is issued starting 75 minutes before noon; in other words, at 10:45. The *30 specifies that the reminder is subsequently to be issued every 30 minutes. Note that the reminder is always issued at the specified time, even if the \fItdelta\fR is not a multiple of the \fItrepeat\fR. So the above example is issued at 10:45am, 11:15am, 11:45am, and 12:00pm. Note that in the time specification, there is no distinction between the "+" and "++" forms of \fItdelta\fR. .PP Normally, \fBRemind\fR will issue timed reminders as it processes the reminder script, as well as queuing them for later. If you do not want \fBRemind\fR to issue the reminders when processing the script, but only to queue them for later, use the \fB\-a\fR command-line option. If you do not want reminders to be queued for later, use the \fB\-q\fR command-line option. .PP Normally, \fBRemind\fR forks a background process to handle queued reminders. If you want \fBRemind\fR to remain in the foreground, use the \fB\-f\fR command-line option. This is useful, for example, in .xinitrc scripts, where you can use the command: .PP .nf remind \-fa myreminders & .fi .PP This ensures that when you exit X-Windows, the \fBRemind\fR process is killed. .PP .B WARNING ABOUT TIMED REMINDERS .PP Note: If you use user-defined functions or variables (described later) in the bodies of timed reminders, then when the timed reminders are activated, the variables and functions have the definitions that were in effect at the end of the reminder script. These definitions may \fInot\fR necessarily be those that were in effect at the time the reminder was queued. In addition, the OMIT context is whatever was in effect at the end of the reminder script, which may not necessarily be the same as when the \fBREM\fR command was first processed. .PP .B THE SCHED AND WARN KEYWORDS .PP The \fBSCHED\fR keyword allows more precise control over the triggering of timed reminders, and the \fBWARN\fR keyword allows precise control over the advance triggering of all types of reminders. However, discussion must be deferred until after expressions and user-defined functions are explained. See the subsection "PRECISE SCHEDULING" further on. .PP .B TAG AND DURATION .PP The \fBTAG\fR keyword lets you "tag" certain reminders. This facility is used by certain back-ends or systems built around \fBRemind\fR, such as \fBTkRemind\fR. These back-ends have specific rules about tags; see their documentation for details. .PP The \fBTAG\fR keyword is followed by a tag consisting of up to 48 characters. You can have as many TAG clauses as you like in a given REM statement. A tag can contain any character except for whitespace and a comma. .PP If you supply the \fB\-y\fR option to \fBRemind\fR, then any reminder that lacks a \fBTAG\fR will have one synthesized. The synthesized tag consists of the characters "__syn__" followed by the hexadecimal representation of the MD5 sum of the REM command line. This lets you give a more-or-less unique identifier to each distinct REM command. .PP The \fBDURATION\fR keyword makes sense only for timed reminders; it specifies the duration of an event. For example, if you have a 90-minute meeting starting at 1:00pm, you could use any of the following: .PP .nf REM 5 March 2021 AT 13:00 DURATION 1:30 MSG Meeting REM 5 March 2021 AT 13:00 DURATION 90 MSG Meeting REM 5 March 2021 AT 1:00pm DURATION 1:30 MSG Meeting REM 5 March 2021 AT 1:00pm DURATION 90 MSG Meeting .fi .PP For long-duration reminders, it is convenient to use expressions to simplify writing the DURATION. For example, if you are away from 20 Feb 2023 through 23 Feb 2023 (a total of 4 days) you could write: .PP .nf REM 20 Feb AT 00:00 DURATION [4*24]:00 MSG away REM 20 Feb AT 00:00 DURATION [4*24*60] MSG away .fi .PP Note that \fIduration\fR is specified either as \fIhours\fR:\fIminutes\fR or just as \fIminutes\fR specified as an \fIinteger\fR. .PP If you specify a duration of 00:00 or 0, then \fBRemind\fR behaves exactly as if no \fBDURATION\fR at all had been present. Although durations specified as \fIhours\fR:\fIminutes\fR look superficially like a time-of-day, they are not; the \fIhours\fR component is not limited to the range 00-23. .PP .SH SYNTACTIC SUGAR FOR REM .PP The REM command has syntactic sugar to let you express common reminders. The following pairs of reminders are equivalent: .PP .nf REM First Monday April MSG Foo REM Mon 1 April MSG Foo REM Second Monday May MSG Bar REM Mon 8 May MSG Bar REM Third Monday MSG Third Monday of every month REM Mon 15 MSG Third Monday of every month REM Fourth Sunday June 2025 MSG Fourth Sunday in June 2025 REM Sun 22 June 2025 MSG Fourth Sunday in June 2025 REM Last Monday MSG Last Monday of every month REM Mon 1 --7 MSG Last Monday of every month REM Last Monday April MSG Last Monday of every April REM Mon 1 May --7 MSG Last Monday of every April REM Last Monday December 2025 MSG Last Monday of Dec 2025 REM Monday 1 Jan 2026 --7 MSG Last Monday of Dec 2025 .fi .PP Note that \fBLast\fR effectively adjusts the month and year, if necessary, to make the reminder trigger on the correct date. .PP The keyword \fBIN\fR is completely ignored, so you can write (for example): .PP .nf REM Second Monday in May MSG foo REM Last Monday in December 2025 MSG Bar .fi .PP An alternate form of \fIback\fR makes writing reminders easier. The following groups of reminders are equivalent: .PP .nf REM ~~1 MSG Last day of every month REM Lastday MSG Last day of every month REM 1 --1 MSG Last day of every month REM May ~~1 MSG Last day of May REM Lastday May MSG Last day of May REM 1 June --1 MSG Last day of May REM Dec 2025 ~~1 MSG Last day of December 2025 REM Lastday Dec 2025 MSG Last day of December 2025 REM 1 Jan 2026 --1 MSG Last day of December 2025 REM Apr ~1 OMIT SAT SUN MSG Last workday of April REM Lastworkday April OMIT SAT SUN MSG Last workday of April REM 1 May -1 OMIT SAT SUN MSG Last workday of April REM Apr ~~7 MSG Seventh-last day of April REM 1 May --7 MSG Seventh-last day of April REM Apr ~2 OMIT SAT SUN MSG Second-last workday of April REM 1 May -2 OMIT SAT SUN MSG Second-last workday of April .fi .PP As we see, "Lastday" is equivalent to ~~1 and "Lastworkday" to ~1. .PP Note that the First/Second/Third/Fourth/Last keywords and the ~ and ~~ form of \fIback\fR imply a value for the day of the month; as such, they cannot be combined with a day. Additionally, First/Second/Third/Fourth/Last must have at least one weekday name. The following are illegal: .PP .nf REM First Monday 3 June MSG Huh? REM April 3 ~~1 MSG What? REM Second June MSG Where's the weekday??? .fi .PP .SH THE SUBSTITUTION FILTER .PP Before being processed, the body of a .B REM command is passed through a substitution filter. The filter scans for sequences "%x" (where "x" is any letter and certain other characters) and performs substitutions as shown below. (All dates refer to the trigger date of the reminder.) .TP .B %a is replaced with "on \fIweekday, day month, year\fR" .RS For example, consider the reminder: .PP REM 18 Oct 1990 +4 MSG Meeting with Bob %a. .PP On 16 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob on Thursday, 18 October, 1990." .PP On 17 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob tomorrow." .PP On 18 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob today." .RE .TP .B %b is replaced with "in \fIdiff\fR day's time" where .I diff is the .B actual number of days between the current date and the trigger date. (\fBOMITs\fR have no effect.) .RS For example, consider: .PP REM 18 Oct 1990 +4 MSG Meeting with Bob %b. .PP On 16 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob in 2 days' time." .PP On 17 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob tomorrow." .PP On 18 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob today." .RE .TP .B %c is replaced with "on \fIweekday\fR" .RS Example: REM 18 Oct 1990 +4 MSG Meeting with Bob %c. .PP On 16 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob on Thursday." .PP On 17 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob tomorrow." .PP On 18 October 1990, it would print "Meeting with Bob today." .RE .TP .B %d is replaced with "\fIday\fR", the day of the month. .TP .B %e is replaced with "on \fIdd-mm-yyyy\fR" .TP .B %f is replaced with "on \fImm-dd-yyyy\fR" .TP .B %g is replaced with "on \fIweekday, day month\fR" .TP .B %h is replaced with "on \fIdd-mm\fR" .TP .B %i is replaced with "on \fImm-dd\fR" .TP .B %j is replaced with "on \fIweekday, month day-th, year\fR" This form appends the characters "st", "nd", "rd" or "th" to the day of the month, as appropriate. .TP .B %k is replaced with "on \fIweekday, month day-th\fR" .TP .B %l is replaced with "on \fIyyyy-mm-dd\fR" .TP .B %m is replaced with "\fImonth\fR", the name of the month. .TP .B %n is replaced with the number (1 to 12) of the month. .TP .B %o is replaced with " (today)" if and only if the current system date is the same as the date being used by .B Remind as the current date. Recall that you can specify a date for .B Remind to use on the command line. This substitution is not generally useful in a .B REM command, but is useful in a .B BANNER command. (See "The BANNER Command.") .TP .B %p is replaced with "s" if the .I diff between the current date and the trigger date is not 1. You can use this to construct reminders like: .RS REM 1 Jan +4 MSG %x day%p to go before New Year! .RE .TP .B %q is replaced with "'s" if the .I diff between the trigger date and the current date is 1. Otherwise, it is replaced with "s'" This can be used as follows: .RS REM 1 Jan +4 MSG New Year in %x day%q time! .RE .TP .B %r is replaced with the day of the month (01 to 31) padded with a leading zero if needed to pad to two digits. .TP .B %s is replaced with "st", "nd", "rd" or "th" depending on the day of the month. .TP .B %t is replaced with the number of the month (01 to 12) padded to two digits with a leading zero. .TP .B %u is replaced with "on \fIweekday, day-th month, year\fR" This is similar to .B %a except that "st", "nd", "rd" or "th" is added to the .I day as appropriate. .TP .B %v is replaced with "on \fIweekday, day-th month\fR" .TP .B %w is replaced with "\fIweekday\fR", the name of the day of the week. .TP .B %x is replaced with the .I diff between the current date and the trigger date. The .I diff is defined as the actual number of days between these two dates; .B OMITs are not counted. (Strict date subtraction is performed.) .TP .B %y is replaced with "\fIyear\fR", the year of the trigger date. .TP .B %z is replaced with "\fIyy\fR", the last two digits of the year. .TP .B %_ (percent-underscore) is replaced with a newline. You can use this to achieve multi-line reminders. .TP .B %1 is replaced with "now", "\fIm\fR minutes from now", "\fIm\fR minutes ago", "\fIh\fR hours from now", "\fIh\fR hours ago", "\fIh\fR hours and \fIm\fR minutes from now" or "\fIh\fR hours and \fIm\fR minutes ago", as appropriate for a timed reminder. Note that unless you specify the \fB\-a\fR option, timed reminders will be triggered like normal reminders, and thus a timed reminder that occurred earlier in the day may be triggered. This causes the need for the "...ago" forms. .TP .B %2 is replaced with "at \fIhh\fR:\fImm\fRam" or "..pm" depending on the .B AT time of the reminder. .TP .B %3 is replaced with "at \fIhh\fR:\fImm\fR" in 24-hour format. .TP .B %4 is replaced with "\fImm\fR" where \fImm\fR is the number of minutes between "now" and the time specified by \fBAT\fR. If the \fBAT\fR time is earlier than the current time, then the result is negative. .TP .B %5 is replaced with "\fIma\fR" where \fIma\fR is the absolute value of the number produced by \fB%4\fR. .TP .B %6 is replaced with "ago" or "from now", depending on the relationship between the \fBAT\fR time and the current time. .TP .B %7 is replaced with the number of hours between the \fBAT\fR time and the current time. It is always non-negative. .TP .B %8 is replaced with the number of minutes between the \fBAT\fR time and the current time, after the hours (\fB%7\fR) have been subtracted out. This is a number ranging from 0 to 59. .TP .B %9 is replaced with "s" if the value produced by \fB%8\fR is not 1. .TP .B %0 is replaced with "s" if the value produced by \fB%7\fR is not 1. .TP .B %! is replaced with "is" if the current time is before the \fBAT\fR time, or "was" if it is after. .TP .B %@ is similar to \fB%2\fR but displays the current time. .TP .B %# is similar to \fB%3\fR but displays the current time. .TP .B %" (percent-doublequote - ") is removed. This sequence is not used by the substitution filter, but is used to tell \fBRemind\fR which text to include in a calendar entry when the \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-s\fR or \fB\-p\fR option is chosen. See "CALENDAR MODE" .PP Notes: .TP o .B Remind normally prints a blank line after each reminder; if the last character of the body is "%", the blank line will not be printed. You can globally suppress the extra blank lines by setting \fB$AddBlankLines\fR to 0. .TP o Substitutions a, b, c, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, u and v all are replaced with "today" if the current date equals the trigger date, or "tomorrow" if the trigger date is one day after the current date. Thus, they are .B not the same as substitutions built up from the simpler %w, %y, etc. sequences. .TP o The a, c, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, u, v, 2, and 3 substitutions may be preceded by an asterisk (for example, %*c) which causes the word "at" or "on" that would normally be included in the output to be omitted. .TP o Any of the substitutions dealing with time (0 through 9 and '!') produce undefined results if used in a reminder that does not have an \fBAT\fR keyword. Also, if a reminder has a \fIdelta\fR and may be triggered on several days, the time substitutions ignore the date. Thus, the \fB%1\fR substitution may report that a meeting is in 15 minutes, for example, even though it may only be in 2 days time, because a \fIdelta\fR has triggered the reminder. It is recommended that you use the time substitutions only in timed reminders with no \fIdelta\fR that are designed to be queued for timed activation. .TP o Capital letters can be used in the substitution sequence, in which case the first character of the substituted string is capitalized (if it is normally a lower-case letter.) .TP o All other characters following a "%" sign are simply copied. In particular, to get a "%" sign out, use "%%" in the body. To start the body of a reminder with a space, use "% ", since .B Remind normally scans for the first non-space character after a .B MSG, .B CAL or .B RUN token. .SH THE OMIT COMMAND .PP In addition to being a keyword in the \fBREM\fR command, \fBOMIT\fR is a command in its own right. Its syntax is: .PP .RS \fBOMIT\fR \fIweekday\fR [\fIweekday\fR...] .PP or: .PP \fBOMIT\fR [\fIday\fR] \fImonth\fR [\fIyear\fR] .PP or: .PP \fBOMIT\fR [\fIday1\fR] \fImonth1\fR [\fIyear1\fR] \fBTHROUGH\fR [\fIday2\fR] \fImonth2\fR [\fIyear2\fR] .RE .PP The \fBOMIT\fR command is used to "globally" omit certain days (usually holidays). These globally-omitted days are skipped by the "\-" and "+" forms of \fIback\fR and \fIdelta\fR, but not by the "\-\-" and "\+\+" forms. Some examples: .PP .nf OMIT Saturday Sunday OMIT 1 Jan OMIT 7 Sep 1992 OMIT 15 Jan THROUGH 14 Feb OMIT May # Equivalent to OMIT May 1 THROUGH May 31 OMIT 25 Dec THROUGH 4 Jan OMIT 2023-05-03 THROUGH 2023-05-12 OMIT Jun THROUGH July # Equivalent to OMIT Jun 1 THROUGH July 31 .fi .PP The first example omits every Saturday and Sunday. This is useful for reminders that shouldn't trigger on weekends. .PP The second example specifies a holiday that occurs on the same date each year - New Year's Day. .PP The third example specifies a holiday that changes each year - Labour Day. For these types of holidays, you must create an \fBOMIT\fR command for each year. (Later, in the description of expressions and some of the more advanced features of \fBRemind\fR, you will see how to automate this for some cases.) .PP As with the REM command, you can use shorthand specifiers for dates; the following are equivalent: .PP .nf OMIT 7 Sep 1992 OMIT 1992-09-07 .fi .PP For convenience, you can use a \fIdelta\fR and \fBMSG\fR or \fBRUN\fR keyword in the \fBOMIT\fR command. The following sequences are equivalent: .PP .nf OMIT 1 Jan REM 1 Jan +4 MSG New year's day is %b! and OMIT 1 Jan +4 MSG New year's day is %b! .fi .PP The \fBTHROUGH\fR keyword lets you conveniently OMIT a range of days. For example, the following sequences are equivalent: .PP .nf OMIT 3 Jan 2011 OMIT 4 Jan 2011 OMIT 5 Jan 2011 and OMIT 3 Jan 2011 THROUGH 5 Jan 2011 .fi .PP Note that \fBRemind\fR has a compiled-in limit to the number of full OMITs. If you omit a range of \fIN\fR fully-specified (ie, year included) days, then \fIN\fR full OMITs are used up. Trying to omit a very large range may result in the error "Too many full OMITs" .PP You can make a THROUGH \fBOMIT\fR do double-duty as a \fBREM\fR command as long as both dates are fully specified .PP .nf OMIT 6 Sep 2010 THROUGH 10 Sep 2010 MSG Vacation .fi .PP If you use a THROUGH clause, then either the year must be supplied before and after the THROUGH, or it must be missing before and after the THROUGH. The following are legal: .PP .nf OMIT 25 Dec THROUGH 6 Jan OMIT 25 Dec 2024 THROUGH 6 Jan 2025 .fi .PP But the following are not: .PP .nf OMIT 25 Dec THROUGH 6 Jan 2025 OMIT 25 Dec 2024 THROUGH 6 Jan .nf .PP You can debug your global OMITs with the following command: .PP .nf OMIT DUMP .fi .PP The OMIT DUMP command prints the current global omits to standard output. .PP .B THE BEFORE, AFTER AND SKIP KEYWORDS .PP Normally, days that are omitted, whether by a global \fBOMIT\fR command or the local \fBOMIT\fR or \fBOMITFUNC\fR keywords in a \fBREM\fR statement, only affect the counting of the \-\fIback\fR or the +\fIdelta\fR. For example, suppose you have a meeting every Wednesday. Suppose, too, that you have indicated 11 Nov as a holiday: .PP .nf OMIT 11 Nov +4 MSG Remembrance Day REM Wed +1 MSG Code meeting %b. .fi .PP The above sequence will issue a reminder about a meeting for 11 November 1992, which is a Wednesday. This is probably incorrect. There are three options: .TP .B BEFORE This keyword moves the reminder to before any omitted days. Thus, in the above example, use of \fBBEFORE\fR would cause the meeting reminder to be triggered on Tuesday, 10 November 1992. .TP .B AFTER This keyword moves the reminder to after any omitted days. In the above example, the meeting reminder would be triggered on Thursday, 12 November 1992. .TP .B SKIP This keyword causes the reminder to be skipped completely on any omitted days. Thus, in the above example, the reminder would not be triggered on 11 November 1992. However, it would be triggered as usual on the following Wednesday, 18 November 1992. .PP The \fBBEFORE\fR and \fBAFTER\fR keywords move the trigger date of a reminder to before or after a block of omitted days, respectively. Suppose you normally run a backup on the first day of the month. However, if the first day of the month is a weekend or holiday, you run the backup on the first working day following the weekend or holiday. You could use: .PP .nf REM 1 OMIT Sat Sun AFTER RUN do_backup .fi .PP Let's examine how the trigger date is computed. The \fB1\fR specifies the first day of the month. The local \fBOMIT\fR keyword causes the \fBAFTER\fR keyword to move the reminder forward past weekends. Finally, the \fBAFTER\fR keyword will keep moving the reminder forward until it has passed any holidays specified with global \fBOMIT\fR commands. .SH THE DO AND INCLUDE COMMANDS .PP \fBRemind\fR allows you to include other files in your reminder script, similar to the C preprocessor #include directive. For example, your system administrator may maintain a file of holidays or system-wide reminders. You can include these in your reminder script as follows: .PP .nf INCLUDE /usr/share/remind/holidays INCLUDE /usr/share/remind/reminders .fi .PP (The actual pathnames vary from system to system - ask your system administrator.) .PP \fBINCLUDE\fR files can be nested up to a depth of 8. .PP If you specify a filename of "-" in the \fBINCLUDE\fR command, \fBRemind\fR will begin reading from standard input. .PP If you specify a \fIdirectory\fR as the argument to \fBINCLUDE\fR, then \fBRemind\fR will process all files in that directory that match the shell pattern "*.rem". The files are processed in sorted order; the sort order matches that used by the shell when it expands "*.rem". .PP Note that the file specified by an \fBINCLUDE\fR command is interpreted relative to the \fIcurrent working directory of the Remind process\fR. If you want to include a file relative to the directory containing the currently-processing file, use \fBDO\fR instead. For example, if the current file is \fB/home/user/.reminders/foo.rem\fR and Remind's working directory is \fB/home/user\fR, then: .PP .nf # Read /home/user/.reminders/bar.rem DO bar.rem # Read /usr/share/bar.rem - absolute path DO /usr/share/bar.rem # Read /home/user/bar.rem INCLUDE bar.rem # Read /usr/share/bar.rem - absolute path INCLUDE /usr/share/bar.rem .fi .PP Arguably, the \fBINCLUDE\fR command should have worked the way \fBDO\fR does right from the start, but changing it would have broken backward-compatibility, hence the introduction of \fBDO\fR. .PP Note that if the currently-processing reminders file was specified as a symbolic link to a file that is not in the same directory as the symbolic link itself, \fBDO\fR will fail. \fBRemind\fR does \fInot\fR resolve the real path of symbolic links, so you should avoid using symbolic links to files. .PP .SH THE RUN COMMAND .PP If you include other files in your reminder script, you may not always entirely trust the contents of the other files. For example, they may contain \fBRUN\fR-type reminders that could be used to access your files or perform undesired actions. The \fBRUN\fR command can restrict this: If you include the command \fBRUN OFF\fR in your top-level reminder script, any reminder or expression that would normally execute a system command is disabled. \fBRUN ON\fR will re-enable the execution of system commands. Note that the \fBRUN ON\fR command can \fIonly\fR be used in your top-level reminder script; it will \fInot\fR work in any files accessed by the \fBINCLUDE\fR command. This is to protect you from someone placing a \fBRUN ON\fR command in an included file. However, the \fBRUN OFF\fR command can be used at top level or in an included file. .PP If you run \fBRemind\fR with the \fB\-r\fR command-line option, \fBRUN\fR-type reminders and the \fBshell()\fR function will be disabled, regardless of any \fBRUN\fR commands in the reminder script. However, any command supplied with the \fB\-k\fR option will still be executed. .PP One use of the \fBRUN\fR command is to provide a secure interface between \fBRemind\fR and the \fBElm\fR mail system. The \fBElm\fR system can automatically scan incoming mail for reminder or calendar entries, and place them in your calendar file. To use this feature, you should set the calendar filename option under \fBElm\fR to be something like "~/.reminders.in", \fInot\fR your main reminder file! This is so that any \fBRUN ON\fR commands mailed to you can never be activated. .PP Then, you can use the \fBElm\fR \fIscan message for calendar entries\fR command to place reminders prefaced by "->" into .reminders.in. In your main .reminders file, include the following lines: .PP .nf RUN OFF # Disable RUN INCLUDE .reminders.in RUN ON # Re-enable RUN .fi .PP In addition, \fBRemind\fR contains a few other security features. It will not read a file that is group- or world-writable. It will not run set-uid. If it reads a file you don't own, it will disable RUN and the shell() function. And if it is run as \fIroot\fR, it will only read files owned by \fIroot\fR. .PP Note that if \fBRemind\fR reads standard input, it does \fInot\fR attempt to check the ownership of standard input, even if it is coming from a file, and hence does \fInot\fR disable RUN and shell() in this situation. .SH THE INCLUDECMD COMMAND .PP \fBRemind\fR allows you to execute a shell command and evaluate the output of that command as if it were an included file. For example, you could have scripts that extract reminders out of a database and print them on stdout as REM commands. Here is an example: .PP .nf INCLUDECMD extract_reminders_for dfs .fi .PP We assume that the command "extract_reminders_for" extracts reminders out of a central database for the named user. Another use-case of INCLUDECMD is if you have your reminders stored in a file in some non-Remind format; you can write a command that transforms them to Remind format and then Remind can "include" the file with an appropriate INCLUDECMD command. .PP Note that if RUN is disabled, then INCLUDECMD will fail with the error message "RUN disabled" .PP INCLUDECMD passes the rest of the line to \fBpopen\fR(3), meaning that the command is executed by the shell. As such, shell metacharacters may need escaping or arguments quoting, depending on what you're trying to do. Remind itself does not perform any modification of the command line (apart from the normal [expr] expression-pasting mechanism). .PP If the command passed to INCLUDECMD begins with an exclamation mark "!", then Remind disables \fBRUN\fR for the output of the command. If you are running a command whose output you don't quite trust, you should prefix it with "!" so that any RUN commands it emits fail. .PP An \fBINCLUDECMD\fR command counts towards the INCLUDE nesting depth. For any given Remind run, a given INCLUDECMD command is only executed once and the results are cached. For example, if you generate a calendar, each unique INCLUDECMD command is run just once, not once for each day of the produced calendar. "Uniqueness" is determined by looking at the command that will be passed to the shell, so if (for example) your INCLUDECMD uses expression-pasting that results in differences depending on the value of \fBtoday()\fR, then each \fIunique\fR version of the command will be executed once. .PP .SH THE BANNER COMMAND .PP When \fBRemind\fR first issues a reminder, it prints a message like this: .PP .nf Reminders for Friday, 30th October, 1992 (today): .fi .PP (The banner is not printed if any of the calendar-producing options is used, or if the \fB\-k\fR option is used.) .PP The \fBBANNER\fR command lets you change the format. It should appear before any \fBREM\fR commands. The format is: .PP .RS \fBBANNER\fR \fIformat\fR .RE .PP The \fIformat\fR is similar to the \fIbody\fR of a \fBREM\fR command. It is passed through the substitution filter, with an implicit trigger of the current system date. Thus, the default banner is equivalent to: .PP .nf BANNER Reminders for %w, %d%s %m, %y%o: .fi .PP You can disable the banner completely with BANNER %. Or you can create a custom banner: .PP .nf BANNER Hi - here are your reminders for %y-%t-%r: .fi .SH CONTROLLING THE OMIT CONTEXT .PP Sometimes, it is necessary to temporarily change the global \fBOMITs\fR that are in force for a few reminders. Three commands allow you to do this: .TP .B PUSH-OMIT-CONTEXT This command saves the current global \fBOMITs\fR on an internal stack. .TP .B CLEAR-OMIT-CONTEXT This command clears all of the global \fBOMITs\fR, starting you off with a "clean slate." .TP .B POP-OMIT-CONTEXT This command restores the global \fBOMITs\fR that were saved by the most recent \fBPUSH-OMIT-CONTEXT\fR. .PP For example, suppose you have a block of reminders that require a clear \fBOMIT\fR context, and that they also introduce unwanted global \fBOMITs\fR that could interfere with later reminders. You could use the following fragment: .PP .nf PUSH-OMIT-CONTEXT # Save the current context CLEAR-OMIT-CONTEXT # Clean the slate # Block of reminders goes here POP-OMIT-CONTEXT # Restore the saved omit context .fi .SH EXPRESSIONS .PP In certain contexts, to be described later, \fBRemind\fR will accept expressions for evaluation. \fBRemind\fR expressions resemble C expressions, but operate on different types of objects. .PP .B DATA TYPES .PP \fBRemind\fR expressions operate on five types of objects: .TP .B INT The \fBINT\fR data type consists of the integers representable in one machine word. The \fBINT\fR data type corresponds to the C "int" type. .TP .B STRING The \fBSTRING\fR data type consists of strings of characters. It is somewhat comparable to a C character array, but more closely resembles the string type in BASIC. .TP .B TIME The \fBTIME\fR data type is used for two different purposes: To represent a time of day with one-minute precision or to represent a duration with one-minute precision. The context of where a \fBTIME\fR is used determines whether it is interpreted as a time of day or a duration. .RS .PP In contexts where a \fBTIME\fR represents a time of day, it may range from 00:00 to 23:59 and is stored internally as an integer from 0 to 1439 representing the number of minutes since midnight. .PP In contexts where a \fBTIME\fR represents a duration, there is no upper limit on the hour component (beyond that imposed by the restriction that a duration expressed in minutes must fit into the signed integer type of your CPU architecture.) Internally, a duration is stored as an integer number of minutes. .RE .TP .B DATE The \fBDATE\fR data type consists of dates (later than 1 January 1990.) Internally, \fBDATE\fR objects are stored as the number of days since 1 January 1990. .TP .B DATETIME The \fBDATETIME\fR data type consists of a date and time together. Internally, \fBDATETIME\fR objects are stored as the number of minutes since midnight, 1 January 1990. You can think of a \fBDATETIME\fR object as being the combination of \fBDATE\fR and \fBTIME\fR parts. .PP .B CONSTANTS .PP The following examples illustrate constants in \fBRemind\fR expressions: .TP .B INT constants 12, 36, \-10, 0, 1209 .TP .B STRING constants "Hello there", "This is a test", "\\nHello\\tThere", "" .PP .RS Note that the empty string is represented by "". Remind supports the escape sequences "\\a", "\\b", "\\f", "\\n", "\\r", "\\t" and "\\v" which have the same meanings as their counterparts in C. To include a quote in a string, use "\\"". Any other character preceded by a backslash is inserted into the string as-is, but the backslash itself is removed. To include a backslash in a string, use "\\\\". .RE .TP .B TIME constants 12:33, 0:01, 14:15, 16:42, 12.16, 13.00, 1.11, 4:30PM, 12:20am .PP .RS Note that \fBTIME\fR constants may be written in 24-hour format or in common "AM/PM" format. If you use "AM/PM" format, then the hour can range from 1 to 12. Either a period or colon can be used to separate the minutes from the hours. However, Remind will consistently output times in 24-hour format using only one separator character. (The output separator character is chosen at compile-time.) .PP If the \fBTIME\fR is used where \fBRemind\fR expects a time-of-day (for example, in an \fBAT\fR clause), then it can be written in 24-hour format (ranging from 00:00 to 23:59) or 12-hour format (ranging from 12:00am to 11:59pm). If the \fBTIME\fR is used where \fBRemind\fR expects a duration, it must not have an \fIam\fR or \fIpm\fR suffix and the hour can be as large as you want, so long as the total number of minutes in the duration fits in a signed integer variable. .RE .TP .B DATE constants \fBDATE\fR constants are expressed as 'yyyy/mm/dd' or 'yyyy-mm-dd', and the single quotes \fImust\fR be supplied. This distinguishes date constants from division or subtraction of integers. Examples: .PP .RS \(aq1993/02/22', '1992-12-25', '1999/01/01' .PP Note that \fBDATE\fR values are \fIprinted\fR without the quotes. Although either '-' or '/' is accepted as a date separator on input, when dates are printed, only one will be used. The choice of whether to use '-' or '/' is made at compile-time. Note also that versions of \fBRemind\fR prior to 03.00.01 did not support date constants. In those versions, you must create dates using the \fBdate()\fR function. Also, versions prior to 03.00.02 did not support the '-' date separator. .RE .TP .B DATETIME constants \fBDATETIME\fR constants are expressed similarly to \fBDATE\fR constants with the addition of an "@HH:MM" part, optionally followed by "am" or "pm". For example: .PP .RS \(aq2008-04-05@23:11', '1999/02/03@14:06', '2001-04-07@08:30', '2020-01-01@3:20pm' .PP \fBDATETIME\fR values are printed without the quotes. Notes about date and time separator characters for \fBDATE\fR and \fBTIME\fR constants apply also to \fBDATETIME\fR constants. .RE .PP .B ZERO VALUES .PP The non-string types all have an associated \fIzero\fR value, which is treated as "false" by the IF command and the logical operators. The zero values are: .PP .RS .PP \fBINT\fR - 0 .PP \fBDATE\fR - '1990-01-01' .PP \fBTIME\fR - 00:00 .PP \fBDATETIME\fR - '1990-01-01@00:00' .RE .PP Additionally, for the purpose of the IF command (but \fInot\fR the logical operators) the empty string "" is considered a false value. .PP .B OPERATORS .PP \fBRemind\fR has the following operators. Operators on the same line have equal precedence, while operators on lower lines have lower precedence than those on higher lines. The operators approximately correspond to C operators. .PP .nf ! - (unary logical negation and arithmetic negation) * / % + - < <= > >= == != && || .fi .PP .B DESCRIPTION OF OPERATORS .PP .TP .B ! Logical negation. Can be applied to an \fBINT\fR type. If the operand is non-zero, returns zero. Otherwise, returns 1. .TP .B \- Unary minus. Can be applied to an \fBINT\fR. Returns the negative of the operand. .TP .B * Multiplication. Returns the product of two \fBINT\fRs. Alternatively, if one argument is a \fBSTRING\fR and the other an \fBINT\fR, returns a \fBSTRING\fR consisting of the INT number of repeats of the original STRING. In this case, the INT argument cannot be negative. .TP .B / Integer division. Returns the quotient of two \fBINT\fRs, discarding the remainder. .TP .B % Modulus. Returns the remainder upon dividing one \fBINT\fR by another. .TP .B + Has several uses. These are: .PP .RS \fBINT\fR + \fBINT\fR - returns the sum of two \fBINT\fRs. .PP \fBINT\fR + \fBTIME\fR or \fBTIME\fR + \fBINT\fR - returns a \fBTIME\fR obtained by adding \fBINT\fR minutes to the original \fBTIME\fR. The result will always range from 00:00 through 23:59. .PP \fBTIME\fR + \fBTIME\fR treats the second \fBTIME\fR parameter as a duration, converting it to an integer number of minutes past midnight, and then performs addition as with \fBTIME\fR + \fBINT\fR. .PP \fBINT\fR + \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATE\fR + \fBINT\fR - returns a \fBDATE\fR obtained by adding \fBINT\fR days to the original \fBDATE\fR. .PP \fBINT\fR + \fBDATETIME\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR + \fBINT\fR - returns a \fBDATETIME\fR obtained by adding \fBINT\fR minutes to the original \fBDATETIME\fR. .PP \fBDATETIME\fR + \fBTIME\fR or \fBTIME\fR + \fBDATETIME\fR treats the \fBTIME\fR parameter as a duration, converting it to an integer number of minutes past midnight, and then performs addition as with \fBDATETIME\fR + \fBINT\fR. .PP \fBSTRING\fR + \fBSTRING\fR - returns a \fBSTRING\fR that is the concatenation of the two original \fBSTRING\fRs. .PP \fBSTRING\fR + anything or anything + \fBSTRING\fR - converts the non-\fBSTRING\fR argument to a \fBSTRING\fR, and then performs concatenation. See the \fBcoerce()\fR function. .RE .TP .B \- Has several uses. These are: .PP .RS \fBINT\fR - \fBINT\fR - returns the difference of two \fBINT\fRs. .PP \fBDATE\fR - \fBDATE\fR - returns (as an \fBINT\fR) the difference in days between two \fBDATE\fRs. .PP \fBTIME\fR - \fBTIME\fR - returns (as an \fBINT\fR) the difference in minutes between two \fBTIME\fRs. .PP \fBDATETIME\fR - \fBDATETIME\fR - returns (as an \fBINT\fR) the difference in minutes between two \fBDATETIME\fRs. .PP \fBDATE\fR - \fBINT\fR - returns a \fBDATE\fR that is \fBINT\fR days earlier than the original \fBDATE\fR. .PP \fBTIME\fR - \fBINT\fR - returns a \fBTIME\fR that is \fBINT\fR minutes earlier than the original \fBTIME\fR. .PP \fBDATETIME\fR - \fBINT\fR - returns a \fBDATETIME\fR that is \fBINT\fR minutes earlier than the original \fBDATETIME\fR. .PP \fBDATETIME\fR - \fBTIME\fR - coerces the \fBTIME\fR to an \fBINT\fR and then performs subtraction as above. .RE .TP .B <, <=, >, and >= These are the comparison operators. They can take operands of any type, but both operands must be of the same type. The comparison operators return 1 if the comparison is true, or 0 if it is false. Note that string comparison is done following the lexical ordering of characters on your system, and that upper and lower case \fIare\fR distinct for these operators. .TP .B ==, != == tests for equality, returning 1 if its operands are equal, and 0 if they are not. != tests for inequality. .PP .RS If the operands are not of the same type, == returns 0 and != returns 1. Again, string comparisons are case-sensitive. .RE .TP .B && This is the logical AND operator. Both of its operands must be of the same type and must not be \fBSTRING\fR type. Returns the second operand if both operands are non-zero. Otherwise, returns a zero of the same type as the operands. .TP .B || This is the logical OR operator. Both of its operands must be of the same type and must not be of \fBSTRING\fR type. It returns the first operand that is non-zero; if both operands are zero, then returns a zero of the same type as the operands. .PP .B NOTES .PP If the result of an addition, subtraction or multiplication operation would not fit in a C "int" type, \fBRemind\fR issues a "Number too high" error. Unlike C, integer operations will not simply give the wrong answer in case of overflow. .PP Operators of equal precedence are \fIalways\fR evaluated from left to right, except where parentheses dictate otherwise. This is important, because the enhanced "+" operator is not necessarily associative. For example: .PP .nf 1 + 2 + "string" + 3 + 4 yields "3string34" 1 + (2 + "string") + (3 + 4) yields "12string7" 12:59 + 1 + "test" yields "13:00test" 12:59 + (1 + "test") yields "12:591test" .fi .PP The logical operators are \fInot\fR so-called short-circuit operators, as they are in C. Both operands are always evaluated. Thus, an expression such as: .PP .nf (f!=0) && (100/f <= 3) .fi .PP will cause an error if f is zero. .PP .B VARIABLES .PP \fBRemind\fR allows you to assign values to variables. The \fBSET\fR command is used as follows: .PP \fBSET\fR \fIvar\fR \fIexpr\fR .PP \fIVar\fR is the name of a variable. It must start with a letter or underscore, and consist only of letters, digits and underscores. Only the first 64 characters of a variable name are significant. Variable names are \fInot\fR case sensitive; thus, "Afoo" and "afOo" are the same variable. Examples: .PP .nf SET a 10 + (9*8) SET b "This is a test" SET mydir getenv("HOME") SET time 12:15 SET date today() .fi .PP Note that variables themselves have no type. They take on the type of whatever you store in them. .PP Variables set with SET or on the command-line with \fB\-i\fR\fIvar\fB=\fR\fIexpr\fR have global scope. .PP To delete a variable, use the \fBUNSET\fR command: .PP \fBUNSET\fR \fIvar\fR [\fIvar\fR...] .PP For example, to delete all the variables declared above, use: .PP .nf UNSET a b mydir time date .fi .PP .B SYSTEM VARIABLES .PP In addition to the regular user variables, \fBRemind\fR has several "system variables" that are used to query or control the operating state of \fBRemind\fR. System variables are available starting from version 03.00.07 of \fBRemind\fR. .PP All system variables begin with a dollar sign '$'. They can be used in \fBSET\fR commands and expressions just as regular variables can. All system variables always hold values of a specified type. In addition, some system variables cannot be modified, and you cannot create new system variables. System variables can be initialized on the command line with the \fB\-i\fR option, but you may need to quote them to avoid having the shell interpret the dollar sign. System variable names are not case-sensitive. .PP The following system variables are defined. Those marked "read-only" cannot be changed with the \fBSET\fR command. All system variables hold values of type \fBINT\fR, unless otherwise specified. .TP .B $AddBlankLines If set to 1 (the default), then \fBRemind\fR normally prints a blank line after the banner and each reminder. (This can be suppressed by ending the reminder or banner with a single percent sign.) If $AddBlankLines is set to 0, then Remind does not print the blank line. In this case, ending a reminder with % has no effect. If you \fIdo\fR want a blank line after a reminder, end it with \fB%_\fR to insert a newline. .TP .B $CalcUTC If 1 (the default), then \fBRemind\fR uses C library functions to calculate the number of minutes between local and Universal Time Coordinated. This affects astronomical calculations (\fBsunrise()\fR for example.) If 0, then you must supply the number of minutes between local and Universal Time Coordinated in the \fB$MinsFromUTC\fR system variable. .TP .B $CalMode (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-c\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $Daemon (read-only) If "daemon mode" \fB\-z\fR was invoked, contains the number of minutes between wakeups. If not running in daemon mode, contains 0. In server mode (either \fB-z0\fR or \fB-zj\fR), contains -1. .TP .B $DateSep This variable can be set only to "/" or "-". It holds the character used to separate portions of a date when \fBRemind\fR prints a DATE or DATETIME value. .TP .B $DefaultColor This variable can be set to a string that has the form of three space-separated numbers. Each number must be an integer from 0 to 255, or all three numbers must be -1. The default value of \fB$DefaultColor\fR is "-1 -1 -1", which suppresses default coloring of MSG-type reminders. If you set \fB$DefaultColor\fR to any other value, then all MSG-, MSF- and CAL-type reminders are effectively converted into SPECIAL COLOR reminders whose color value is specified by \fB$DefaultColor\fR. .RS .PP Unlike other system variables, the value of \fB$DefaultColor\fR is \fInot\fR preserved between calendar iterations; rather, it is reset to "-1 -1 -1" at the start of each iteration. .RE .TP .B $DefaultPrio The default priority assigned to reminders without a \fBPRIORITY\fR clause. You can set this as required to adjust the priorities of blocks of reminders without having to type priorities for individual reminders. At startup, \fB$DefaultPrio\fR is set to 5000; it can range from 0 to 9999. .TP .B $DefaultTDelta The default time delta used if no +N is given in an AT clause. This is normally 0, but can be set with the \fB\-tt\fR option or explicitly set in your script. If \fB$DefaultDelta\fR is non-zero, you can use an explicit delta of +0 in an AT clause to countermand the default delta. .TP .B $DeltaOverride (read-only) If non-zero, corresponds to the \fIn\fR argument given to a \fB\-t\fR\fIn\fR command-line option. .TP .B $DontFork (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-c\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $DontTrigAts (read-only) The number of times that the \fB\-a\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $DontQueue (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-q\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $EndSent (STRING type) Contains a list of characters that end a sentence. The \fBMSF\fR keyword inserts two spaces after these characters. Initially, \fB$EndSent\fR is set to ".!?" (period, exclamation mark, and question mark.) .TP .B $EndSentIg (STRING type) Contains a list of characters that should be ignored when \fBMSF\fR decides whether or not to place two spaces after a sentence. Initially, is set to "'>)]}"+CHAR(34) (single-quote, greater-than, right parenthesis, right bracket, right brace, and double-quote.) .PP .RS For example, the default values work as follows: .PP .nf MSF He said, "Huh! (Two spaces will follow this.)" Yup. .fi .PP because the final parenthesis and quote are ignored (for the purposes of spacing) when they follow a period. .RE .TP .B $FirstIndent The number of spaces by which to indent the first line of a \fBMSF\fR-type reminder. The default is 0. .TP .B $FoldYear The standard Unix library functions may have difficulty dealing with dates later than 2037. If this variable is set to 1, then the UTC calculations "fold back" years later than 2037 before using the Unix library functions. For example, to find out whether or not daylight saving time is in effect in June, 2077, the year is "folded back" to 2010, because both years begin on a Monday, and both are non-leapyears. The rules for daylight saving time are thus presumed to be identical for both years, and the Unix library functions can handle 2010. By default, this variable is 0. Set it to 1 if the sun or UTC functions misbehave for years greater than 2037. .TP .B $FormWidth The maximum width of each line of text for formatting \fBMSF\fR-type reminders. The default is the width of the terminal in columns, minus 8, but clamped at a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 500. If standard output is not a terminal, then the default is 72.If an \fBMSF\fR-type reminder contains a word too long to fit in this width, it will not be truncated - the width limit will be ignored. .TP .B $HushMode (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-h\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $IgnoreOnce (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-o\fR option was supplied on the command line, or a date different from today's true date was supplied. If non-zero, then \fBONCE\fR directives will be ignored. .TP .B $InfDelta (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-t\fR option was supplied on the command line, with no \fIn\fR argument. .TP .B $IntMax (read-only) The largest representable \fBINT\fR. On a machine with 32-bit signed integers using twos-complement representation, this will be 2147483647. .TP .B $IntMin (read-only) The smallest representable \fBINT\fR. On a machine with 32-bit signed integers using twos-complement representation, this will be -2147483648. .TP .B $Latitude (STRING type) The latitude of your location, expressed as a string that is a floating-point number. Because \fBRemind\fR does not have a native floating-point type, we need to express it as a string. $Latitude can range from "-90.0" to "90.0", with positive numbers representing points north of the equator and negative numbers representing south. Note that regardless of your locale, $Latitude is always interpreted in the "C" locale and as such, the decimal point must be a period ("."). .TP .B $Longitude (STRING type) The longitude of your location, expressed as a string that is a floating-point number. Because \fBRemind\fR does not have a native floating-point type, we need to express it as a string. $Longitude can range from "-180.0" to "180.0", with positive numbers representing points east of the Greenwich Meridian and negative numbers representing west. Note that regardless of your locale, $Longitude is always interpreted in the "C" locale and as such, the decimal point must be a period ("."). .RS .PP For example, the coordinates of the Statue of Liberty in New York City are approximately set by: .PP .nf SET $Latitude "40.68933" SET $Longitude "-74.04454" .fi .RE .TP .B $LatDeg, $LatMin, $LatSec (DEPRECATED) These specify the latitude of your location. \fB$LatDeg\fR can range from \-90 to 90, and the others from \-59 to 59. Northern latitudes are positive; southern ones are negative. For southern latitudes, all three components should be negative. These three variables are deprecated; you should use \fB$Latitude\fR instead. .TP .B $Location (STRING type) This is a string specifying the name of your location. It is usually the name of your town or city. It can be set to whatever you like, but good style indicates that it should be kept consistent with the latitude and longitude system variables. .TP .B $LongDeg, $LongMin, $LongSec (DEPRECATED) These specify the longitude of your location. \fB$LongDeg\fR can range from \-180 to 180. Western longitudes are positive; eastern ones are negative. Note that all three components should have the same sign: All positive for western longitudes and all negative for eastern longitudes. Note that for historical reasons, the sign for longitude is \fIdifferent\fR from the usual convention! If you find the longitude of your location from a search engine, you will most likely \fIneed to invert the sign to have it work correctly with Remind.\fR These three variables are deprecated; you should use \fB$Longitude\fR instead. Note also that \fB$Longitude\fR uses the standard convention of negative for western longitudes and positive for eastern ones. .RS .PP The latitude and longitude information is required for the functions \fBsunrise()\fR and \fBsunset()\fR. Default values can be compiled into \fBRemind\fR, or you can \fBSET\fR the correct values at the start of your reminder scripts. .PP Note that setting any of \fB$LongDec\fR, \fB$LongMin\fR and \fB$LongSec\fR updates \fB$Longitude\fR correspondingly, and setting \fB$Longitude\fR updates \fB$LongDeg\fR, \fB$LongMin\fR and \fB$LongSec\fR. Similar rules apply to \fB$Latitude\fR, \fB$LatDeg\fR, \fB$LatMin\fR and \fB$LatSec\fR. .RE .TP .B $MaxLateMinutes This variable controls how \fBRemind\fR reacts to a computer being suspended and then woken. Normally, if a timed reminder is queued and then the computer suspended, and then the computer is woken \fIafter\fR the timed reminder's trigger time, \fBRemind\fR will triger the timer anyway, despite the fact that the trigger time has already passed. .RS .PP If you set \fB$MaxLateMinutes\fR to a non-zero integer between 1 and 1440, then \fBRemind\fR will \fInot\fR trigger a timed reminder whose trigger time is more than \fB$MaxLateMinutes\fR minutes in the past. .PP Note that \fBRemind\fR uses the value of \fB$MaxLateMinutes\fR that is in effect when it has finished reading the reminder file and puts itself in the background. Generally, you should set \fB$MaxLateMinutes\fR once near the beginning of the file and not change it after that. .RE .TP .B $MaxSatIter The maximum number of iterations for the \fBSATISFY\fR clause (described later.) Must be at least 10. .TP .B $MaxStringLen A limit on the longest string that \fBRemind\fR will allow you to create. The default is 65535. If you set \fB$MaxStringLen\fR to 0 or to -1, then \fBremind\fR will allow you to create arbitrarily-long strings, at least until it runs out of memory. We do not recommend setting \fB$MaxStringLen\fR to 0 or -1 because it is very easy to write code that DOSes \fBRemind\fR in that case. .TP .B $MinsFromUTC The number of minutes between Universal Time Coordinated and local time. If \fB$CalcUTC\fR is non-zero, this is calculated upon startup of \fBRemind\fR. Otherwise, you must set it explicitly. If \fB$CalcUTC\fR is zero, then \fB$MinsFromUTC\fR is used in the astronomical calculations. You must adjust it for daylight saving time yourself. Also, if you want to initialize \fB$MinsFromUTC\fR using the \fB\-i\fR command-line option, you must also set \fB$CalcUTC\fR to 0 with the \fB\-i\fR option. .TP .B $NextMode (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-n\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $MaxFullOmits (read-only) The maximum number of full OMITs allowed (a compiled-in constant.) .TP .B $MaxPartialOmits (read-only) The maximum number of partial OMITs allowed (a compiled-in constant.) .TP .B $NumFullOmits (read-only) The number of full OMITs in the current OMIT context. .TP .B $NumPartialOmits (read-only) The number of partial OMITs in the current OMIT context. .TP .B $NumQueued (read-only) Contains the number of reminders queued so far for background timed triggering. .TP .B $NumTrig (read-only) Contains the number of reminders triggered for the current date. One use for this variable is as follows: Suppose you wish to shade in the box of a PostScript calendar whenever a holiday is triggered. You could save the value of \fB$NumTrig\fR in a regular variable prior to executing a block of holiday reminders. If the value of \fB$NumTrig\fR after the holiday block is greater than the saved value, then at least one holiday was triggered, and you can execute the command to shade in the calendar box. (See the section "Calendar Mode".) .PP .RS Note that \fB$NumTrig\fR is affected \fIonly\fR by \fBREM\fR commands; triggers in \fBIFTRIG\fR commands do not affect it. .RE .TP .B $ParseUntriggered A flag indicating whether or not \fBRemind\fR should fully parse \fBREM\fR statements that are not triggered. 0 means to skip parsing them and 1 (the default) means to parse them. .PP .RS For example, if we have the following \fBREM\fR statement: .PP .nf REM 2020-01-01 MSG ["bad_expression" * 2] .fi .PP Then by default, \fBRemind\fR will fully parse the line and issue a "Type mismatch" error even if the reminder is not triggered. However, if \fB$ParseUntriggered\fR is set to 0, then \fBRemind\fR will not issue the error except on 2020-01-01, when the reminder is triggered. .PP Setting \fB$ParseUntriggered\fR to 0 may in some cases slightly improve performance, at the risk of not catching errors until a reminder is triggered. .RE .TP .B $PrefixLineNo (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-l\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $PSCal (read-only) If non-zero, then the \fB\-p\fR option was supplied on the command line. .TP .B $RunOff (read-only) If non-zero, the \fBRUN\fR directives are disabled. .TP .B $SimpleCal (read-only) Set to a non-zero value if \fIeither\fR of the \fB\-p\fR or \fB\-s\fR command-line options was supplied. .TP .B $SortByDate (read-only) Set to 0 if no \fB\-g\fR option is used, 1 if sorting by date in ascending order, or 2 if sorting by date in descending order. .TP .B $SortByPrio (read-only) Set to 0 if no \fB\-g\fR option is used, 1 if sorting by priority in ascending order, or 2 if sorting by priority in descending order. .TP .B $SortByTime (read-only) Set to 0 if no \fB\-g\fR option is used, 1 if sorting by time in ascending order, or 2 if sorting by time in descending order. .TP .B $SubsIndent The number of spaces by which all lines (except the first) of an \fBMSF\fR-type reminder should be indented. The default is 0. .TP .B $SuppressLRM Normally, when Remind is run with the \fB\-c\fR option in a UTF-8 locale, it emits a left-to-right mark sequence after printing day names or reminders. Some terminals render this incorrectly, so you can use: .RS .PP .nf SET $SuppressLRM 1 .fi .PP at the top of your reminder file to suppress the LRM sequences, or you can invoke Remind with the option \fB'\-i$SuppressLRM=1'\fR. .RE .TP .B $SysInclude (read-only, STRING type) A directory path containing standard reminder scripts. Currently, Remind ships with some standard holiday files and language packs. The value of \fB$SysInclude\fR is "/usr/share/remind" on this installation. .TP .B $T (read-only, DATE type) Exactly equivalent to \fBtrigdate()\fR. (See BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS.) .TP .B $Td (read-only) Equivalent to \fBday(trigdate())\fR. .TP .B $Tm (read-only) Equivalent to \fBmonnum(trigdate())\fR. .TP .B $Tw (read-only) Equivalent to \fBwkdaynum(trigdate())\fR. .TP .B $Ty (read-only) Equivalent to \fByear(trigdate())\fR. .TP .B $TimeSep This variable can be set only to ":" or ".". It holds the character used to separate portions of a time when \fBRemind\fR prints a TIME or DATETIME value. .TP .B $UntimedFirst (read-only) Set to 1 if the \fB\-g\fR option is used with a fourth sort character of "d"; set to 0 otherwise. .TP .B $U (read-only, DATE type) Exactly equivalent to \fBtoday()\fR. (See BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS.) .TP .B $Ud (read-only) Equivalent to \fBday(today())\fR. .TP .B $Um (read-only) Equivalent to \fBmonnum(today())\fR. .TP .B $Uw (read-only) Equivalent to \fBwkdaynum(today())\fR. .TP .B $Uy (read-only) Equivalent to \fByear(today())\fR. .TP .B $UseVTColors (read-only) Set to 1 if the \fB\-@\fR or \fB\-cc\fR options were used; 0 otherwise. .TP .B $UseBGVTColors (read-only) Set to 1 if the \fB\-@,,1\fR option was used; 0 otherwise. .TP .B $Use256Colors (read-only) Set to 1 if the \fB\-@1\fR option was used; 0 otherwise. .TP .B $UseTrueColors (read-only) Set to 1 if the \fB\-@2\fR option was used; 0 otherwise. .TP .B $TerminalBackground (read-only) Returns -1 if the terminal background color could not be determined, 0 if it was found to be dark (or was specified as dark with the \fB\-@,0\fR option) or 1 if it was found to be light (or specified as light with the \fB\-@,1\fR option.) The terminal background is considered to be "dark" if the average of the red, green and blue components is at most 85 out of 255, and if the maximum of any component is at most 128 out of 255. .PP Note: If any of the calendar modes are in effect, then the values of $Daemon, $DontFork, $DontTrigAts, $DontQueue, $HushMode, $IgnoreOnce, $InfDelta, and $NextMode are not meaningful. .PP .B BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS .PP \fBRemind\fR has a plethora of built-in functions. The syntax for a function call is the same as in C - the function name, followed a comma-separated list of arguments in parentheses. Function names are not case-sensitive. If a function takes no arguments, it must be followed by "()" in the function call. Otherwise, \fBRemind\fR will interpret it as a variable name, and probably not work correctly. .PP In the descriptions below, short forms are used to denote acceptable types for the arguments. The characters "i", "s", "d", "t" and "q" denote \fBINT\fR, \fBSTRING\fR, \fBDATE\fR, \fBTIME\fR and \fBDATETIME\fR arguments, respectively. If an argument can be one of several types, the characters are concatenated. For example, "di_arg" denotes an argument that can be a \fBDATE\fR or an \fBINT\fR. "x_arg" denotes an argument that can be of any type. The type of the argument is followed by an underscore and an identifier naming the argument. .PP The built-in functions are: .TP .B abs(i_num) Returns the absolute value of \fInum\fR. .TP .B access(s_file, si_mode) Tests the access permissions for the file \fIfile\fR. \fIMode\fR can be a string, containing a mix of the characters "rwx" for read, write and execute permission testing. Alternatively, \fImode\fR can be a number as described in the UNIX \fBaccess\fR(2) system call. The function returns 0 if the file can be accessed with the specified \fImode\fR, and \-1 otherwise. .TP .B adawn([dq_date]) Returns the time of "astronomical dawn" on the specified \fIdate\fR. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. If a \fIdatetime\fR object is supplied, only the date component is used. .TP .B adusk([dq_date]) Returns the time of "astronomical twilight" on the specified \fIdate\fR. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .TP .B ampm(tq_time [,s_am [,s_pm]]) Returns a \fBSTRING\fR that is the result of converting \fItime\fR (which is either a \fBTIME\fR or a \fBDATETIME\fR object) to "AM/PM" format. The optional arguments \fIam\fR and \fIpm\fR are the strings to append in the AM and PM case, respectively; they default to "AM" and "PM". The function obeys the system variables $DateSep, $TimeSep and $DateTimeSep when formatting its output. For example: .RS .PP .nf ampm(0:22) returns "12:22AM" ampm(17:45, "am", "pm") returns "5:45pm" ampm('2020-03-14@21:34') returns "2020-03-14@9:34PM" .fi .PP .RE .TP .B ansicolor(i_red, i_green, i_blue [,i_bg [,i_clamp]]) Returns a \fBSTRING\fR that contains an ANSI escape sequence for changing the terminal text color. The parameters \fIred\fR, \fIgreen\fR and \fIblue\fR are integers from 0 to 255 specifying the value of the respective color component. As a special case, all three values can be -1, in which case the ANSI sequence "ESC[0m" is returned, which resets all text attributes to normal. .RS .PP The string returned by \fBansicolor\fR depends on the color mode that \fBRemind\fR is running in, as specified by the \fB\-@\fR option. If color mode is not enabled, then \fBansicolor\fR always returns the empty string. Otherwise, it returns the escape sequence that best approximates the color according to the \fB\-@\fR color mode. .PP The optional \fIbg\fR argument is either 0 or 1. If 0 (the default), then the foreground color is set. If 1, then the background color is set. Note that setting the background color only works in 256-color or true-color mode. .PP The optional \fIclamp\fR argument is either 0 or 1. If 0 (the default), then colors are not adjusted based on the terminal background color. If 1, then \fBRemind\fR attempts to adjust dark or bright colors so they have enough contrast to be visible in the terminal. .PP The first three arguments may alternatively be specified as a string consisting of three space-separated numbers, as in this example: "128 128 0" .PP As a special case, \fBansicolor("")\fR is equivalent to \fBansicolor(-1,-1,-1)\fR and returns the ANSI sequence to reset all text attributes to normal. .PP Note that inserting ANSI color sequences in calendar mode \fIwill produce garbled results\fR. Therefore, we recommend defining functions such as the ones below that return the empty string in calendar mode: .PP .nf IF $CalMode FSET fg(r,g,b) "" FSET bg(r,g,b) "" ELSE FSET fg(r,g,b) ansicolor(r,g,b) FSET bg(r,g,b) ansicolor(r,g,b,1) ENDIF REM [fg(255,0,0)][bg(64,64,64)]Red on Gray[fg(-1,-1,-1)] in normal mode REM SPECIAL COLOR 0 255 0 Green in normal and calendar mode .fi .PP If you use the \fBansicolor\fR function, don't forget to reset the color back to normal with \fBansicolor(-1,-1,-1)\fR or subsequent reminders will continue to be colored. .RE .TP .B args(s_fname) Returns the number of arguments expected by the user-defined function \fIfname\fR, or \-1 if no such user-defined function exists. Note that this function examines only user-defined functions, not built-in functions. Its main use is to determine whether or not a particular user-defined function has been defined previously. The \fBargs()\fR function is available only in versions of \fBRemind\fR from 03.00.04 and up. .TP .B asc(s_string) Returns an \fBINT\fR that is the ASCII code of the first character in \fIstring\fR. As a special case, \fBasc("")\fR returns 0. For UTF-8 strings, this will return the UTF-8 byte with which the string begins, which is not likely to be very useful (and may indeed be negative on machines where \fBchar\fR is a signed type.) .TP .B baseyr() Returns the "base year" that was compiled into \fBRemind\fR (normally 1990.) All dates are stored internally as the number of days since 1 January of \fBbaseyr()\fR. .TP .B char(i_i1 [,i_i2...]) This function can take any number of \fBINT\fR arguments. It returns a \fBSTRING\fR consisting of the bytes specified by the arguments. It is easy to create invalid UTF-8 sequences; \fBchar\fR does not check for this. Note that none of the arguments can be 0, unless there is only one argument. As a special case, \fBchar(0)\fR returns "". .RE .TP .B choose(i_index, x_arg1 [,x_arg2...]) \fBChoose\fR must take at least two arguments, the first of which is an \fBINT\fR. If \fIindex\fR is \fIn\fR, then the \fIn\fRth subsequent argument is returned. If \fIindex\fR is less than 1, then \fIarg1\fR is returned. If \fIindex\fR is greater than the number of subsequent arguments, then the last argument is returned. Examples: .PP .nf \fBchoose(0, "foo", 1:13, 1000)\fR returns "foo" \fBchoose(1, "foo", 1:13, 1000)\fR returns "foo" \fBchoose(2, "foo", 1:13, 1000)\fR returns 1:13 \fBchoose(3, "foo", 1:13, 1000)\fR returns 1000 \fBchoose(4, "foo", 1:13, 1000)\fR returns 1000 .fi .RS Note that all arguments to \fBchoose()\fR are \fIalways\fR evaluated. .RE .TP .B coerce(s_type, x_arg) This function converts \fIarg\fR to the specified \fItype\fR, if such conversion is possible. \fIType\fR must be one of "INT", "STRING", "DATE", "TIME" or "DATETIME" (case-insensitive). The conversion rules are as follows: .RS .PP If \fIarg\fR is already of the \fItype\fR specified, it is returned unchanged. .PP If \fItype\fR is "STRING", then \fIarg\fR is converted to a string consisting of its printed representation. .PP If \fItype\fR is "DATE", then an \fBINT\fR \fIarg\fR is converted by interpreting it as the number of days since 1 January \fBbaseyr()\fR. A \fBSTRING\fR \fIarg\fR is converted by attempting to read it as if it were a printed date. A \fBDATETIME\fR is converted to a date by dropping the time component. A \fBTIME\fR \fIarg\fR cannot be converted to a date. .PP If \fItype\fR is "TIME", then an \fBINT\fR \fIarg\fR is converted by interpreting it as the number of minutes since midnight. A \fBSTRING\fR \fIarg\fR is converted by attempting to read it as if it were a printed time. A \fBDATETIME\fR is converted to a time by dropping the date component. A \fBDATE\fR \fIarg\fR cannot be converted to a time. .PP If \fItype\fR is "DATETIME", then an \fBINT\fR \fIarg\fR is converted by interpreting it as the number of minutes since midnight, 1 January \fBbaseyr()\fR. A \fBSTRING\fR is converted by attempting to read it as if it were a printed datetime. Other types cannot be converted to a datetime. .PP If \fItype\fR is "INT", then \fBDATE\fR, \fBTIME\fR and \fBDATETIME\fR arguments are converted using the reverse of procedures described above. A \fBSTRING\fR \fIarg\fR is converted by parsing it as an integer. .RE .TP .B columns([s_arg]) If called with no arguments, \fBcolumns()\fR behaves as follows: If standard output is a TTY, returns the width of the terminal in columns. If standard output is not a TTY, attempts to open "/dev/tty" to obtain the terminal size. If this fails, returns -1. .RS .PP If called with a single string argument, \fBcolumns(str)\fR returns the number of columns \fBstr\fR will occupy if printed to a terminal. ANSI color-changing sequences occupy zero columns whereas some Unicode characters occupy two columns. \fBcolumns(str)\fR takes all of that into account. Note that if Remind was compiled without Unicode support, \fBcolumns(str)\fR returns a type mismatch error. .RE .TP .B current() Returns the current date and time as a DATETIME object. This may be the actual date and time, or may be the date and time supplied on the command line. .TP .B date(i_y, i_m, i_d) The \fBdate()\fR function returns a \fBDATE\fR object with the year, month and day components specified by \fIy\fR, \fIm\fR and \fId\fR. .TP .B datepart(dq_datetime) Returns a \fBDATE\fR object representing the date portion of \fIdatetime\fR. .TP .B datetime(args) The \fBdatetime()\fR function can take anywhere from two to five arguments. It always returns a DATETIME generated from its arguments. .RS .PP If you supply two arguments, the first must be a DATE and the second a TIME. .PP If you supply three arguments, the first must be a DATE and the second and third must be INTs. The second and third arguments are interpreted as hours and minutes and converted to a TIME. .PP If you supply four arguments, the first three must be INTs, interpreted as the year, month and day. The fourth argument must be a TIME. .PP Finally, if you supply five arguments, they must all be INTs and are interpreted as year, month, day, hour and minute. .RE .TP .B dawn([dq_date]) Returns the time of "civil dawn" on the specified \fIdate\fR. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. If a \fIdatetime\fR object is supplied, only the date component is used. .TP .B day(dq_date) This function takes a \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR as an argument, and returns an \fBINT\fR that is the day-of-month component of \fIdate\fR. .TP .B daysinmon(i_m, i_y) Returns the number of days in month \fIm\fR (1-12) of the year \fIy\fR. .TP .B defined(s_var) Returns 1 if the variable named by \fIvar\fR is defined, or 0 if it is not. .RS Note that \fBdefined()\fR takes a \fBSTRING\fR argument; thus, to check if variable X is defined, use: .PP .nf defined("X") .fi .PP and not: .PP .nf defined(X) .fi .PP The second example will attempt to evaluate X, and will return an error if it is undefined or not of type \fBSTRING\fR. .RE .TP .B dosubst(s_str [,d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB dosubst(s_str [,q_datetime]) Returns a \fBSTRING\fR that is the result of passing \fIstr\fR through the substitution filter described earlier. The parameters \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR (or \fIdatetime\fR) establish the effective trigger date and time used by the substitution filter. If \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR are omitted, they default to \fBtoday()\fR and \fBnow()\fR. .RS .PP Note that if \fIstr\fR does not end with "%", a newline character will be added to the end of the result. Also, calling \fBdosubst()\fR with a \fIdate\fR that is in the past (i.e., if \fIdate\fR < \fBtoday()\fR) will produce undefined results. .PP \fBDosubst()\fR is only available starting from version 03.00.04 of \fBRemind\fR. .RE .TP .B dusk([dq_date]) Returns the time of "civil twilight" on the specified \fIdate\fR. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .TP .B easterdate([dqi_arg]) If \fIarg\fR is an \fBINT\fR, then returns the date of Easter Sunday for the specified year. If \fIarg\fR is a \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR, then returns the date of the next Easter Sunday on or after \fIarg\fR. (The time component of a datetime is ignored.) If \fIarg\fR is omitted, then it defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .RS .P Note that \fBeasterdate\fR computes the Western Easter. For the Orthodox Easter date, see \fBorthodoxeaster\fR. .RE .TP .B evaltrig(s_trigger [,dq_start]) Evaluates \fItrigger\fR as if it were a REM or IFTRIG trigger specification and returns the trigger date as a \fBDATE\fR (or as a \fBDATETIME\fR if there is an \fBAT\fR clause.) Returns a negative \fBINT\fR if no trigger could be computed. .RS .PP Normally, \fBevaltrig\fR finds a trigger date on or after today. If you supply the \fIstart\fR argument, then it scans starting from there. .PP For example, the expression: .PP .nf evaltrig("Mon 1", '2008-10-07') .fi .PP returns '2008-11-03', since that is the first date on or after 7 October 2008 that satisfies "Mon 1". .PP If you want to see how many days it is from the first Monday in October, 2008 to the first Monday in November, 2008, use: .PP .nf evaltrig("Mon 1", '2008-11-01') - evaltrig("Mon 1", '2008-10-01') .fi .PP and the answer is 28. The trigger argument to \fBevaltrig\fR can have all the usual trigger clauses (\fBOMIT\fR, \fBAT\fR, \fBSKIP\fR, etc.) but \fIcannot\fR have a \fBSATISFY\fR, \fBMSG\fR, etc. reminder-type clause. .RE .TP .B filedate(s_filename) Returns the modification date of \fIfilename\fR. If \fIfilename\fR does not exist, or its modification date is before the year \fBbaseyr()\fR, then 1 January of \fBbaseyr()\fR is returned. .TP .B filedatetime(s_filename) Returns the modification date and time of \fIfilename\fR. If \fIfilename\fR does not exist, or its modification date is before the year \fBbaseyr()\fR, then midnight, 1 January of \fBbaseyr()\fR is returned. .TP .B filedir() Returns the directory that contains the current file being processed. It may be a relative or absolute pathname, but is guaranteed to be correct for use in an \fBINCLUDE\fR command as follows: .PP .nf INCLUDE [filedir()]/stuff .fi .PP .RS This includes the file "stuff" in the same directory as the current file being processed. Note that this workaround is no longer necessary because \fBDO stuff\fR will achieve the same goal. .PP Note that if the currently-processing reminders file was specified as a symbolic link, then \fBfiledir()\fR returns the directory containing the symbolic link and \fInot\fR the directory containing the target of the symbolic link. You should avoid using symbolic links to files unless both the symbolic link and its target happen to be in the same directory. .RE .TP .B filename() Returns (as a \fBSTRING\fR) the name of the current file being processed by \fBRemind\fR. Inside included files, returns the name of the included file. .TP .B getenv(s_envvar) Similar to the \fBgetenv\fR(2) system call. Returns a string representing the value of the specified environment variable. Returns "" if the environment variable is not defined. Note that the names of environment variables are generally case-sensitive; thus, getenv("HOME") is not the same as getenv("home"). .TP .B hebdate(i_day, s_hebmon [,idq_yrstart [,i_jahr [,i_aflag]]]) Support for Hebrew dates - see the section "THE HEBREW CALENDAR" .TP .B hebday(dq_date) Support for Hebrew dates - see the section "THE HEBREW CALENDAR" .TP .B hebmon(dq_date) Support for Hebrew dates - see the section "THE HEBREW CALENDAR" .TP .B hebyear(dq_date) Support for Hebrew dates - see the section "THE HEBREW CALENDAR" .TP .B hour(tq_time) Returns the hour component of \fItime\fR. .TP .B htmlescape(s_str) Returns a modified copy of \fIstr\fR where "<" is replaced with "<"; ">" is replaced with ">" and "&" is replaced with "&" .TP .B htmlstriptags(s_str) Returns a modified copy of \fIstr\fR where HTML tags are stripped out. The stripping algorithm is fairly naive; the function starts stripping characters when it encounters a "<" and it stops stripping when it encounters a ">". .TP .B iif(si_test1, x_arg1, [si_test2, x_arg2,...], x_default) If \fItest1\fR is not zero or the null string, returns \fIarg1\fR. Otherwise, if \fItest2\fR is not zero or the null string, returns \fIarg2\fR, and so on. If all of the \fItest\fR arguments are false, returns \fIdefault\fR. Note that all arguments are \fIalways\fR evaluated. This function accepts an odd number of arguments - note that prior to version 03.00.05 of \fBRemind\fR, it accepted 3 arguments only. The 3-argument version of \fBiif()\fR is compatible with previous versions of \fBRemind\fR. .TP .B index(s_search, s_target [,i_start) Returns an \fBINT\fR that is the location of \fItarget\fR in the string \fIsearch\fR. The first character of a string is numbered 1. If \fItarget\fR does not exist in \fIsearch\fR, then 0 is returned. .RS .PP The optional parameter \fIstart\fR specifies the position in \fIsearch\fR at which to start looking for \fItarget\fR. .RE .TP .B isany(arg1 [,arg2, ..., argN]); Returns 1 if the first argument \fIarg1\fR is equal to any of the subsequent arguments \fIarg2\fR through \fIargN\fR; returns 0 otherwise. Also returns 0 if called with only one argument. .RS .PP As an example, the following two expressions are equivalent: .PP .nf (a == b) || (a == c) || (a == d) || (a == e) isany(a, b, c, d, e) .fi .RE .TP .B isdst([d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB isdst(q_datetime) Returns a positive number if daylight saving time is in effect on the specified date and time. \fIDate\fR defaults to \fBtoday()\fR and \fItime\fR defaults to midnight. .RS .PP Note that this function is only as reliable as the C run-time library functions. It is available starting with version 03.00.07 of \fBRemind\fR. .RE .TP .B isleap(idq_arg) Returns 1 if \fIarg\fR is a leap year, and 0 otherwise. \fIArg\fR can be an \fBINT\fR, \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR object. If a \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR is supplied, then the year component is used in the test. .TP .B isomitted(dq_date) Returns 1 if \fIdate\fR is omitted, given the current global \fBOMIT\fR context. Returns 0 otherwise. (If a datetime is supplied, only the date part is used.) Note that any local \fBOMIT\fR or \fBOMITFUNC\fR clauses are \fInot\fR taken into account by this function. .TP .B language() Returns a \fBSTRING\fR naming the language supported by \fBRemind\fR. (See "SUPPORT FOR OTHER LANGUAGES") By default, \fBRemind\fR is compiled to support English messages, so this function returns "English". For other languages, this function will return the English name of the language (e.g. "German") Note that \fBlanguage()\fR is not available in versions of \fBRemind\fR prior to 03.00.02. .TP .B localtoutc(q_datetime) Given a \fBDATETIME\fR object interpreted in the local time zone, return a \fBDATETIME\fR object that expresses the same time in UTC. .TP .B lower(s_string) Returns a \fBSTRING\fR with all upper-case characters in \fIstring\fR converted to lower-case. .TP .B max(x_arg1 [,x_arg2...) Can take any number of arguments, and returns the maximum. The arguments can be of any type, but must all be of the same type. They are compared as with the > operator. .TP .B min(x_arg1 [,x_arg2...) Can take any number of arguments, and returns the minimum. The arguments can be of any type, but must all be of the same type. They are compared as with the < operator. .TP .B minsfromutc([d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB minsfromutc(q_datetime) Returns the number of minutes from Universal Time Coordinated (formerly GMT) to local time on the specified date and time. \fIDate\fR defaults to \fBtoday()\fR and \fItime\fR defaults to midnight. If local time is before UTC, the result is negative. Otherwise, the result is positive. .RS .PP Note that this function is only as reliable as the C run-time library functions. It is available starting with version 03.00.07 of \fBRemind\fR. .RE .TP .B minute(tq_time) Returns the minute component of \fItime\fR. .TP .B mon(dqi_arg) If \fIarg\fR is of \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR type, returns a string that names the month component of the date. If \fIarg\fR is an \fBINT\fR from 1 to 12, returns a string that names the month. .TP .B monnum(dq_date) Returns an \fBINT\fR from 1 to 12, representing the month component of \fIdate\fR. .TP .B moondate(i_phase [,d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB moondate(i_phase, q_datetime) This function returns the date of the first occurrence of the phase \fIphase\fR of the moon on or after \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR. \fIPhase\fR can range from 0 to 3, with 0 signifying new moon, 1 first quarter, 2 full moon, and 3 third quarter. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, it defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. If \fItime\fR is omitted, it defaults to midnight. .RS .PP For example, the following returns the date of the next full moon: .PP .nf SET fullmoon moondate(2) .fi .PP .RE .TP .B moontime(i_phase [,d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB moontime(i_phase, q_datetime) This function returns the time of the first occurrence of the phase \fIphase\fR of the moon on or after \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR. \fIPhase\fR can range from 0 to 3, with 0 signifying new moon, 1 first quarter, 2 full moon, and 3 third quarter. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, it defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. If \fItime\fR is omitted, it defaults to midnight. \fBMoontime()\fR is intended to be used in conjunction with \fBmoondate()\fR. The \fBmoondate()\fR and \fBmoontime()\fR functions are accurate to within a couple of minutes of the times in "Old Farmer's Almanac" for Ottawa, Ontario. .RS .PP For example, the following returns the date and time of the next full moon: .PP .nf MSG Next full moon at [moontime(2)] on [moondate(2)] .fi .PP .RE .TP .B moondatetime(i_phase [,d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB moondatetime(i_phase, q_datetime) This function is similar to \fBmoondate\fR and \fBmoontime\fR, but returns a DATETIME result. .TP .B moonphase([d_date [,t_time]]) \fRor\fB moonphase(q_datetime) This function returns the phase of the moon on \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR, which default to \fBtoday()\fR and midnight, respectively. The returned value is an integer from 0 to 359, representing the phase of the moon in degrees. 0 is a new moon, 180 is a full moon, 90 is first-quarter, etc. .TP .B multitrig(s_trig1 [,s_trig2, [... s_trigN]]) \fBmultitrig\fR evaluates each string as a trigger, similar to \fBevaltrig\fR, and returns the \fIearliest\fR trigger date that is on or after \fBtoday()\fR. \fBmultitrig\fR is similar to \fBtrig\fR but has the following difference: .RS .PP \fBtrig\fR returns the \fIfirst\fR trigger date that would have triggered today, whereas \fBmultitrig\fR returns the \fIearliest\fR trigger date later than today, regardless of whether it would have triggered today. .PP If no trigger can be computed that is later than \fBtoday()\fR, then \fBmultitrig\fR returns 1990-01-01. .PP Consider the following examples, assuming that today is Sunday, 24 March 2024: .PP .nf # Returns 1990-01-01 because neither would trigger today SET a trig("Mon", "Wed") # Returns 2024-03-25 because it's the earlier trigger date SET a multitrig("Mon", "Wed") # Returns 2024-03-27 because it's the first that would trigger today SET a trig("Wed +3", "Mon +3") # Returns 2024-03-25 because it's the earlier trigger date SET a multitrig("Wed +3", "Mon +3") # Returns 1990-01-01 because all triggers have expired SET a multitrig("2000", "2022", "1998", "2023") .fi .PP In general, \fBmultitrig\fR works better with the Remind algorithm than \fBtrig\fR and should be used most of the time. As an example, this reminder is issued at the end of each quarter: .PP .nf REM [multitrig("Mar 31", "Jun 30", "Sep 30", "Dec 31")] +7 MSG \\ %"End of [ord($Tm/3)] quarter%" is %b. .fi .PP If you want the last working day of each quarter, you could use: .PP .nf PUSH-OMIT-CONTEXT OMIT Sat Sun REM [multitrig("Mar ~1", "Jun ~1", "Sep ~1", "Dec ~1")] +7 MSG \\ %"Last working day of [ord($Tm/3)] quarter%" is %b. POP-OMIT-CONTEXT .fi .PP Note that unlike \fBevaltrig\fR, \fBmultitrig\fR always returns a \fBDATE\fR and never a \fBDATETIME\fR. Including an \fBAT\fR clause in a trigger supplied to \fBmultitrig\fR will result in an error. .RE .TP .B ndawn([dq_date]) Returns the time of "nautical dawn" on the specified \fIdate\fR. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. If a \fIdatetime\fR object is supplied, only the date component is used. .TP .B ndusk([dq_date]) Returns the time of "nautical twilight" on the specified \fIdate\fR. If \fIdate\fR is omitted, defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .TP .B nonomitted(dq_start, dq_end [, i_step] [,s_wkday...]) This function returns the number of \fInon-\fRomitted days between \fIstart\fR and \fIend\fR. If \fIstart\fR is non-omitted, then it is counted. \fIend\fR is never counted. .RS .PP Note that if \fIend\fR is less than \fIstart\fR, the arguments are effectively swapped, so counting always begins from the older date. .PP If the third argument to \fBnonomitted\fR is an \fBINT\fR, then it must be greater than zero, and is consider to be the \fIstep\fR by which \fBnonomitted\fR counts. For example the following expression: .PP .nf nonomitted('2023-07-01', '2023-07-29', 7) .fi .PP returns the number of non-omitted Saturdays from 2023-07-01 up to (but not including) 2023-07-29. (Both 2023-07-01 and 2023-07-29 are Saturdays.) .PP If no \fIstep\fR argument is supplied, then a step of 1 is used. .PP In addition to using the global OMIT context, you can supply additional arguments that are names of weekdays to be omitted. However, in a \fBREM\fR command, any local \fBOMITFUNC\fR clause is \fInot\fR taken into account by this function. .PP For example, the following line sets a to 11 (assuming no global OMITs): .PP .nf set a nonomitted('2007-08-01', '2007-08-16', "Sat", "Sun") .fi .PP because Thursday, 16 August 2007 is the 11th working day (not counting Saturday and Sunday) after Wednesday, 1 August 2007. .PP \fBnonomitted\fR has various uses. For example, many schools run on a six-day cycle and the day number is not incremented on holidays. Suppose the school year starts with Day 1 on 4 September 2007. The following reminder will label day numbers in a calendar: .PP .nf IF today() >= '2007-09-04' set daynum nonomitted('2007-09-04', today(), "Sat", "Sun") REM OMIT SAT SUN SKIP CAL Day [(daynum % 6) + 1] ENDIF .fi .PP Obviously, the answer you get from \fBnonomitted\fR depends on the global OMIT context. If you use movable OMITs, you may get inconsistent results. .PP Here is a more complex use for \fBnonomitted\fR. My garbage collection follows two interleaved 14-day cycles: One Friday, garbage and paper recycling ("Black Box") are collected. The next Friday, garbage and plastic recycling ("Blue Box") are collected. If any of Monday-Friday is a holiday, collection is delayed until the Saturday. Here's a way to encode these rules: .PP .nf fset _garbhol(x) wkdaynum(x) == 5 && nonomitted(x-4, x+1) < 5 REM 12 November 1999 *14 AFTER OMITFUNC _garbhol MSG Black Box REM 19 November 1999 *14 AFTER OMITFUNC _garbhol MSG Blue Box .fi .PP Here's how it works: The _garbhol(x) user-defined function returns 1 if and only if (1) \fIx\fR is a Friday and (2) there is at least one OMITted day from the previous Monday up to and including the Friday. .PP The first REM statement sets up the 14-day black-box cycle. The AFTER keyword makes it move collection to the Saturday if _garbhol returns 1. The second REM statement sets up the 14-day blue-box cycle with a similar adjustment made by AFTER in conjunction with _garbhol. .RE .TP .B now() Returns the current system time, as a \fBTIME\fR type. This may be the actual time, or a time supplied on the command line. .TP .B ord(i_num) Returns a string that is the ordinal number \fInum\fR. For example, \fBord(2)\fR returns "2nd", and \fBord(213)\fR returns "213th". .TP .B orthodoxeaster([dqi_arg]) If \fIarg\fR is an \fBINT\fR, then returns the date of Orthodox Easter Sunday for the specified year. If \fIarg\fR is a \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR, then returns the date of the next Orthodox Easter Sunday on or after \fIarg\fR. (The time component of a datetime is ignored.) If \fIarg\fR is omitted, then it defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .RS .P Note that \fBorthodoxeaster\fR computes the Orthodox Easter. For the Western Easter date, see \fBeasterdate\fR. .RE .TP .B ostype() Returns "UNIX". Remind used to run on OS/2 and MS-DOS, but does not any longer. .TP .B pad(x_arg, s_padstr, i_len [, i_right]) Converts the first argument \fIarg\fR to a string if necessary, and then if it is shorter than \fIlen\fR characters, pads to to \fIlen\fR characters using as many copies (including partial copies) of \fIpadstr\fR as necessary. By default, the string is left-padded, but if \fIright\fR is supplied and non-zero, the string will be right-padded. .RS .PP Here are some examples: .PP .nf pad(3, "0", 2) --> "03" pad(465, "0", 2) --> "465" pad("foo", " ", 5) --> " foo" pad("foo", " ", 5, 1) --> "foo " pad("foo", "bar", 11) --> "barbarbafoo" .fi .RE .TP .B plural(i_num [,s_str1 [,s_str2]]) Can take from one to three arguments. If one argument is supplied, returns "s" if \fInum\fR is not 1, and "" if \fInum\fR is 1. .RS .PP If two arguments are supplied, returns \fIstr1\fR + "s" if \fInum\fR is not 1. Otherwise, returns \fIstr1\fR. .PP If three arguments are supplied, returns \fIstr1\fR if \fInum\fR is 1, and \fIstr2\fR otherwise. .RE .TP .B psmoon(i_phase [,i_size [,s_note [,i_notesize]]]) [DEPRECATED] Returns a \fBSTRING\fR consisting of PostScript code to draw a moon in the upper-left hand corner of the calendar box. \fIPhase\fR specifies the phase of the moon, and is 0 (new moon), 1 (first quarter), 2 (full moon) or 3 (third quarter). If \fIsize\fR is specified, it controls the radius of the moon in PostScript units (1/72 inch.) If it is not specified or is negative, the size of the day-number font is used. .PP .PP .RS For example, the following four lines place moon symbols on the PostScript calendar: .PP .nf REM [moondate(0)] PS [psmoon(0)] REM [moondate(1)] PS [psmoon(1)] REM [moondate(2)] PS [psmoon(2)] REM [moondate(3)] PS [psmoon(3)] .fi .PP If \fInote\fR is specified, the text is used to annotate the moon display. The font is the same font used for calendar entries. If \fInotesize\fR is given, it specifies the font size to use for the annotation, in PostScript units (1/72 inch.) If \fInotesize\fR is not given, it defaults to the size used for calendar entries. (If you annotate the display, be careful not to overwrite the day number -- \fBRemind\fR does not check for this.) For example, if you want the time of each new moon displayed, you could use this in your reminder script: .PP .nf REM [moondate(0)] PS [psmoon(0, \-1, moontime(0)+"")] .fi .PP Note how the time is coerced to a string by concatenating the null string. .RE .TP \fBpsshade(i_gray)\fR or \fBpsshade(i_red, i_green, i_blue)\fR [DEPRECATED] Returns a \fBSTRING\fR that consists of PostScript commands to shade a calendar box. \fINum\fR can range from 0 (completely black) to 100 (completely white.) If three arguments are given, they specify red, green and blue intensity from 0 to 100. Here's an example of how to use this: .RS .PP .nf REM Sat Sun PS [psshade(95)] .fi .PP The above command emits PostScript code to lightly shade the boxes for Saturday and Sunday in a PostScript calendar. .PP Note that \fBpsmoon\fR and \fBpsshade\fR are deprecated; instead you should use the SPECIAL SHADE and SPECIAL MOON reminders as described in "Out-of-Band Reminders." .RE .TP .B realcurrent() Returns (as a DATETIME) the true date and time of day as provided by the operating system. This is in contrast to \fBcurrent()\fR, which may return a time supplied on the command line. .TP .B realnow() Returns the true time of day as provided by the operating system. This is in contrast to \fBnow()\fR, which may return a time supplied on the command line. .TP .B realtoday() Returns the date as provided by the operating system. This is in contrast to \fBRemind\fR's concept of "today", which may be changed if it is running in calendar mode, or if a date has been supplied on the command line. .TP .B rows() If standard output is a TTY, returns the height of the terminal in rows. If standard output is not a TTY, attempts to open "/dev/tty" to obtain the terminal size. If this fails, returns -1. .TP .B sgn(i_num) Returns \-1 if \fInum\fR is negative, 1 if \fInum\fR is positive, and 0 if \fInum\fR is zero. .TP .B shell(s_cmd [,i_maxlen]) Executes \fIcmd\fR as a system command, and returns the first 511 characters of output resulting from \fIcmd\fR. Any whitespace character in the output is converted to a space. Note that if \fBRUN OFF\fR has been executed, or the \fB\-r\fR command-line option has been used, \fBshell()\fR will result in an error, and \fIcmd\fR will not be executed. .RS .PP If \fImaxlen\fR is specified, then \fBshell()\fR returns the first \fImaxlen\fR characters of output (rather than the first 511). If \fImaxlen\fR is specified as a negative number, then it defaults to the value of the system variable \fB$MaxStringLen\fR. .RE .TP .B shellescape(s_str) Returns \fIstr\fR with all shell metacharacters such as " ", "*", etc escaped with a backslash. For example: .PP .nf SET a shellescape("a b*? c&d$e") .fi .RS .PP will set \fBa\fR to: .RE .PP .nf "a\\ b\\*\\?\\ c\\&d\\$e" .fi .TP .B slide(d_start, i_amt [, i_step] [,s_wkday...]) This function is the inverse of \fBnonomitted\fR. It adds \fIamt\fR (which can be negative) chunks of \fIstep\fR days to \fIstart\fR, \fInot counting omitted days\fR. If \fIstep\fR is not supplied, then it is assumed to be 1. Note that only every \fIstep\fRth day is tested to see if it is omitted. The optional \fIwkday\fR arguments are additional weekday names to omit. .RS .PP Consider this example: .PP .nf OMIT 14 May 2009 SET a slide('2009-05-13', 5, "Sat", "Sun") .fi .PP In this case, \fIa\fR is set to 2009-05-21. That's because we slide forward by 5 days, not including Thursday, May 14 or Saturday and Sunday, May 16 and 17. You can go backwards, too, so: .PP .nf OMIT 14 May 2009 SET a slide('2009-05-21', \-5, "Sat", "Sun") .fi .PP takes \fIa\fR back to 2009-05-13. .PP Now consider this example: .PP .nf OMIT 14 May 2009 SET a slide('2009-05-07', 2, 7) .fi .PP This sets \fIa\fR to '2009-05-28' because we skip ahead two weeks, not counting a week where the day we land on happens to be omitted. Contrast with this: .PP .nf OMIT 13 May 2009 SET a slide('2009-05-07', 2, 7) .fi .PP which sets \fIa\fR to '2009-05-21'. Although 2009-05-13 is omitted, we don't "land" on it as we step forward in chunks of 7 days, so we never see that it is omitted. .RE .TP .B soleq(i_which [, dqi_start]) The \fBsoleq\fR function computes solstices and equinoxes. The \fIwhich\fR parameter ranges from 0 to 3, and specifies which event we are interested in: 0 is the March equinox; 1 is the June solstice; 2 is the September equinox and 3 is the December solstice. .RS .PP The optional \fIstart\fR parameter can either be an integer specifying the year of the event we are interested in, or a \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR object; if the latter, then \fBsoleq\fR returns the first event on or after the date part of the \fIstart\fR parameter (it ignores the time component if \fIstart\fR is a \fBDATETIME\fR.) If \fIstart\fR is not supplied, then it defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .PP The return value of \fBsoleq()\fR is a \fBDATETIME\fR object specifying the date and time of the solstice or equinox in the local time zone. It should be accurate to within 3 minutes or so in the worst case. .PP See the included file \fB$SysInclude/seasons.rem\fR for examples of how to use \fBsoleq()\fR. .RE .TP .B stdout() Returns a string representing where Remind's standard output is going. The return values are one of the following: "TTY" if standard-output is a terminal, "BLOCKDEV" if it is a block device (very unlikely), "CHARDEV" if it is a character device (eg, /dev/null), "DIR" if it is a directory (very unlikely), "PIPE" if it is a pipe or FIFO, "SYMLINK" if it is a symlink (very unlikely), "SOCKET" if it is a socket, or "UNKNOWN" if it could not be determined. .RS .PP The purpose of \fBstdout()\fR is mostly to distinguish between TTY and non-TTY output; you may wish to change or disable colors if the output is not going to a TTY. .RE .TP .B strlen(s_str) Returns the length of \fIstr\fR. If the length of \fIstr\fR is too large to represent as an integer, emits a "Number too high" error. .TP .B substr(s_str, i_start [,i_end]) Returns a \fBSTRING\fR consisting of all characters in \fIstr\fR from \fIstart\fR up to and including \fIend\fR. Characters are numbered from 1. If \fIend\fR is not supplied, then it defaults to the length of \fIstr\fR. .TP .B sunrise([dq_date]) Returns a \fBTIME\fR indicating the time of sunrise on the specified \fIdate\fR (default \fBtoday()\fR.) In high latitudes, there may be no sunrise on a particular day, in which case \fBsunrise()\fR returns the \fBINT\fR 0 if the sun never sets, or 1440 if it never rises. .TP .B sunset([dq_date]) Returns a \fBTIME\fR indicating the time of sunset on the specified \fIdate\fR (default \fBtoday()\fR.) In high latitudes, there may be no sunset on a particular day, in which case \fBsunset()\fR returns the \fBINT\fR 0 if the sun never rises, or 1440 if it never sets. .RS .PP The functions \fBsunrise()\fR and \fBsunset()\fR are based on an algorithm in "Almanac for Computers for the year 1978" by L. E. Doggett, Nautical Almanac Office, USNO. They require the latitude and longitude to be specified by setting the appropriate system variables. (See "System Variables".) The sun functions should be accurate to within about 4 minutes for latitudes lower than 60 degrees. The functions are available starting from version 03.00.07 of \fBRemind\fR. .RE .TP .B time(i_hr, i_min) Creates a \fBTIME\fR with the hour and minute components specified by \fIhr\fR and \fImin\fR. .TP .B timepart(tq_datetime) Returns a \fBTIME\fR object representing the time portion of \fIdatetime\fR. .TP .B timezone([dq_datetime]) Returns a string representing the local time zone name of the given \fBDATETIME\fR. If no argument is supplied, \fBRemind\fR uses the value of \fBcurrent()\fR. If a \fBDATE\fR rather than \fBDATETIME\fR is supplied, \fBRemind\fR uses a time part of 00:00. .TP .B today() Returns \fBRemind\fR's notion of "today." This may be the actual system date, or a date supplied on the command line, or the date of the calendar entry currently being computed. .TP .B trig(s_1 [,s_2, ...]) For each string argument s_\fIn\fR, \fBtrig\fR evaluates s_\fIn\fR as if it were a REM or IFTRIG trigger specification. If the trigger would trigger today, then the trigger date is returned and no further triggers are evaluated. If none of the triggers would trigger today, then the zero date 1990-01-01 is returned. .RS \fBtrig\fR also has a zero-argument form; this returns the trigger date of the \fImost recent\fR \fBtrig\fR function that returned a non-zero trigger date. .PP \fBtrig\fR can be used to make more sophisticated versions of \fBIFTRIG\fR. For example, if you have meetings every Monday in June and July, and you want warnings 3 days in advance, you could use: .PP .nf REM [trig("Mon Jun +3", "Mon July +3")] +3 MSG Meeting %b .fi .PP NOTE: We need to repeat the +3 delta outside of the \fBtrig\fR function for advance warning to work properly. This is because \fBtrig\fR returns a date constant (the trigger date) and the REM command does not know the details of \fBtrig\fR's arguments. .PP Note that because \fBRemind\fR does not have short-circuit logical operators, something like: .PP .nf SET a trig("Mon +7") || trig("Fri +7") .fi would set the value of trig() to the date of the following Thursday. Even though trig("Mon +7") always returns true, the logical-OR operator still evaluates trig("Fri +7") which \fIalso\fR returns true and sets \fBtrig()\fR. .PP You can work around the lack of a short-circuit logical-OR as follows: If \fBtrig\fR returns a true value, the specific value it returns can be coerced to a DATE which is the trigger date. So the following code: .PP .nf SET a trig("Mon +4") || trig("Fri +4") IF a REM [a] +4 MSG [wkday($T)] %b. ENDIF .fi .PP would operate as follows: .PP .nf On Monday: Monday today. On Tuesday: Friday in 3 days' time. On Wednesday: Friday in 2 days' time. On Thursday: Monday in 4 days' time. On Friday: Monday in 3 days' time. On Saturday: Monday in 2 days' time. On Sunday: Monday tomorrow. .fi .PP Compare with the following: .PP .nf SET a trig("Mon +4") || trig("Fri +4") IF a REM [trig()] +4 MSG [wkday($T)] %b. ENDIF .fi .PP which yields: .PP .nf On Monday: Friday in 4 days' time. On Tuesday: Friday in 3 days' time. On Wednesday: Friday in 2 days' time. On Thursday: Friday tomorrow. On Friday: Friday today. On Saturday: Monday in 2 days' time. On Sunday: Monday tomorrow. .fi .PP That is because \fBtrig()\fR returns the trigger date of the \fIlast\fR trig function that returns true, whereas the value of \fBa\fR is the trigger date of the \fIfirst\fR trig function that returns true. .PP \fBImportant Note\fR: Because \fBtrig()\fR always returns an absolute date, it will \fBnot\fR work properly with a \fBSATISFY\fR clause. Consider this reminder: .PP .nf REM [trig("Mar", "Apr")] SATISFY [$Td == 15] MSG 15 Mar or April .fi .PP If we run \fBRemind\fR on 5 March 2022, we might expect the trigger date to be calculated as 15 March 2022... but that's not what happens. Instead, the \fBtrig\fR function is evaluated first, and it returns 2022-03-05. So as far as \fBRemind\fR is concerned, the REM statement becomes: .PP .nf REM 2022-03-05 SATISFY [$Td == 15] MSG 15 Mar or April .fi .PP and the SATISFY expression is never true. So: \fIDo not mix trig() and SATISFY\fR. .RE .TP .B trigdate() Returns the calculated trigger date of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. If used in the \fIbody\fR of a \fBREM\fR command, returns that command's trigger date. If the most recent \fBREM\fR command did not yield a computable trigger date, returns the integer 0. .TP .B trigdatetime() Similar to trigdate(), but returns a \fBDATETIME\fR if the most recent triggerable \fBREM\fR command had an \fBAT\fR clause. If there was no \fBAT\fR clause, returns a \fBDATE\fR. If no trigger could be computed, returns the integer 0. See "MULTI-DAY EVENTS" for more information. .TP .B trigeventstart() Returns a \fBDATETIME\fR representing the start of the most recent triggerable \fBREM\fR command that had an \fBAT\fR clause. For events without a \fBDURATION\fR or that do not span multiple days, returns the same as \fBtrigdatetime()\fR. If the \fBREM\fR command did not have an \fBAT\fR clause, returns the integer -1 (and differs from \fBtrigdatetime()\fR in this respect.) See "MULTI-DAY EVENTS" for more information. .TP .B trigeventduration() Returns a \fBTIME\fR representing the duration of the most recent triggerable \fBREM\fR command that had an \fBAT\fR and a \fBDURATION\fR clause. If the event does not span multiple days, returns the same thing as \fBtrigduration()\fR. If the \fBREM\fR command lacked an \fBAT\fR or \fBDURATION\fR clause, returns -1. See "MULTI-DAY EVENTS" for more information. .TP .B trigback() Returns the "back" amount of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. Returns a positive integer N if the "back" is of the form -N, or a negative integer if it is of the form --N. If there is no "back", then returns 0. .TP .B trigdelta() Returns the "delta" amount of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. Returns a positive integer N if the "delta" is of the form +N, or a negative integer if it is of the form ++N. If there is no "delta", then returns 0. .TP .B trigtimedelta() Similar to \fBtrigdelta()\fR, but returns the delta used in the \fBAT\fR clause of a timed reminder. .TP .B trigrep() Returns the "repeat" amount of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. Returns a positive integer N if the "repeat" is of the form *N. If there is no "repeat", then returns 0. .TP .B trigtimerep() Similar to \fBtrigrep()\fR, but returns the repeat used in the \fBAT\fR clause of a timed reminder. .TP .B trigduration() Returns (as a TIME type) the \fBDURATION\fR parameter of a timed reminder. If there is no \fBDURATION\fR parameter, returns the integer -1. See "MULTI-DAY EVENTS" for more information. .TP .B trigpriority() Returns the \fBPRIORITY\fR of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. .TP .B triguntil() Returns (as a \fBDATE\fR type) the \fBUNTIL\fR parameter of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. If there was no \fBUNTIL\fR parameter, returns the integer -1. If there is a \fBTHROUGH\fR parameter, that will be returned by \fBtriguntil()\fR since "THROUGH yyyy-mm-dd" is simply syntactic sugar for "*1 UNTIL yyyy-mm-dd". .TP .B trigscanfrom() Returns (as a \fBDATE\fR type) the \fBSCANFROM\fR parameter of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. If there was no \fBSCANFROM\fR parameter, returns the integer -1. Note that \fBFROM\fR and \fBSCANFROM\fR interact; a reminder that has a "FROM yyyy-mm-dd" parameter will act as if it has a \fBSCANFROM\fR parameter whose value is the maximum of "yyyy-mm-dd" and today. .TP .B trigfrom() Returns (as a \fBDATE\fR type) the \fBFROM\fR parameter of the last \fBREM\fR or \fBIFTRIG\fR command. If there was no \fBFROM\fR parameter, returns the integer -1. .TP .B trigger(d_date [,t_time [,i_utcflag]]) \fRor\fB trigger(q_datetime [,i_utcflag]) Returns a string suitable for use in a \fBREM\fR command or a \fBSCANFROM\fR or UNTIL clause, allowing you to calculate trigger dates in advance. Note that in earlier versions of \fBRemind\fR, \fBtrigger\fR was required to convert a date into something the \fBREM\fR command could consume. However, in this version of \fBRemind\fR, you can omit it. Note that \fBtrigger()\fR \fIalways\fR returns its result in English, even for non-English versions of \fBRemind\fR. Normally, the \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR are the local date and time; however, if \fIutcflag\fR is non-zero, the \fIdate\fR and \fItime\fR are interpreted as UTC times, and are converted to local time. Examples: .RS .PP trigger('1993/04/01') .PP returns "1 April 1993", .PP trigger('1994/08/09', 12:33) .PP returns "9 August 1994 AT 12:33", as does: .PP trigger('1994/08/09@12:33'). .PP Finally: .PP trigger('1994/12/01', 03:00, 1) .PP returns "30 November 1994 AT 22:00" for EST, which is 5 hours behind UTC. The value for your time zone may differ. .RE .TP .B trigtags() Returns a comma-separated list of the TAGs associated with the most recent \fBREM\fR command that was triggered. Returns the empty string if there were no TAGs. If there are multiple tags, they are each separated by a single comma, not a comma and a space. .TP .B trigtime() Returns the time of the last \fBREM\fR command with an \fBAT\fR clause. If the last \fBREM\fR did not have an \fBAT\fR clause, returns the integer 0. If a \fBREM\fR command has an \fBAT\fR clause with a \fBDURATION\fR, then you can compute the end time as \fBtrigtime() + trigduration()\fR. .TP .B trigvalid() Returns 1 if the value returned by \fBtrigdate()\fR is valid for the most recent \fBREM\fR command, or 0 otherwise. Sometimes \fBREM\fR commands cannot calculate a trigger date. For example, the following \fBREM\fR command can never be triggered: .PP .nf REM Mon OMIT Mon SKIP MSG Impossible! .fi .PP .TP .B typeof(x_arg) Returns "STRING", "INT", "DATE", "TIME" or "DATETIME", depending on the type of \fIarg\fR. .TP .B tzconvert(q_datetime, s_srczone [,s_dstzone]) Converts \fBdatetime\fR from the time zone named by \fBsrczone\fR to the time zone named by \fBdstzone\fR. If \fBdstzone\fR is omitted, the default system time zone is used. The return value is a DATETIME. Time zone names are system-dependent; consult your operating system for legal values. Here is an example: .PP .nf tzconvert('2007-07-08@01:14', "Canada/Eastern", "Canada/Pacific") returns 2007-07-07@22:14 .fi .PP .TP .B upper(s_string) Returns a \fBSTRING\fR with all lower-case characters in \fIstring\fR converted to upper-case. .TP .B utctolocal(q_datetime) Given a \fBDATETIME\fR object interpreted in UTC, return a \fBDATETIME\fR object that expresses the same time in the local time zone. .TP .B value(s_varname [,x_default]) Returns the value of the specified variable. For example, value("X"+"Y") returns the value of variable XY, if it is defined. If XY is not defined, an error results. .RS .PP However, if you supply a second argument, it is returned if the \fIvarname\fR is not defined. The expression value("XY", 0) will return 0 if XY is not defined, and the value of XY if it is defined. .RE .TP .B version() Returns a string specifying the version of \fBRemind\fR. For version 04.03.06, returns "04.03.06". It is guaranteed that as new versions of \fBRemind\fR are released, the value returned by \fBversion()\fR will strictly increase, according to the rules for string ordering. .TP .B weekno([dq_date, [i_wkstart, [i_daystart]]]) Returns the week number of the year. If no arguments are supplied, returns the ISO 8601 week number for \fBtoday()\fR. If one argument \fIdate\fR is supplied, then returns the ISO 8601 week number for that date. If two arguments are supplied, then \fIwkstart\fR must range from 0 to 6, and represents the first day of the week (with 0 being Sunday and 6 being Saturday.). If \fIwkstart\fR is not supplied, then it defaults to 1. If the third argument \fIdaystart\fR is supplied, then it specifies when Week 1 starts. If \fIdaystart\fR is less than or equal to 7, then Week 1 starts on the first \fIwkstart\fR on or after January \fIdaystart\fR. Otherwise, Week 1 starts on the first \fIwkstart\fR on or after December \fIdaystart\fR. If omitted, \fIdaystart\fR defaults to 29 (following the ISO 8601 definition.) .TP .B wkday(dqi_arg) If \fIarg\fR is a \fBDATE\fR or \fBDATETIME\fR, returns a string representing the day of the week of the date. If \fIarg\fR is an \fBINT\fR from 0 to 6, returns the corresponding weekday ("Sunday" to "Saturday"). .TP .B wkdaynum(dq_date) Returns a number from 0 to 6 representing the day-of-week of the specified \fIdate\fR. (0 represents Sunday, and 6 represents Saturday.) .TP .B year(dq_date) Returns a \fBINT\fR that is the year component of \fIdate\fR. .SH MULTI-DAY EVENTS If you specify a start time with \fBAT\fR and a duration with \fBDURATION\fR, you can create events that span multiple days. Consider these two REM statements: .PP .nf REM 1991-02-13 AT 16:00 DURATION 72:00 MSG 72-hour event REM 1991-02-13 THROUGH 1991-02-16 AT 16:00 MSG Four events .fi .PP The first statement creates a \fIsingle\fR event that starts on 13 February 1991 at 16:00 and runs through 16 February 1991 at 16:00 .PP The second statements creates \fIfour separate\fR events that start at 16:00 on 13, 14, 15 and 16 February 1991 and have indefinite duration. .PP Remind handles multi-day events specially. These are the rules: .PP On the \fIfirst\fR day of a multi-day event, \fBtrigdatetime()\fR will return the starting date and time of the event, and \fBtrigduration()\fR will return the original DURATION. .PP On each \fIsubsequent\fR day of a multi-day event, \fBtrigdatetime()\fR will return midnight on the day in question, and \fBtrigduration()\fR will return the \fIremaining\fR duration. Consider this example: .PP .nf #!/bin/sh remind - 12 feb 1991 '*6' <<'EOF' BANNER % REM 1991-02-13 AT 16:00 DURATION 72:00 SATISFY 1 set a trigdatetime() set b trigduration() set c trigeventstart() set d trigeventduration() MSG now=[today()] dt=[a] dur=[b] estart=[c] edur=[d]% EOF .fi .PP The output is: .PP .nf now=1991-02-12 dt=1991-02-13@16:00 dur=72:00 estart=1991-02-13@16:00 edur=72:00 now=1991-02-13 dt=1991-02-13@16:00 dur=72:00 estart=1991-02-13@16:00 edur=72:00 now=1991-02-14 dt=1991-02-14@00:00 dur=64:00 estart=1991-02-13@16:00 edur=72:00 now=1991-02-15 dt=1991-02-15@00:00 dur=40:00 estart=1991-02-13@16:00 edur=72:00 now=1991-02-16 dt=1991-02-16@00:00 dur=16:00 estart=1991-02-13@16:00 edur=72:00 now=1991-02-17 dt=1991-02-13@16:00 dur=72:00 estart=-1 edur=-1 .fi .PP As you see, the \fBtrigdatetime()\fR and \fBtrigduration()\fR functions return the start time and duration of the \fIremaining\fR portion of a multi-day event, whereas \fBtrigeventstart\fR and \fBtrigeventduration\fR always return the original start and duration of the multi-day event. Note also that the return value for expired reminders is not reliable; the fact that \fBtrigeventstart\fR and \fBtrigeventduration\fR return -1 in that case is an implementation artifact. .PP .B SELF-OVERLAPPING EVENTS .PP A multi-day event has the possibility of "overlapping itself". When this happens, \fBRemind\fR prefers the \fIlater\fR event (only one copy of an event is ever triggered for a given date.) Consider this example: .PP .nf #!/bin/sh remind - '*5' 10 Feb 1991 <<'EOF' BANNER % REM MON at 0:00 DURATION 192:0 MSG [today()] [trigeventstart()] [trigduration()]% EOF .fi .PP The output is: .PP .nf 1991-02-10 1991-02-04@00:00 48:00 1991-02-11 1991-02-11@00:00 192:00 1991-02-12 1991-02-11@00:00 168:00 1991-02-13 1991-02-11@00:00 144:00 1991-02-14 1991-02-11@00:00 120:00 .fi .PP Although the event from 1991-02-04 still has 24 hours left on 1991-02-11, the fresh occurrence on 1991-02-11 takes precedences and is the one that is triggered. .PP I do not recommend constructing self-overlapping multi-day events. .PP .SH EXPRESSION PASTING .PP An extremely powerful feature of \fBRemind\fR is its macro capability, or "expression pasting." .PP In almost any situation where \fBRemind\fR is not expecting an expression, you can "paste" an expression in. To do this, surround the expression with square brackets. For example: .PP .nf REM [mydate] MSG foo .fi .PP This evaluates the expression "mydate", where "mydate" is presumably some pre-computed variable, and then "pastes" the result into the command-line for the parser to process. .PP A formal description of this is: When \fBRemind\fR encounters a "pasted-in" expression, it evaluates the expression, and coerces the result to a \fBSTRING\fR. It then substitutes the string for the pasted-in expression, and continues parsing. Note, however, that expressions are evaluated only once, not recursively. Thus, writing: .PP .nf ["[a+b]"] .fi .PP causes \fBRemind\fR to read the token "[a+b]". It does not interpret this as a pasted-in expression. In fact, the only way to get a literal left-bracket into a reminder is to use ["["]. .PP You can use expression pasting almost anywhere. However, there are a few exceptions: .TP o If \fBRemind\fR is expecting an expression, as in the \fBSET\fR command, or the \fBIF\fR command, you should \fBnot\fR include square brackets. For example, use: .PP .nf SET a 4+5 .fi and not: .nf SET a [4+5] .fi .TP o You cannot use expression pasting for the first token on a line. For example, the following will not work: .PP .nf ["SET"] a 1 .fi .RS .PP This restriction is because \fBRemind\fR must be able to unambiguously determine the first token of a line for the flow-control commands (to be discussed later.) .PP In fact, if \fBRemind\fR cannot determine the first token on a line, it assumes that it is a \fBREM\fR command. If expression-pasting is used, \fBRemind\fR assumes it is a \fBREM\fR command. Thus, the following three commands are equivalent: .PP .nf REM 12 Nov 1993 AT 13:05 MSG BOO! 12 Nov 1993 AT 13:05 MSG BOO! [12] ["Nov " + 1993] AT [12:05+60] MSG BOO! .fi .RE .TP o You cannot use expression-pasting to determine the type (\fBMSG\fR, \fBCAL\fR, etc.) of a \fBREM\fR command. You can paste expressions before and after the \fBMSG\fR, etc. keywords, but cannot do something like this: .RS .PP .nf REM ["12 Nov 1993 AT 13:05 " + "MSG" + " BOO!"] .fi .PP However, as an escape hatch, the sequence \fBSPECIAL\fR \fItype\fR means the same thing as just \fItype\fR where \fItype\fR is one of MSG, MSF, RUN, CAL, PS and PSFILE. This lets you do something like this: .PP .nf SET type "MSG" REM 12 Nov 2024 SPECIAL [type] Hello .fi .PP You can use this to control the types of your reminders based on variables you set, how Remind is invoked, etc. .RE .PP .B COMMON PITFALLS WITH EXPRESSION PASTING .PP Remember that extra spaces are not inserted when an expression is pasted. Thus, something like: .PP .nf REM[expr]MSG[expr] .fi .PP will probably fail. .PP If you use an expression to calculate a \fIdelta\fR or \fIback\fR, ensure that the result is a positive number. Something like: .PP .nf REM +[mydelta] Nov 12 1993 MSG foo .fi .PP will fail if \fImydelta\fR happens to be negative. .PP .SH FLOW CONTROL COMMANDS .PP \fBRemind\fR has commands that control the flow of a reminder script. Normally, reminder scripts are processed sequentially. However, \fBIF\fR and related commands allow you to process files conditionally, and skip sections that you don't want interpreted. .PP .B THE IF COMMAND .PP The \fBIF\fR command has the following form: .PP .nf IF expr t-command t-command... ELSE f-command f-command... ENDIF .fi .PP Note that the commands are shown indented for clarity. Also, the \fBELSE\fR portion can be omitted. \fBIF\fR commands can be nested up to a small limit, probably around 8 or 16 levels of nesting, depending on your system. .PP If the \fIexpr\fR evaluates to a non-zero \fBINT\fR, a \fBDATE\fR that is not 1990-01-01, a \fBTIME\fR that is not 00:00, a \fBDATETIME\fR that is not 1990-01-01@00:00, or a non-null \fBSTRING\fR, then the \fBIF\fR portion is considered true, and the \fIt-commands\fR are executed. If \fIexpr\fR evaluates to zero or null, then the \fIf-commands\fR (if the \fBELSE\fR portion is present) are executed. .PP Examples: .PP .nf IF defined("want_hols") INCLUDE /usr/share/remind/holidays ENDIF IF today() > '1992/2/10' set missed_ap "You missed it!" ELSE set missed_ap "Still have time..." ENDIF .fi .PP .B THE IFTRIG COMMAND .PP The \fBIFTRIG\fR command is similar to an \fBIF\fR command, except that it computes a trigger (as in the \fBREM\fR command), and evaluates to true if a corresponding \fBREM\fR command would trigger. Examples: .PP .nf IFTRIG 1 Nov ; Executed on 1 Nov ELSE ; Executed except on 1 Nov ENDIF IFTRIG 1 \-1 OMIT Sat Sun +4 ; Executed on last working day of month, ; and the 4 working days preceding it ELSE ; Executed except on above days ENDIF .fi .PP Note that the \fBIFTRIG\fR command computes a trigger date, which can be retrieved with the \fBtrigdate()\fR function. You can use all of the normal trigger components, such as \fBUNTIL\fR, \fIdelta\fR, etc. in the \fBIFTRIG\fR command. However, you cannot use a type specifier such as \fBCAL\fR, \fBMSG\fR or \fBSATISFY\fR; attempting to do so yields a parse error. .PP .SH USER-DEFINED FUNCTIONS .PP In addition to the built-in functions, \fBRemind\fR allows you to define your own functions. The \fBFSET\fR command does this for you: .PP \fBFSET\fR \fIfname\fR(\fIargs\fR) \fIexpr\fR .PP \fIFname\fR is the name of the function, and follows the convention for naming variables. \fIArgs\fR is a comma-separated list of arguments, and \fIexpr\fR is an expression. \fIArgs\fR can be empty, in which case you define a function taking no parameters. Here are some examples: .PP .nf FSET double(x) 2*x FSET yeardiff(date1, date2) year(date1) - year(date2) FSET since(x) ord($Ty \- x) .fi .PP The last function is useful in birthday reminders. For example: .PP .nf REM 1 Nov +12 MSG Dean's [since(1984)] birthday is %b. .fi .PP Dean was born in 1984. The above example, on 1 November 1992, would print: .PP .nf Dean's 8th birthday is today. .fi .PP Similarly, the function is useful in anniversary reminders. For example: .PP .nf REM 4 June MSG [since(1989)] anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre .fi .PP Notes: .TP o If you access a variable in \fIexpr\fR that is not in the list of arguments, the global value (if any) is used. .TP o Function and parameter names are significant to 64 characters. .TP o The \fBvalue()\fR function \fIalways\fR accesses the global value of a variable, even if it has the same name as an argument. For example: .RS .PP .nf fset func(x) value("x") set x 1 set y func(5) .fi .PP The above sequence sets y to 1, which is the global value of x. .RE .TP o User-defined functions may call other functions, including other user-defined functions. However, recursive calls are not allowed. .TP o User-defined functions are not syntax-checked when they are defined; parsing occurs only when they are called. .TP o If a user-defined function has the same name as a built-in function, it is ignored and the built-in function is used. To prevent conflicts with future versions of \fBRemind\fR (which may define more built-in functions), you may wish to name all user-defined functions beginning with an underscore. .PP To delete a user-defined function, use \fBFUNSET\fR. This takes a space-separated list of user-defined functions to delete. For example, after the command: .PP .nf FUNSET myfunc1 otherfunc thirdfunc .fi .PP it is guaranteed that no user-defined functions named myfunc1, otherfunc or thirdfunc will exist. \fBRemind\fR does not issue an error if you try to \fBFUNSET\fR a nonexistent user-defined function; it simply does nothing in that case. .PP .SH PRECISE SCHEDULING .PP The \fBWARN\fR keyword allows precise control over advance warning in a more flexible manner than the \fIdelta\fR mechanism. It should be followed by the name of a user-defined function, \fIwarn_function\fR. .PP If a \fIwarn_function\fR is supplied, then it must take one argument of type \fBINT\fR. \fBRemind\fR ignores any delta, and instead calls \fIwarn_function\fR successively with the arguments 1, 2, 3, ... .PP \fIWarn_function\fR's return value \fIn\fR is interpreted as follows: .TP o If \fIn\fR is positive, then the reminder is triggered exactly \fIn\fR days before its trigger date. .TP o If \fIn\fR is negative, then it is triggered \fIn\fR days before its trigger date, \fInot counting\fR \fBOMIT\fRted days. .PP As an example, suppose you wish to be warned of American Independence Day 5, 3, and 1 days in advance. You could use this: .PP .nf FSET _wfun(x) choose(x, 5, 3, 1, 0) REM 4 July WARN _wfun MSG American Independence Day is %b. .fi .PP .B NOTES .TP 1 If an error occurs during the evaluation of \fIwarn_function\fR, then \fBRemind\fR stops calling it and simply issues the reminder on its trigger date. .TP 2 If the absolute-values of the return values of \fIwarn_function\fR are not monotonically decreasing, \fBRemind\fR stops calling it and issues the reminder on its trigger date. .TP 3 \fIWarn_function\fR should (as a matter of good style) return 0 as the final value in its sequence of return values. However, a reminder will \fIalways\fR be triggered on its trigger date, regardless of what \fIwarn_function\fR does. .PP Similarly to \fBWARN\fR, the \fBSCHED\fR keyword allows precise control over the scheduling of timed reminders. It should be followed by the name of a user-defined function, \fIsched_function\fR. .PP If a scheduling function is supplied, then it must take one argument of type \fBINT\fR. Rather than using the \fBAT\fR time, time \fIdelta\fR, and time \fIrepeat\fR, \fBRemind\fR calls the scheduling function to determine when to trigger the reminder. The first time the reminder is queued, the scheduling function is called with an argument of 1. Each time the reminder is triggered, it is re-scheduled by calling the scheduling function again. On each call, the argument is incremented by one. .PP The return value of the scheduling function must be an \fBINT\fR or a \fBTIME\fR. If the return value is a \fBTIME\fR, then the reminder is re-queued to trigger at that time. If it is a positive integer \fIn\fR, then the reminder is re-queued to trigger at the previous trigger time plus \fIn\fR minutes. Finally, if it is a negative integer or zero, then the reminder is re-queued to trigger \fIn\fR minutes before the \fBAT\fR time. Note that there must be an \fBAT\fR clause for the \fBSCHED\fR clause to do anything. .PP Here's an example: .PP .nf FSET _sfun(x) choose(x, \-60, 30, 15, 10, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0) REM AT 13:00 SCHED _sfun MSG foo .fi .PP The reminder would first be triggered at 13:00-60 minutes, or at 12:00. It would next be triggered 30 minutes later, at 12:30. Then, it would be triggered at 12:45, 12:55, 12:58, 12:59, 13:00, 13:01 and 13:02. .PP .B NOTES .TP 1 If an error occurs during the evaluation of \fIsched_func\fR, then \fBRemind\fR reverts to using the \fBAT\fR time and the \fIdelta\fR and \fIrepeat\fR values, and never calls \fIsched_func\fR again. .TP 2 If processing \fIsched_func\fR yields a time earlier than the current system time, it is repeatedly called with increasing argument until it yields a value greater than or equal to the current time. However, if the sequence of values calculated during the repetition is not strictly increasing, then \fBRemind\fR reverts to the default behaviour and never calls \fIsched_func\fR again. .TP 3 It is quite possible using \fIsched_func\fR to keep triggering a reminder even after the \fBAT\fR-time. However, it is not possible to reschedule a reminder past midnight \- no crossing of date boundaries is allowed. Also, it is quite possible to \fBnot\fR trigger a reminder on the \fBAT\fR time when you use a scheduling function. However, if your scheduling function is terminated (for reasons 1 and 2) before the \fBAT\fR time of the reminder, it \fIwill\fR be triggered at the \fBAT\fR time, because normal processing takes over. .TP 4 Your scheduling functions should (as a matter of good style) return 0 when no more scheduling is required. See the example. .TP 5 All scheduling functions are evaluated \fIafter\fR the entire Remind script has been read in. So whatever function definitions are in effect at the end of the script are used. .PP .SH THE SATISFY CLAUSE .PP The form of \fBREM\fR that uses \fBSATISFY\fR is as follows: .PP \fBREM\fR \fItrigger\fR \fBSATISFY\fR \fIexpr\fR .PP The way this works is as follows: \fBRemind\fR first calculates a trigger date, in the normal fashion. Next, it sets \fBtrigdate()\fR to the calculated trigger date. It then evaluates \fIexpr\fR. If the result is not the null string or zero, processing ends. Otherwise, \fBRemind\fR computes the next trigger date, and re-tests \fIexpr\fR. This iteration continues until \fIexpr\fR evaluates to non-zero or non-null, or until the iteration limit specified with the \fB\-x\fR command-line option is reached. .PP If \fIexpr\fR is not satisfied, then \fBtrigvalid()\fR is set to 0 and the error message "Can't compute trigger" is issued. Otherwise, \fBtrigvalid()\fR is set to 1. .PP This is really useful only if \fIexpr\fR involves a call to the \fBtrigdate()\fR or related functions; otherwise, \fIexpr\fR will not change as \fBRemind\fR iterates. .PP An example of the usefulness of \fBSATISFY\fR: Suppose you wish to be warned of every Friday the 13th. Your first attempt may be: .PP .nf # WRONG! REM Fri 13 +2 MSG Friday the 13th is %b. .fi .PP But this won't work. This reminder triggers on the first Friday on or after the 13th of each month. The way to do it is with a more complicated sequence: .PP .nf REM 13 SATISFY wkdaynum(trigdate()) == 5 IF trigvalid() REM [trigdate()] +2 MSG \\ Friday the 13th is %b. ENDIF .fi .PP You can write the REM statement a little more concisely: .PP .nf REM 13 SATISFY $Tw == 5 .fi .PP Let's see how this works. The \fBSATISFY\fR clause iterates through all the 13ths of successive months, until a trigger date is found whose day-of-week is Friday (== 5). If a valid date was found, we use the calculated trigger date to set up the next reminder. .PP We could also have written: .PP .nf REM Fri SATISFY day(trigdate()) == 13 .fi .PP but this would result in more iterations, since "Fridays" occur more often than "13ths of the month." .PP Here is another example: Suppose you want to be reminded of something on the 15th of January, April, July, and October. You could make four separate reminders, or you could use: .PP .nf REM 15 SATISFY [isany($Tm, 1, 4, 7, 10)] MSG 15th Reminder! .fi .PP This technique of using one \fBREM\fR command to calculate a trigger date to be used by another command is quite powerful. For example, suppose you wanted to OMIT Labour day, which is the first Monday in September. You could use: .PP .nf # Note: SATISFY 1 is an idiom for "do nothing" REM Mon 1 Sept SATISFY 1 OMIT [trigdate()] .fi .PP \fBCAVEAT:\fR This \fIonly\fR omits the \fInext\fR Labour Day, not all Labour Days in the future. This could cause strange results, as the \fBOMIT\fR context can change depending on the current date. For example, if you use the following command after the above commands: .PP .nf REM Mon AFTER msg hello .fi .PP the result will not be as you expect. Consider producing a calendar for September, 1992. Labour Day was on Monday, 7 September, 1992. However, when \fBRemind\fR gets around to calculating the trigger for Tuesday, 8 September, 1992, the \fBOMIT\fR command will now be omitting Labour Day for 1993, and the "Mon AFTER" command will not be triggered. (But see the description of \fBSCANFROM\fR in the section "DETAILS ABOUT TRIGGER COMPUTATION.") .PP It is probably best to stay away from computing \fBOMIT\fR trigger dates unless you keep these pitfalls in mind. .PP For versions of \fBRemind\fR starting from 03.00.07, you can include a \fBMSG\fR, \fBRUN\fR, etc. clause in a \fBSATISFY\fR clause as follows: .PP .nf REM trigger_stuff SATISFY [expr] MSG body .fi .PP Note that for this case only, the \fIexpr\fR after \fBSATISFY\fR \fImust\fR be enclosed in square brackets. It must come after all the other components of the trigger, and immediately before the \fBMSG\fR, \fBRUN\fR, etc. keyword. If \fIexpr\fR cannot be satisfied, then the reminder is not triggered. .PP Thus, the "Friday the 13th" example can be expressed more compactly as: .PP .nf REM 13 +2 SATISFY [$Tw == 5] MSG Friday the 13th is %b. .fi .PP And you can trigger a reminder on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays occurring on odd-numbered days of the month with the following: .PP .nf REM Mon Wed Thu SATISFY [$Td %2 ] MSG Here it is!!! .fi .PP Note that \fBSATISFY\fR and \fBOMITFUNC\fR can often be used to solve the same problem, though in different ways. Sometimes a \fBSATISFY\fR is cleaner and sometimes an \fBOMITFUNC\fR; experiment and use whichever seems clearer. .PP .SH POSSIBLY-UNCOMPUTABLE TRIGGERS .PP Occasionally, you may wish to suppress the "Can't compute trigger" warnings for reminders for which a trigger date cannot be computed. For example, the following reminder is triggered on a Monday that is not a holiday if the following Tuesday is a holiday: .PP .nf REM Mon SKIP SATISFY [isomitted($T+1)] MSG Work between holidays .fi .PP However, if there are no Mondays after today's date that satisfy the condition, Remind will print the "Can't compute trigger" error. To suppress this, use the \fBMAYBE-UNCOMPUTABLE\fR keyword: .PP .nf REM MAYBE-UNCOMPUTABLE Mon SKIP SATISFY [isomitted($T+1)] MSG Work between holidays .fi .PP It's almost never appropriate to use \fBMAYBE-UNCOMPUTABLE\fR, but it is provided for those rare occasions when it makes sense. If you use \fBMAYBE-UNCOMPUTABLE\fR inside the \fBevaltrig()\fR function, then untriggerable triggers return -1. For example: .PP .nf SET a evaltrig("MAYBE-UNCOMPUTABLE Mon SKIP OMIT Mon") .fi .PP will set a to -1. .SH DEBUGGING REMINDER SCRIPTS .PP Although the command-line \fB\-d\fR option is useful for debugging, it is often overkill. For example, if you turn on the \fB\-dx\fR option for a reminder file with many complex expressions, you'll get a huge amount of output. The \fBDEBUG\fR command allows you to control the debugging flags under program control. The format is: .PP \fBDEBUG\fR [+\fIflagson\fR] [\-\fIflagsoff\fR] .PP \fIFlagson\fR and \fIflagsoff\fR consist of strings of the characters "extvlf" that correspond to the debugging options discussed in the command-line options section. If preceded with a "+", the corresponding group of debugging options is switched on. Otherwise, they are switched off. For example, you could use this sequence to debug a complicated expression: .PP .nf DEBUG +x set a very_complex_expression(many_args) DEBUG \-x .fi .PP .B THE DUMPVARS COMMAND .PP The command \fBDUMPVARS\fR displays the values of variables in memory. Its format is: .PP \fBDUMPVARS\fR [\fIvar\fR...] .PP If you supply a space-separated list of variable names, the corresponding variables are displayed. If you do not supply a list of variables, then all variables in memory are displayed. To dump a system variable, put its name in the list of variables to dump. If you put a lone dollar sign in the list of variables to dump, then all system variables will be dumped. .PP .B THE ERRMSG COMMAND .PP The \fBERRMSG\fR command has the following format: .PP \fBERRMSG\fR \fIbody\fR .PP The \fIbody\fR is passed through the substitution filter (with an implicit trigger date of \fBtoday()\fR) and printed to the error output stream. Example: .PP .nf IF !defined("critical_var") ERRMSG You must supply a value for "critical_var" EXIT ENDIF .fi .PP .B THE EXIT COMMAND .PP The above example also shows the use of the \fBEXIT\fR command. This causes an unconditional exit from script processing. Any queued timed reminders are discarded. If you are in calendar mode (described next), then the calendar processing is aborted. .PP If you supply an \fBINT\fR-type expression after the \fBEXIT\fR command, it is returned to the calling program as the exit status. Otherwise, an exit status of 99 is returned. .PP .B THE FLUSH COMMAND .PP This command simply consists of the word \fBFLUSH\fR on a line by itself. The command flushes the standard output and standard error streams used by \fBRemind\fR. This is not terribly useful to most people, but may be useful if you run \fBRemind\fR as a subprocess of another program, and want to use pipes for communication. .PP .SH CALENDAR MODE .PP If you supply the \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-s\fR or \fB\-p\fR command-line option, then \fBRemind\fR runs in "calendar mode." In this mode, \fBRemind\fR interprets the script repeatedly, performing one iteration through the whole file for each day in the calendar. Reminders that trigger are saved in internal buffers, and then inserted into the calendar in the appropriate places. .PP If you also supply the \fB\-a\fR option, then \fBRemind\fR will not include timed reminders in the calendar. .PP The \fB\-p\fR option is used in conjunction with the \fBRem2PS\fR program to produce a calendar in PostScript format. For example, the following command will send PostScript code to standard output: .PP .nf remind \-p .reminders | rem2ps .fi .PP You can print a PostScript calendar by piping this to the \fBlpr\fR command. .PP If you have a reminder script called ".reminders", and you execute this command: .PP .nf remind \-c .reminders jan 1993 .fi .PP then \fBRemind\fR executes the script 31 times, once for each day in January. Each time it executes the script, it increments the value of \fBtoday()\fR. Any reminders whose trigger date matches \fBtoday()\fR are entered into the calendar. .PP \fBMSG\fR and \fBCAL\fR-type reminders, by default, have their entire body inserted into the calendar. \fBRUN\fR-type reminders are not normally inserted into the calendar. However, if you enclose a portion of the body in the %"...%" sequence, only that portion is inserted. For example, consider the following: .PP .nf REM 6 Jan MSG %"Dianne's birthday%" is %b .fi .PP In the normal mode, \fBRemind\fR would print "Dianne's birthday is today" on 6 January. However, in the calendar mode, only the text "Dianne's birthday" is inserted into the box for 6 January. .PP If you explicitly use the %"...%" sequence in a \fBRUN\fR-type reminder, then the text between the delimiters is inserted into the calendar. If you use the sequence %"%" in a \fBMSG\fR or \fBCAL\fR-type reminder, then no calendar entry is produced for that reminder. .PP .B PRESERVING VARIABLES .PP Because \fBRemind\fR iterates through the script for each day in the calendar, slow operations may severely reduce the speed of producing a calendar. .PP For example, suppose you set the variables "me" and "hostname" as follows: .PP .nf SET me shell("whoami") SET hostname shell("hostname") .fi .PP Normally, \fBRemind\fR clears all variables between iterations in calendar mode. However, if certain variables are slow to compute, and will not change between iterations, you can "preserve" their values with the \fBPRESERVE\fR command. Also, since function definitions are preserved between calendar iterations, there is no need to redefine them on each iteration. Thus, you could use the following sequence: .PP .nf IF ! defined("initialized") set initialized 1 set me shell("whoami") set hostname shell("hostname") fset func(x) complex_expr preserve initialized me hostname ENDIF .fi .PP The operation is as follows: On the first iteration through the script, "initialized" is not defined. Thus, the commands between \fBIF\fR and \fBENDIF\fR are executed. The \fBPRESERVE\fR command ensures that the values of initialized, me and hostname are preserved for subsequent iterations. On the next iteration, the commands are skipped, since initialized has remained defined. Thus, time-consuming operations that do not depend on the value of \fBtoday()\fR are done only once. .PP Most system variables (those whose names start with '$') are automatically preserved between calendar iterations. .PP Note that for efficiency, \fBRemind\fR caches the reminder script (and any \fBINCLUDE\fRd files) in memory when producing a calendar. .PP Timed reminders are sorted and placed into the calendar in time order. These are followed by non-timed reminders. \fBRemind\fR automatically places the time of timed reminders in the calendar according to the \fB\-b\fR command-line option. Reminders in calendar mode are sorted as if the \fB\-g\fR option had been used; you can change the sort order in calendar mode by explicitly using the \fB\-g\fR option to specify a different order from the default. .PP .B REPEATED EXECUTION .PP If you supply a \fIrepeat\fR parameter on the command line, and do not use the \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-p\fR, or \fB\-s\fR options, \fBRemind\fR operates in a similar manner to calendar mode. It repeatedly executes the reminder script, incrementing \fBtoday()\fR with each iteration. The same rules about preserving variables and function definitions apply. Note that using \fIrepeat\fR on the command line also enables the \fB\-q\fR option and disables any \fB\-z\fR option. As an example, if you want to see how \fBRemind\fR will behave for the next week, you can type: .PP .nf remind .reminders '*7' .fi .PP If you want to print the dates of the next 1000 days, use: .PP .nf (echo 'banner %'; echo 'msg [today()]%') | remind - '*1000' .fi .PP .SH INITIALIZING VARIABLES ON THE COMMAND LINE .PP The \fB\-i\fR option is used to initialize variables on the \fBRemind\fR command line. The format is \fB\-i\fR\fIvar\fR\fB=\fR\fIexpr\fR, where \fIexpr\fR is any valid expression. Note that you may have to use quotes or escapes to prevent the shell from interpreting special characters in \fIexpr\fR. You can have as many \fB\-i\fR options as you want on the command line, and they are processed in order. Thus, if a variable is defined in one \fB\-i\fR option, it can be referred to by subsequent \fB\-i\fR options. .PP Note that if you supply a date on the command line, it is not parsed until all options have been processed. Thus, if you use \fBtoday()\fR in any of the \fB\-i\fR expressions, it will return the same value as \fBrealtoday()\fR and not the date supplied on the command line. .PP Any variables defined on the command line are \fBpreserved\fR as with the \fBPRESERVE\fR command. .PP You should not have any spaces between the \fB\-i\fR option and the equal sign; otherwise, strange variable names are created that can only be accessed with the \fBvalue()\fR or \fBdefined()\fR functions. .PP You can also define a function on the command line by using: .PP \fB\-i\fR\fIfunc\fR(\fIargs\fR)=\fIdefinition\fR .PP Be sure to protect special characters from shell interpretation. .SH MORE ABOUT POSTSCRIPT .PP The \fBPS\fR and \fBPSFILE\fR reminders pass PostScript code directly to the printer. They differ in that the \fBPS\fR-type reminder passes its body directly to the PostScript output (after processing by the substitution filter) while the \fBPSFILE\fR-type's body should simply consist of a filename. The \fBRem2PS\fR program will open the file named in the \fBPSFILE\fR-type reminder, and include its contents in the PostScript output. .PP The PostScript-type reminders for a particular day are included in the PostScript output in sorted order of priority. Note that the order of PostScript commands has a \fImajor\fR impact on the appearance of the calendars. For example, PostScript code to shade a calendar box will obliterate code to draw a moon symbol if the moon symbol code is placed in the calendar first. For this reason, you should not provide \fBPS\fR or \fBPSFILE\fR-type reminders with priorities; instead, you should ensure that they appear in the reminder script in the correct order. PostScript code should draw objects working from the background to the foreground, so that foreground objects properly overlay background ones. If you prioritize these reminders and run the script using descending sort order for priorities, the PostScript output will not work. .PP All of the PostScript code for a particular date is enclosed in a \fBsave\fR-\fBrestore\fR pair. However, if several PostScript-type reminders are triggered for a single day, each section of PostScript is not enclosed in a \fBsave\fR-\fBrestore\fR pair - instead, the entire body of included PostScript is enclosed. .PP PostScript-type reminders are executed by the PostScript printer before any regular calendar entries. Thus, regular calendar entries will overlay the PostScript-type reminders, allowing you to create shaded or graphical backgrounds for particular days. .PP Before executing your PostScript code, the origin of the PostScript coordinate system is positioned to the bottom left-hand corner of the "box" in the calendar representing \fBtoday()\fR. This location is exactly in the middle of the intersection of the bottom and left black lines delineating the box - you may have to account for the thickness of these lines when calculating positions. .PP Several PostScript variables are available to the PostScript code you supply. All distance and size variables are in PostScript units (1/72 inch.) The variables are: .TP LineWidth The width of the black grid lines making up the calendar. .TP Border The border between the center of the grid lines and the space used to print calendar entries. This border is normally blank space. .TP BoxWidth and BoxHeight The width and height of the calendar box, from center-to-center of the black gridlines. .TP InBoxHeight The height from the center of the bottom black gridline to the top of the regular calendar entry area. The space from here to the top of the box is used only to draw the day number. .TP /DayFont, /EntryFont, /SmallFont, /TitleFont and /HeadFont The fonts used to draw the day numbers, the calendar entries, the small calendars, the calendar title (month, year) and the day-of-the-week headings, respectively. .TP DaySize, EntrySize, TitleSize and HeadSize The sizes of the above fonts. (The size of the small calendar font is \fInot\fR defined here.) For example, if you wanted to print the Hebrew date next to the regular day number in the calendar, use: .PP .nf REM PS Border BoxHeight Border sub DaySize sub moveto \\ /DayFont findfont DaySize scalefont setfont \\ ([hebday(today())] [hebmon(today())]) show .fi .PP .RS Note how /DayFont and DaySize are used. .RE .PP Note that if you supply PostScript code, it is possible to produce invalid PostScript files. Always test your PostScript thoroughly with a PostScript viewer before sending it to the printer. You should not use any document structuring comments in your PostScript code. .PP .SH DAEMON MODE .PP If you use the \fB\-z\fR command-line option, \fBRemind\fR runs in "daemon mode". In this mode, no "normal" reminders are issued. Instead, only timed reminders are collected and queued, and are then issued whenever they reach their trigger time. .PP In addition, \fBRemind\fR wakes up every few minutes to check the modification date on the reminder script (the filename supplied on the command line.) If \fBRemind\fR detects that the script has changed, it re-executes itself in daemon mode, and interprets the changed script. If \fBRemind\fR was compiled with support for \fBinotify\fR(7), then if the command-line reminder script is really a directory, \fBRemind\fR also re-executes itself if any of the files in the directory is changed. .PP In daemon mode, \fBRemind\fR also re-reads the remind script when it detects that the system date has changed. .PP In daemon mode, \fBRemind\fR acts as if the \fB\-f\fR option had been used, so to run in daemon mode in the background, use: .PP .nf remind \-z .reminders & .fi .PP If you use \fBsh\fR or \fBbash\fR, you may have to use the "nohup" command to ensure that the daemon is not killed when you log out. .PP .SH PURGE MODE .PP If you supply the \fB\-j\fR command-line option, \fBRemind\fR runs in \fIpurge mode\fR. In this mode, it tries to purge expired reminders from your reminder files. .PP In purge mode, \fBRemind\fR reads your reminder file and creates a new file by appending ".purged" to the original file name. Note that \fBRemind\fR \fInever\fR edits your original file; it always creates a new .purged file. .PP If you invoke \fBRemind\fR against a directory instead of a file, then a .purged file is created for each *.rem file in the directory. .PP Normally, \fBRemind\fR does not create .purged files for INCLUDed files. However, if you supply a numeric argument after \fB\-j\fR, then \fBRemind\fR will create .purged files for the specified level of INCLUDE. For example, if you invoke \fBRemind\fR with the argument \fB\-j2\fR, then .purged files will be created for the file (or directory) specified on the command line, any files included by them, and any files included by those files. However, .purged files will not be created for third-or-higher level INCLUDE files. .PP Determining which reminders have expired is extremely tricky. \fBRemind\fR does its best, but you should always compare the .purged file to the original file and hand-merge the changes back in. .PP Remind annotates the .purged file as follows: .PP An expired reminder is prefixed with: #!P: Expired: .PP In situations where \fBRemind\fR cannot reliably determine that something was expired, you may see the following comments inserted before the problematic line: .PP .nf #!P: Cannot purge SATISFY-type reminders #!P: The next IF evaluated false... #!P: REM statements in IF block not checked for purging. #!P: The previous IF evaluated true. #!P: REM statements in ELSE block not checked for purging #!P: The next IFTRIG did not trigger. #!P: REM statements in IFTRIG block not checked for purging. #!P: Next line has expired, but contains expression... please verify #!P: Next line may have expired, but contains non-constant expression #!P! Could not parse next line: Some-Error-Message-Here .fi .PP \fBRemind\fR always annotates .purged files with lines beginning with "#!P". If such lines are encountered in the \fIoriginal\fR file, they are not copied to the .purged file. .PP .SH SORTING REMINDERS .PP The \fB\-g\fR option causes \fBRemind\fR to sort reminders by trigger date, time and priority before issuing them. Note that reminders are still calculated in the order encountered in the script. However, rather than being issued immediately, they are saved in an internal buffer. When \fBRemind\fR has finished processing the script, it issues the saved reminders in sorted order. The \fB\-g\fR option can be followed by up to four characters that must all be "a" or "d". The first character specifies the sort order by trigger date (ascending or descending), the second specifies the sort order by trigger time and the third specifies the sort order by priority. If the fourth character is "d", the untimed reminders are sorted before timed reminders. The default is to sort all fields in ascending order and to sort untimed reminders after timed reminders. .PP In ascending order, reminders are issued with the most imminent first. Descending order is the reverse. Reminders are always sorted by trigger date, and reminders with the same trigger date are then sorted by trigger time. If two reminders have the same date and time, then the priority is used to break ties. Reminders with the same date, time and priority are issued in the order they were encountered. .PP You can define a user-defined function called SORTBANNER that takes one \fBDATE\fR-type argument. In sort mode, the following sequence happens: .PP If \fBRemind\fR notices that the next reminder to issue has a different trigger date from the previous one (or if it is the first one to be issued), then SORTBANNER is called with the trigger date as its argument. The result is coerced to a string, and passed through the substitution filter with the appropriate trigger date. The result is then displayed. .PP Here's an example - consider the following fragment: .PP .nf # Switch off the normal banner BANNER % REM 11 March 1993 ++1 MSG Not so important REM 17 March 1993 ++7 MSG Way in the future REM 10 March 1993 MSG Important Reminder REM 11 March 1993 ++1 MSG Not so important - B FSET sortbanner(x) iif(x == today(), \\ "***** THINGS TO DO TODAY *****", \\ "----- Things to do %b -----") .fi .PP Running this with the \fB-gaa\fR option on 10 March 1993 produces the following output: .PP .nf ***** THINGS TO DO TODAY ***** Important Reminder ----- Things to do tomorrow ----- Not so important Not so important - B ----- Things to do in 7 days' time ----- Way in the future .fi .PP You can use the \fBargs()\fR built-in function to determine whether or not SORTBANNER has been defined. (This could be used, for example, to provide a default definition for SORTBANNER in a system-wide file included at the end of the user's file.) Here's an example: .PP .nf # Create a default sortbanner function if it hasn't already # been defined if args("sortbanner") != 1 fset sortbanner(x) "--- Things to do %b ---" endif .fi .PP .SH MSGPREFIX() AND MSGSUFFIX() .PP You can define two functions in your script called \fBmsgprefix()\fR and \fBmsgsuffix()\fR. They should each accept one argument, a number from 0 to 9999. .PP In normal mode, for \fBMSG\fR- and \fBMSF\fR-type reminders, the following sequence occurs when \fBRemind\fR triggers a reminder: .TP o If \fBmsgprefix()\fR is defined, it is evaluated with the priority of the reminder as its argument. The result is printed. It is \fInot\fR passed through the substitution filter. .TP o The body of the reminder is printed. .TP o If \fBmsgsuffix()\fR is defined, it is evaluated with the priority of the reminder as its argument. The result is printed. It is \fInot\fR passed through the substitution filter. .PP Here's an example: The following definition causes priority-0 reminders to be preceded by "URGENT", and priority-6000 reminders to be preceded by "(not important)". .PP .nf fset msgprefix(x) iif(x==0, "URGENT: ", \\ x==6000, "(not important) ", "") .fi .PP In Calendar Mode (with the \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-s\fR or \fB\-p\fR options), an analogous pair of functions named \fBcalprefix()\fR and \fBcalsuffix()\fR can be defined. They work with all reminders that produce an entry in the calendar (i.e., \fBCAL\fR- and possibly \fBRUN\fR-type reminders as well as \fBMSG\fR-type reminders.) .PP .B NOTES .PP Normally, the body of a reminder is followed by a carriage return. Thus, the results of \fBmsgsuffix()\fR will appear on the next line. If you don't want this, end the body of the reminder with a percentage sign, "%". If you want a space between your reminders, simply include a carriage return (\fBchar(13)\fR) as part of the \fBmsgsuffix()\fR return value. .PP If \fBRemind\fR has problems evaluating \fBmsgprefix()\fR, \fBmsgsuffix()\fR or \fBsortbanner()\fR, you will see a lot of error messages. For an example of this, define the following: .PP .nf fset msgprefix(x) x/0 .fi .PP .SH COMPILE-TIME SUPPORT FOR OTHER LANGUAGES .PP Your version of \fBRemind\fR may have been compiled to support a language other than English. This support may or may not be complete - for example, all error and usage messages may still be in English. However, at a minimum, non-English versions of \fBRemind\fR will output names of months and weekdays in the selected language. Also, the substitution mechanism will substitute constructs suitable for the selected language rather than for English. .PP Note that a non-English version of \fBRemind\fR will accept \fIonly\fR English names of weekdays and months in a reminder script. .PP .SH RUN-TIME SUPPORT FOR OTHER LANGUAGES .PP \fBRemind\fR has run-time support for other languages, and it is expected that compile-time support will be deprecated in favour of run-time support. .PP A number of system variables let you translate various phrases to other languages. These system variables are: .PP .TP .B $Monday, $Tuesday, $Wednesday, $Thursday, $Friday, $Saturday, $Sunday Set each of these system variables to a string representing the corresponding day's name in your language. Strings must be valid UTF-8 strings. .TP .B $January, $February, $March, $April, $May, $June, $July, $August, $September, $October, $November, $December Set each of these system variables to a string representing the corresponding month's name in your language. Strings must be valid UTF-8 strings. .TP .B $Ago, $Am, $And, $At, $Hour, $Is, $Minute, $Now, $On, $Pm, $Was Set each of these system variables to the translation of the corresponding English word into your language. Note that \fB$Am\fR and \fB$Pm\fR should be the translations of "AM" and "PM" (morning and afternoon time indicators) respectively. .TP .B $Hplu, $Mplu Set these to the suffix to add to the word for "hour" and "minute" to make them plural. In English, both would be set to "s". .TP .B $Fromnow Set this to the translation of the English phrase "from now" .PP Note that if you set any of the language-related system variables, they should be set in a section of your script that always is evaluated. If you set them inside an \fBIF\fR statement, for example, results are unpredictable. .PP Note also that the \fBRem2PS\fR back-end does not support the full range of UTF-8 characters. The \fBTkRemind\fR, \fBrem2html\fR and \fBrem2pdf\fR back-ends all do support the full UTF-8 range. .PP .SH RUN-TIME MODIFICATION OF THE SUBSTITUTION FILTER .PP The system variables mentioned in the previous section are not typically sufficient to properly translate Remind's output to another language. Some languages have complicated rules for AM vs PM times and others have complex rules for making words plural. \fBRemind\fR therefore allows you to define a number of functions that modify the behavior of the substitution filter at run-time. The functions are: .PP .TP .B subst_ampm(h) This function is passed a single integer, namely an hour from 0 to 23. It should return a string that indicates "AM" or "PM" or even finer gradations in some languages. .TP .B subst_ordinal(d) This function is passed a single integer, namely a day of the month from 1 to 31. It should return a string that is suffixed to the day number to turn it into an ordinal number. In English, for example, the function might return "st", "nd", "rd" or "th", depending on \fId\fR. .TP .B subst_\fIN\fR\fB(alt, date, time)\fR This is actually a \fIfamily\fR of functions, where \fIN\fR is a letter or number. This function \fIcompletely overrides\fR the substitution sequence "%N". The three arguments are an integer \fIalt\fR which, if non-zero, indicates that the alternate-mode substitution sequence "%*N" was encountered; \fIdate\fR which is the trigger date of the reminder and \fItime\fR which is the trigger time. .TP .B subst_\fIN\fR\fBx(alt, date, time)\fR Again, this is a \fIfamily\fR of functions. It is similar to the \fBsubst_\fIN\fR family except it is only called if \fIdate\fR is two or more days away from \fItoday()\fR. This is useful if you don't want to override the "today" or "tomorrow" output for most substitution sequences. .PP Here's an example of how you might customize your substitution filter. Suppose you want to change the "%b" sequence to substitute "the day after tomorrow" for an event two days from now. You could do this: .PP .nf FSET subst_bx(a,d,t) iif(d==today()+2, "the day after tomorrow", \\ "in " + (d-today()) + " days' time") REM [today()+3] ++3 MSG Event 1 is %b% REM [today()+2] ++3 MSG Event 2 is %b% REM [today()+1] ++3 MSG Event 3 is %b% REM [today()] ++3 MSG Event 4 is %b% .fi .PP The output of this script is: .PP .nf Event 1 is in 3 days' time Event 2 is the day after tomorrow Event 3 is tomorrow Event 4 is today .fi .PP Note how Event 2's wording was changed from the normal "in 2 days' time", and note also that the "tomorrow" and "today" events used the normal substitution---\fBsubst_bx\fR is not called for trigger days of today or tomorrow. .PP As a special case, if a \fBsubst_Nx\fB or \fBsubst_N\fR function returns the integer zero, then the normal substitution mechanism is used. Therefore, the previous example could have been written more simply as: .PP .nf FSET subst_bx(a,d,t) iif(d==today()+2, "the day after tomorrow", 0) .fi .PP You can define your own substitution sequences in addition to the built-in ones as follows: If you define a function named \fBsubst_\fIname\fB(alt, date, time)\fR, then the sequence \fB%{name}\fR calls the function with \fBalt\fR set to 0 and \fBdate\fR and \fBtime\fR to the trigger date and time, respectively. The \fB%{name}\fR sequence is replaced with whatever the function returns. The sequence \fB%*{name}\fR is similar, but calls the function with \fBalt\fR set to 1. .PP If you use a \fB%{name}\fR sequence and the function \fBsubst_\fIname\fR is not defined or returns an error, then \fB%{name}\fR is replaced with the empty string. .PP .SH LANGUAGE PACKS .PP \fBRemind\fR ships with a number of language packs, which are simply reminder scripts located in \fB[$SysInclude]/lang\fR. The currently-shipping language packs are: .PP da.rem (Danish), de.rem (German), es.rem (Spanish), fr.rem (French), is.rem (Icelandic), it.rem (Italian), nl.rem (Dutch), no.rem (Norwegian), pl.rem (Polish), pt.rem (Portuguese) and ro.rem (Romanian). .PP To use a language pack (in this example, de.rem), simply place this at the top of your reminders file: .PP .nf INCLUDE [$SysInclude]/lang/de.rem .fi .PP If you want \fBRemind\fR to try to find the language pack appropriate for your locale settings, use: .PP .nf INCLUDE [$SysInclude]/lang/auto.rem .fi .PP You are encouraged to study the language packs to see how to translate Remind into additional languages. .PP .SH THE HEBREW CALENDAR .PP \fBRemind\fR has support for the Hebrew calendar, which is a luni-solar calendar. This allows you to create reminders for Jewish holidays, jahrzeits (anniversaries of deaths) and smachot (joyous occasions.) .PP .B THE HEBREW YEAR .PP The Hebrew year has 12 months, alternately 30 and 29 days long. The months are: Tishrey, Heshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shvat, Adar, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tamuz, Av and Elul. In Biblical times, the year started in Nisan, but Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) is now celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of Tishrey. .PP In a cycle of 19 years, there are 7 leap years, being years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19 of the cycle. In a leap year, an extra month of 30 days is added before Adar. The two Adars are called Adar A and Adar B. .PP For certain religious reasons, the year cannot start on a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday. To adjust for this, a day is taken off Kislev or added to Heshvan. Thus, a regular year can have from 353 to 355 days, and a leap year from 383 to 385. .PP When Kislev or Heshvan is short, it is called \fIchaser\fR, or lacking. When it is long, it is called \fIshalem\fR, or full. .PP The Jewish date changes at sunset. However, \fBRemind\fR will change the date at midnight, not sunset. So in the period between sunset and midnight, Remind will be a day earlier than the true Jewish date. This should not be much of a problem in practice. .PP The computations for the Jewish calendar were based on the program "hdate" written by Amos Shapir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He also supplied the preceding explanation of the calendar. .PP .B HEBREW DATE FUNCTIONS .TP .B hebday(d_date) Returns the day of the Hebrew month corresponding to the \fIdate\fR parameter. For example, 12 April 1993 corresponds to 21 Nisan 5753. Thus, hebday('1993/04/12') returns 21. .TP .B hebmon(d_date) Returns the name of the Hebrew month corresponding to \fIdate\fR. For example, hebmon('1993/04/12') returns "Nisan". .TP .B hebyear(d_date) Returns the Hebrew year corresponding to \fIdate\fR. For example, hebyear('1993/04/12') returns 5753. .TP .B hebdate(i_day, s_hebmon [,id_yrstart [,i_jahr [,i_aflag]]]) The \fBhebdate()\fR function is the most complex of the Hebrew support functions. It can take from 2 to 5 arguments. It returns a \fBDATE\fR corresponding to the Hebrew date. .PP .RS The \fIday\fR parameter can range from 1 to 30, and specifies the day of the Hebrew month. The \fIhebmon\fR parameter is a string that must name one of the Hebrew months specified above. Note that the month must be spelled out in full, and use the English transliteration shown previously. You can also specify "Adar A" and "Adar B." Month names are not case-sensitive. .PP The \fIyrstart\fR parameter can either be a \fBDATE\fR or an \fBINT\fR. If it is a \fBDATE\fR, then the \fBhebdate()\fR scans for the first Hebrew date on or after that date. For example: .PP .nf hebdate(15, "Nisan", '1990/01/01') .fi .PP returns 1990/03/30, because that is the first occurrence of 15 Nisan on or after 1 January 1990. .PP If \fIyrstart\fR is an \fBINT\fR, it is interpreted as a Hebrew year. Thus: .PP .nf hebdate(22, "Kislev", 5756) .fi .PP returns 1995/12/15, because that date corresponds to 22 Kislev, 5756. Note that none of the Hebrew date functions will work with dates outside \fBRemind's\fR normal range for dates. .PP If \fIyrstart\fR is not supplied, it defaults to \fBtoday()\fR. .PP The \fIjahr\fR modifies the behaviour of \fBhebdate()\fR as follows: .PP If \fIjahr\fR is 0 (the default), then \fBhebdate()\fR keeps scanning until it finds a date that exactly satisfies the other parameters. For example: .PP .nf hebdate(30, "Adar A", 1993/01/01) .fi .PP returns 1995/03/02, corresponding to 30 Adar A, 5755, because that is the next occurrence of 30 Adar A after 1 January, 1993. This behaviour is appropriate for Purim Katan, which only appears in leap years. .PP If \fIjahr\fR is 1, then the date is modified as follows: .TP o 30 Heshvan is converted to 1 Kislev in years when Heshvan is \fIchaser\fR .TP o 30 Kislev is converted to 1 Tevet in years when Kislev is \fIchaser\fR .TP o 30 Adar A is converted to 1 Nisan in non-leapyears .TP o Other dates in Adar A are moved to the corresponding day in Adar in non-leapyears .PP This behaviour is appropriate for smachot (joyous occasions) and for some jahrzeits - see "JAHRZEITS." .PP if \fIjahr\fR is 2, then the date is modified as follows: .TP o 30 Kislev and 30 Heshvan are converted to 29 Kislev and 29 Heshvan, respectively, if the month is \fIchaser\fR .TP o 30 Adar A is converted to 30 Shvat in non-leapyears .TP o Other dates in Adar A are moved to the corresponding day in Adar in non-leapyears .PP if \fIjahr\fR is not 0, 1, or 2, it is interpreted as a Hebrew year, and the behaviour is calculated as described in the next section, "JAHRZEITS." .PP The \fIaflag\fR parameter modifies the behaviour of the function for dates in Adar during leap years. The \fIaflag\fR is \fIonly\fR used if \fIyrstart\fR is a \fBDATE\fR type. .PP The \fIaflag\fR only affects date calculations if \fIhebmon\fR is specified as "Adar". In leap years, the following algorithm is followed: .TP o If \fIaflag\fR is 0, then the date is triggered in Adar B. This is the default. .TP o If \fIaflag\fR is 1, then the date is triggered in Adar A. This may be appropriate for jahrzeits in the Ashkenazi tradition; consult a rabbi. .TP o If \fIaflag\fR is 2, then the date is triggered in both Adar A and Adar B of a leap year. Some Ashkenazim perform jahrzeit in both Adar A and Adar B. .RE .PP .B JAHRZEITS .PP A jahrzeit is a yearly commemoration of someone's death. It normally takes place on the anniversary of the death, but may be delayed if burial is delayed - consult a rabbi for more information. .PP In addition, because some months change length, it is not obvious which day the anniversary of a death is. The following rules are used: .TP o If the death occurred on 30 Heshvan, and Heshvan in the year after the death is \fIchaser\fR, then the jahrzeit is observed on 29 Heshvan in years when Heshvan is \fIchaser\fR. Otherwise, the jahrzeit is observed on 1 Kislev when Heshvan is \fIchaser\fR. .TP o If the death occurred on 30 Kislev, and Kislev in the year after the death is \fIchaser\fR, then the jahrzeit is observed on 29 Kislev in years when Kislev is \fIchaser\fR. Otherwise, the jahrzeit is observed on 1 Tevet when Kislev is \fIchaser\fR. .TP o If the death occurred on 1-29 Adar A, it is observed on 1-29 Adar in non-leapyears. .TP o If the death occurred on 30 Adar A, it is observed on 30 Shvat in a non-leapyear. .PP Specifying a Hebrew year for the \fIjahr\fR parameter causes the correct behaviour to be selected for a death in that year. You may also have to specify \fIaflag\fR, depending on your tradition. .PP The jahrzeit information was supplied by Frank Yellin, who quoted "The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar" by Arthur Spier, and "Calendrical Calculations" by E. M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz. .PP .SH OUT-OF-BAND REMINDERS .PP The \fBSPECIAL\fR keyword is used to transmit "out-of-band" information to \fBRemind\fR backends, such as \fBtkremind\fR or \fBRem2PS\fR. They are used only when piping data from a \fBremind \-p\fR line. (Note that the COLOR special is an exception; it downgrades to the equivalent of MSG in \fBRemind's\fR normal mode of operation.) .PP The various \fBSPECIAL\fRs recognized are particular for each backend; however, there are four \fBSPECIAL\fRs that all backends should attempt to support. They are currently supported by \fBRem2PS\fR, \fBtkremind\fR and \fBrem2html\fR. .PP The \fBSHADE\fR special replaces the \fBpsshade()\fR function. Use it like this: .PP .nf REM Sat Sun SPECIAL SHADE 128 REM Mon SPECIAL SHADE 255 0 0 .fi .PP The \fBSHADE\fR keyword is followed by either one or three numbers, from 0 to 255. If one number is supplied, it is interpreted as a grey-scale value from black (0) to white (255). If three numbers are supplied, they are interpreted as RGB components from minimum (0) to maximum (255). The example above shades weekends a fairly dark grey and makes Mondays a fully-saturated red. (These shadings appear in calendars produced by \fBRem2PS\fR, \fBtkremind\fR and \fBrem2html\fR.) .PP The \fBMOON\fR special replaces the \fBpsmoon()\fR function. Use it like this: .PP .nf REM [moondate(0)] SPECIAL MOON 0 REM [moondate(1)] SPECIAL MOON 1 REM [moondate(2)] SPECIAL MOON 2 REM [moondate(3)] SPECIAL MOON 3 .fi .PP These draw little moons on the various calendars. The complete syntax of the \fBMOON\fR special is as follows: .PP .nf ... SPECIAL MOON phase moonsize fontsize msg .fi .PP \fIPhase\fR is a number from 0 to 3, with 0 representing a new moon, 1 the first quarter, 2 a full moon and 3 the last quarter. .PP \fImoonsize\fR is the diameter in PostScript units of the moon to draw. If omitted or supplied as \-1, the backend chooses an appropriate size. .PP \fIfontsize\fR is the font size in PostScript units of the \fImsg\fR .PP \fIMsg\fR is additional text that is placed near the moon glyph. .PP Note that only the \fBRem2PS\fR backend supports \fImoonsize\fR and \fIfontsize\fR; the other backends use fixed sizes. .PP The \fBCOLOR\fR special lets you place colored reminders in the calendar. Use it like this: .PP .nf REM ... SPECIAL COLOR 255 0 0 This is a bright red reminder REM ... SPECIAL COLOR 0 128 0 This is a dark green reminder .fi .PP You can spell COLOR either the American way ("COLOR") or the British way ("COLOUR"). This manual will use the American way. Immediately following COLOR should be three decimal numbers ranging from 0 to 255 specifying red, green and blue intensities, respectively. The rest of the line is the text to put in the calendar. .PP The COLOR special is "doubly special", because in its normal operating mode, \fBremind\fR treats a COLOR special just like a MSG-type reminder. Also, if you invoke \fBRemind\fR with \fB\-@\fR[\fIn\fR], then it approximates SPECIAL COLOR reminders on your terminal. .PP See also the documentation of the \fB$DefaultColor\fR system variable in the section "SYSTEM VARIABLES". .PP The \fBWEEK\fR special lets you place annotations such as the week number in the calendar. For example, this would number each Monday with the ISO 8601 week number. The week number is shown like this: "(W\fIn\fR)" in this example, but you can put whatever text you like after the WEEK keyword. .PP .nf REM Monday SPECIAL WEEK (W[weekno()]) .fi .PP .SH MISCELLANEOUS .PP .B COMMAND AND KEYWORD ABBREVIATIONS .PP The following tokens can be abbreviated: .TP o \fBREM\fR can be omitted - it is implied if no other valid command is present. .TP o \fBCLEAR-OMIT-CONTEXT\fR --> \fBCLEAR\fR .TP o \fBPUSH-OMIT-CONTEXT\fR --> \fBPUSH\fR .TP o \fBPOP-OMIT-CONTEXT\fR --> \fBPOP\fR .TP o \fBDUMPVARS\fR --> \fBDUMP\fR .TP o \fBBANNER\fR --> \fBBAN\fR .TP o \fBINCLUDE\fR --> \fBINC\fR .TP o \fBMAYBE-UNCOMPUTABLE\fR --> \fBMAYBE\fR .TP o \fBSCANFROM\fR --> \fBSCAN\fR .PP .B NIFTY EXAMPLES .PP This section is a sampling of what you can do with \fBRemind\fR. .PP .nf REM 5 Feb 1991 AT 14:00 +45 *30 \\ RUN mail \-s "Meeting at %2" $LOGNAME wrote \fBRemind\fR. The moon code was copied largely unmodified from "moontool" by John Walker. The sunrise and sunset functions use ideas from programs by Michael Schwartz and Marc T. Kaufman. The Hebrew calendar support was taken from "hdate" by Amos Shapir. OS/2 support was done by Darrel Hankerson, Russ Herman, and Norman Walsh. The supported languages and their translators are listed below. Languages marked "complete" support error messages and usage instructions in that language; all others only support the substitution filter mechanism and month/day names. .PP \fBGerman\fR -- Wolfgang Thronicke .PP \fBDutch\fR -- Willem Kasdorp and Erik-Jan Vens .PP \fBFinnish\fR -- Mikko Silvonen (complete) .PP \fBFrench\fR -- Laurent Duperval (complete) .PP \fBNorwegian\fR -- Trygve Randen .PP \fBDanish\fR -- Mogens Lynnerup .PP \fBPolish\fR -- Jerzy Sobczyk (complete) .PP \fBBrazilian Portuguese\fR -- Marco Paganini (complete) .PP \fBItalian\fR -- Valerio Aimale .PP \fBRomanian\fR -- Liviu Daia .PP \fBSpanish\fR -- Rafa Couto .PP \fBIcelandic\fR -- Bj\[:o]rn Daví\[Sd]sson .SH BUGS .PP If you find a bug in Remind, please report it to: dianne@skoll.ca .PP There's no good reason why read-only system variables are not implemented as functions, or why functions like \fBversion()\fR, etc. are not implemented as read-only system variables. .PP Hebrew dates in \fBRemind\fR change at midnight instead of sunset. .PP \fBRemind\fR has some built-in limits (for example, number of global \fBOMIT\fRs.) .PP .SH BIBLIOGRAPHY .PP Nachum Dershowitz and Edward M. Reingold, "Calendrical Calculations", \fISoftware\-Practice and Experience\fR, Vol. 20(9), Sept. 1990, pp 899-928. .PP L. E. Doggett, \fIAlmanac for computers for the year 1978\fR, Nautical Almanac Office, USNO. .PP Richard Siegel and Michael and Sharon Strassfeld, \fIThe First Jewish Catalog\fR, Jewish Publication Society of America. .PP Jean Meeus, \fIAstronomical Algorithms, Second Edition\fR, Willmann-Bell, Inc. .SH HOME PAGE https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/ .SH MAILING LIST https://dianne.skoll.ca/mailman/listinfo/remind-fans .SH SEE ALSO .PP \fBrem\fR(1), \fBrem2ps\fR(1), \fBrem2pdf\fR(1), \fBtkremind\fR(1), \fBrem2html\fR(1)