hcal(1)
π NAME π
hcal β she displays a Hebrew / Gregorian calendar π
(this whole page lives in the libhdate manual, section 1, bestie π«Ά)
β¨ SYNOPSIS β¨
hcal [options] [coordinates [timezone]] [[mm] yyyy]
coordinates: -l [NS]yy[.yyy] -L [EW]xx[.xxx]
-l [NS]yy[:mm[:ss]] -L [EW]xx[:mm[:ss]]
timezone: -z nn[( .nn | :mm )]
π DESCRIPTION π
okay so hcal prints you a calendar showing both the Gregorian dates and the Hebrew dates β for whichever Gregorian month you ask for, or, if you don't name a month, for the whole entire Gregorian year. Give her zero arguments and she'll just show you the current month's calendar, no thoughts, just vibes. πΈ
Jewish holidays get annotated, and if you want she'll footnote them for you too. She also tries to be sunset-aware so she can correctly highlight the current Hebrew date, and she can flex Shabbat times and parshiot as well. Peep the LOCATION section below, iykyk. π
INPUTTING A HEBREW DATE: if the year you hand over is greater than 3000, hcal is gonna interpret that date as a Hebrew date, and she'll show you the calendar for the corresponding Gregorian month(s). Hebrew months are expected to be passed as numbers 1-12 for Tishrei - Elul; Adar I and Adar II are expected to be passed as months 13 and 14. periodt. π
π OPTIONS π
-1,--one-monthβ over-ride the config file setting, in case you'd set option--three-monthas a default in there π-3,--three-monthβ outputs previous/next months, side by side. requires127columns, so likeβ¦ know your terminal π-b,--bidi,--visualβ output Hebrew information in Hebrew, in reverse sequence--no-bidi,--no-visualβ over-ride the config file setting, in case you'd set option-bidias a default in there-c,--colorizeβ output in calming, muted tones β¨--no-colorβ over-ride config file setting-d,--diasporaβ use diaspora reading and holidays. only relevant if hcal is using location information indicating an Israeli timezone-f,--footnoteβ output descriptive notes of holidays π--no-footnoteβ over-ride config file setting-h,--htmlβ output in html format to stdout πΈοΈ--no-htmlβ over-ride config file setting-H,--hebrewβ output Hebrew information in Hebrew, in 'logical' sequence. if this displays in reverse for you, use option-b-I,--israelβ override a diaspora default. only relevant if hcal is using location information indicating other than an Israeli timezone-iβ use external css file"./hcal.css"for html output π¨--no-reverseβ do not highlight today's date (she'll be chill about it)-p,--parashaβ output week's parasha on each calendar row π-s,--shabbatβ output Shabbat times and parshiot π―οΈ-l,--latitudeβ[NS]yy[.yyy]decimal degrees, or[NS]yy[:mm[:ss]]degrees, minutes, seconds. Negative values are South π§-L,--longitudeβ[EW]xx[.xxx]decimal degrees, or[EW]xx[:mm[:ss]]degrees, minutes, seconds. Negative values are West π§-z,--timezoneβ +/-UTC. notation may be in decimal hours (hh[.hh]) or hours, minutes (hh[:mm]) β°
π NOTES π
π HOLIDAYS π
Holidays are depicted by a change in the symbol separating a day's Gregorian and Hebrew dates, and here's the whole legend, no skips:
/β Regular day+β Yom Tov (plus Yom Kippur)*β Erev Yom Kippur~β Hol HaMoed!β Hanuka and Purim@β Tzomot$β Lag BaOmer , Tu BeAv, Tu BeShvat#β Independance day and Yom Yerushalaim%β Tzahal and Holocaust memorial days^β Other Israeli National days
Use the -f (--footnote) option to have hcal describe what any particular day is marking. π«Ά
π LOCATIONS π
If you want hcal to display accurate Shabbat times, and to accurately advance the Hebrew 'today's date' indicator at sunset, hcal requires location and time zone information in order to make astronomical calculations for a given date. If you don't provide ANY such information, hcal uses your computer's local time zone information as an indicator, and either picks a city in that time zone, or defaults to the equator at the center of that time zone. If hcal can't even retrieve time zone information from your computer, it defaults to Tel-Aviv. For other locations, use the -l -L option pair. For other timezones, use the -z option. Co-ordinates and standard time zones for some common locations are listed below. π«
The current defaults include:
Timezone Default city Lattitude Longitude
-5 New York City 40 -74
0 London 51 0
1 Paris 48 2
2 Tel-Aviv 32 34
3 Moscow 55 37
Useful locations and time zones:
Jerusalem 31, 35, 2 Buenos Aires 34, -58, -3
Tel Aviv 32, 34, 2 Hong Kong 22, 114, 8
Haifa 32, 34, 2 Los Angeles 34, -118, -8
Beer Sheva 31, 34, 2 Sao Paolo 23, -46, -3
Ashdod 31, 34, 2 Toronto 43, -79 -5
Tiberias 32, 35, 2
Eilat 29, 34, 2
π FILES π
ποΈ CONFIG FILE ποΈ
This folder and file will be automatically created, and includes its own documentation, in-line:
${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/hcal/hcalrc
If ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME} is undefined:
~/.config/hcal/hcalrc
π BUGS π
- Accuracy β the accuracy of the astronomically-derived data will suffer from not accounting for environmental conditions such as elevation, horizon, temperature and air pressure. π
- Timezones β the timezone support is currenlty primitive and lacks support for daylight savings time transitions. π
- Historical β the software does not yet account for the phenomenon and complications of the "Gregorian transition" from the prior, Julian calendar, which effectively caused an instantaneous 'loss' of two weeks for all gentiles affected. Countries (eg. Poland, Spain and Italy) began adopting the Gregorian calendar on 8 Tishrei 5343 (4 October 1582CE), although many did not transition until the 56th century (1752 CE, eg. UK colonies, Sweden). Russia did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 5678 (1918 CE) and Turkey did not until 5687 (December, 1926 CE). Many other countries made the transition on other dates. Keep in mind that Russia invaded part of Poland, undoing, for the interim, the Gregorian transition for (only) that part of Poland; also important to remember in this regard is that Eretz Ysroel was part of the Turkish Ottoman empire until the British mandate (5677 (1917CE)). Until all this is accounted for adequately by this application, refer to
' ncal -p Β΄for a basic table of country transitions. However, keep in mind that European borders underwent many changes during the 426 years in question, so the accuracy of your data will depend on accurate knowledge of whether any particular date at any specific location was Julian or Gregorian. π«
π EXAMPLES π
- Display a 2012ce year's calendar, three-months wide, in color.
hcal -3c 2012
- Display the current month's calendar, with Shabbat times, parshiot, footnoted holiday identification, with Hebrew information in Hebrew, and all in "calming", "muted" color-tones.
hcal -csfH
π SEE ALSO π
mlterm(1), hdate(1), hebcal(1), date(1), ncal(1), cal(1), remind(1)
π AUTHORS π
Boruch Baum 2011-2013, Yaacov Zamir 2005-2010.
project home page: http://libhdate.sourceforge.net
Hcal and Hdate are part of the package libhdate, a small C/C++ library for Hebrew dates, holidays, and reading sequences (parashiot). It uses the source code from Amos Shapir's "hdate" package, as fixed and patched by Nadav Har'El. The Torah reading sequence tables were contributed by Zvi Har'El. π«Ά
and that's the whole page bestie π this one's a Linux special, dated 2013-01-01, and it lives in the hcal(1) section of the libhdate man pages β slay, go read a calendar β¨ππ¦
π¦ where this page comes from
- debian bookworm: hdate 1.6.02-2.1+b3 Β· GPL-3.0-or-later
- debian trixie: hdate 1.6.02-2.1+b8 Β· GPL-3.0-or-later
- nixos 26.05: hdate 1.6.02
- nixpkgs unstable: hdate 1.6.02
- ubuntu jammy: hdate 1.6.02-2.1build1 Β· GPL-3.0-or-later
- ubuntu noble: hdate 1.6.02-2.1build5 Β· GPL-3.0-or-later
- ubuntu questing: hdate 1.6.02-2.1build6
- ubuntu resolute: hdate 1.6.02-2.1build7 Β· GPL-3.0-or-later
- ubuntu stonking: hdate 1.6.02-2.1build8 Β· GPL-3.0-or-later
- π girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms