HODIE(1)                  User Manuals                 HODIE(1)





NAME
       hodie - Print current date and time... in Latin

SYNOPSIS
       hodie [ OPTION ]...

DESCRIPTION
       hodie  prints  out the current date using classic Latin,
       and in addition also prints it out and time using  Roman
       numerals.

OPTIONS
       -h, --help
              Print short help message with syntax

       -v, --verbose
              Print  months  and  days (pridie, Kalends, Nones,
              Ides) full and not the  respective  abbreviations
              (standard mode of operation)

              Two  occurrences of -v as well as the use of -vv
              or --extremely-verbose will include the  numerals
              where applicable fully declined, as in 'ante diem
              quintum Kalends Septembres'.

       -n, --numerals
              Don't print anything in Latin - only the date and
              time as Roman numerals.

       -x, --force-numerals
              Print  both  the  verbose  latin and the date and
              time as Roman numerals.

       -c, --classic, --auc
              Print the year in the classic manner ab urbe con-
              dita instead of the more modern anno domini .

       -ad, --ante-diem
              Print  the  date expressing the number of days to
              the next main day with the ante  diem  expression
              instead of ablative case.

       -d, --date
              Print  out  any  date.  This has a rather special
              syntax, with a  keyword  following  the  -d  flag
              choosing  input format. See section on DATE INPUT
              below.

       -r, --republican OFFSET
              Print out the date dated ab urbe tua condita with
              the  offset  counted  in years as compared to the
              modern european kalendar  (originating  with  the
              hypothetical  birth  of  christ).   hodie -r -753
              would be equivalent with hodie -c

       --version
              Print out the version number of this release  and
              exit.  No  matter whether other options appear on
              the command line or not.

DATE INPUT
       Following the -d or the --date option flags,  the  first
       item must be one of the following:

       verbose
              In  this  case, the year, month and day are given
              by following the verbose keyword by the flags -y,
              --year,  -m,  --month,  -d, --day for year, month
              and date respectively

       ymd    After this flag, the date  comes  in  the  format
              YYYY-MM-DD  ,  where the numbers may be separated
              by any non-numeric character.

       dmy    With this flag, the date is given as DD-MM-YYYY

       mdy    With this flag, the date is given  as  MM-DD-YYYY
              Restrictions  on  the characters that may replace
              the hyphen apply as above.

HISTORY
       The story began on the 10. of August, 2000 (a.d. VI  Id.
       Iul.,  MM). Having finished most of my assignment for my
       two-month summer job at  Ericsson  Eurolab  Deutschland,
       Nuremberg,  I  was  idling  around  on the Internet, and
       stumbled over the  dotcomma-challenges  <http://www.dot-
       comma.org>  ,  where  especially the Roman numeral chal-
       lenge started my mind.

       Almost an hour hacking, and there it was, another  hour,
       and the language support was there. Before the night was
       over, I had written this man page and had the layout  of
       a decent Makefile drawn out mentally.

       At the end of the next day, I was so far that I actually
       had the workings of RPM worked out, constructed a  .rpm-
       package  and  a  .src.rpm-package,  which  was  promptly
       released on my home-page,  announced  on  freshmeat  and
       uploaded to metalab (apps/misc :-).

       Response  was quick and plentiful. By now, I have compi-
       lation reports from Linux, FreeBSD and SCO  Unixware  7;
       there  are a few compability issues to put aside, but it
       works surprisingly well.

RETURN VALUES
       hodie returns zero. Always. If it  doesn't,  then  some-
       thing is really bad with the code.

       For  some  really unreadable code, this means that hodie
       could be used as a strange replacement for true

BUGS
       It doesn't sanity check the input...  telling  hodie  to
       display  the  roman  form  of  the 99th of march gives a
       slightly jumbled output, which most definitely does  not
       make sense.

       Reports are more than welcome (e-mail below).

AUTHOR
       Now,  who  would  come  up with such a thing?  Well, I'm
       Mikael Johansson, a rather all-round  geek  from  Stock-
       holm.  I'm gravely interested in languages, in computers
       and in mathematics; a combination  more  dangerous  than
       you might think.

       E-mails to <mikael.johansson@wineasy.se>

TODO
       A  double and triple grammar check (will be done as soon
       as I start my university studies).

       Check that it really  does  display  correctly  for  all
       dates.

       Implement a complementary, ancient Greek program :-)

       Perhaps port/translate top, uptime, and other nice util-
       ities to Latin :-)

       And, as always... Debugging debugging debugging!

SEE ALSO
       date(1)



Linux                     AUGUST 2000                  HODIE(1)
