DDATE(1)

📦 version 0.2.2, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, debian bookworm, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 DDATE(1) 💖

okay bestie so this is a page from the Emperor Norton User Command manual, and it's about a little program called ddate and honestly? it's giving chaos in the best way. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

ddate — convert Gregorian dates to Discordian dates 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ddate [+format] [date]

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

ddate prints the date in Discordian date format. that's the whole job. iconic behavior.

If you call it with no arguments at all, ddate grabs the current system date, converts it to Discordian, and prints it to standard output. no cap. ✨

But wait — you can also hand it a Gregorian date on the command line, given as a numerical day, month and year. so like, you can time travel. sort of. 💅

If you pass a format string, the Discordian date gets printed in whatever format that string says. this works similarly to the format string mechanism of date(1), except it's almost completely differently. bestie that's not a typo, that's the manpage being honest with you. 💀

Here are the fields, and yes you need all of them:

  • %A — full name of the day of the week (like, Sweetmorn)
  • %a — abbreviated name of the day of the week (like, SM)
  • %B — full name of the season (like, Chaos)
  • %b — abbreviated name of the season (like, Chs)
  • %d — ordinal number of day in season (like, 23)
  • %e — cardinal number of day in season (like, 23rd)
  • %H — name of current Holyday, if any
  • %N — magic code to prevent the rest of the format from being printed unless today is a Holyday. it's literally a gatekeeping mechanism, we love to see it 🫶
  • %n — newline
  • %t — tab
  • %X — number of days remaining until X-Day. (⚠️ not valid if the SubGenius options are not compiled in, so don't come for me)
  • %{ and %} — used to enclose the part of the string which is to be replaced with the words "St. Tib's Day" if the current day is St. Tib's Day
  • %. — try it and see. 😌 that's it. that's the documentation. iykyk

🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

the vibes, demonstrated:

% ddate
Sweetmorn, Bureaucracy 42, 3161 YOLD
% ddate +'Today is %{%A, the %e of %B%}, %Y. %N%nCelebrate %H'
Today is Sweetmorn, the 42nd of Bureaucracy, 3161.
% ddate +"It's %{%A, the %e of %B%}, %Y. %N%nCelebrate %H" 26 9 1995
It's Prickle-Prickle, the 50th of Bureaucracy, 3161.
Celebrate Bureflux
% ddate +"Today's %{%A, the %e of %B%}, %Y. %N%nCelebrate %H" 29 2 1996
Today's St. Tib's Day, 3162.

💀 BUGS 💀

ddate(1) will produce undefined behavior if you ask it to produce the date for St. Tib's day and its format string does not contain the St. Tib's Day delimiters %{ and %}.

so like. bestie. include the delimiters. please. 🙈 undefined behavior is not a cute look on you.

🌈 NOTE 🌈

After X-Day passed without incident, the Church of the SubGenius declared that it had got the year upside down — X-Day is actually in 8661 AD rather than 1998 AD. so the True X-Day is Cfn 40, 9827. math was done, apologies were not issued, periodt. 👑

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

  • Original program by Druel the Chaotic aka Jeremy Johnson (mpython@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
  • Major rewrite by Lee H:. O:. Smith, KYTP, aka Andrew Bulhak (acb@dev.null.org)
  • Gregorian B.C.E. dates fixed by Chaplain Nyan the Wiser, aka Dan Dart (ntw@dandart.co.uk)
  • Five tons of flax.

the last credit is not a joke, it is listed as a credit, and we respect it. 🌸

💜 DISTRIBUTION POLICY 💜

Public domain. All rites reversed. (yes, reversed. read it again. slay.)

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

The ddate command is available from https://github.com/bo0ts/ddate. go get her. 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie!! this came out of the ddate manual, Bureaucracy 3161 edition, and it lives in the DDATE(1) section of the Emperor Norton User Command set. go forth, convert some dates, celebrate a Holyday, and remember: if it's St. Tib's Day, use your delimiters. 💅✨💖

📦 where this page comes from