June 17, 2024

Highlight current date with Cal (cli)

In .bashrc, add¹:

# highlight current date when using cal
function cal() {
    if [ -t 1 ]; then ncal -b "${@}"; else command cal "${@}"; fi
}

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I first tried this:

alias cal="if [ -t 1 ] ; then ncal -b ; else /usr/bin/cal ; fi"

but current date was no longer highlighted when I passed an option e.g. cal -3.

However, it seems that the alias:

alias cal='if [ -t 1 ]; then ncal -b "${@}"; else command cal "${@}"; fi'

takes options.
Still, I went for using a function as I read that using a function “facilitate passing arguments to the command(s)”².

The solution I found also suggest “Replac[ing] /usr/bin/cal with command cal in case the user has cal installed in a non-standard location”, however, I don’t understand that bit.

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1. Shaun Mitchell↩︎

2. Ibid↩︎

personal computing command-line interface (cli) gnu linux trisquel shell literacy office applications wiki cal