IDATE(1)

📦
version 1.1 · 2 versions
, in debian trixie, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ IDATE ✨

okay bestie so you want to convert dates between the Gregorian and Hijri calendars? say less 💖 this is the manual page for idate, a User Commands situation, and it is literally about to be your new fave little command. she converts, she calculates, she does not judge your calendar choices. 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

idate — a Gregorian/Meladi to/from Hijri/Islamic date converter. that's it. that's the whole job. 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

idate [--gregorian yyyymmdd] [--hijri yyyymmdd] [--simple]
[--umm_alqura] [--help]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so here's the tea 🍓 — the idate program is a Gregorian to Hijri (and yes, vice-versa too, she does both) date converter. the app uses and offers multiple calculation methods, and ngl not all of them agree at all times 😭. the reason for all this multiplicity is that there just isn't one agreed-upon method, so various entities go off and develop and advocate their own calculations. it's giving "everyone has an opinion" energy fr fr.

idate is able to comprehend and calculate both pre-epoch or pre-Hijrah dates — denoted as "B.H" — as well as post-epoch or post-Hijrah dates, denoted as "A.H". she also utilizes Gregorian's pre-epoch "B.C" and post-epoch "A.D" dates and notes them per her output. 💖 when you're entering pre-epoch years, negative numbers ought to be utilized. yes, the minus sign. bring it.

when idate is run without any command-line options, she just grabs the host machine's current Gregorian date and converts it to Hijri. lowkey the easiest thing you'll do all day. ⭐

✨ OPTIONS ✨

idate follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (-). here's the full summary, no skips, no skimming:

  • -h, --help — show summary of options. the classic "help me bestie" button 🫶
  • -g, --gregorian yyyymmdd — specify the Gregorian date to be converted, where y stands for year, m for month and d for day 📅
  • -hi, --hijri yyyymmdd — specify the Hijri date to be converted, where y stands for year, m for month and d for day 🌙
  • -s, --simple — specify a simplified output mode. less noise, just vibes ✨
  • -u, --umm_alqura — specify to use the Umm Al-Qura calculation method (used mostly in Saudi Arabia) 👑

🦋 BACKGROUND 🦋

the Hijri calendar is used in most of the Arab world and is the symbolic calendar of the Islamic faithed worldwide. this calendar is known as the "Hijri" — based on the word "Hijrah", which denotes migration in Arabic — and it signals Prophet Mohammed's (PBUH) migration from Makkah to Medinah on Thursday, July 15, 622 AD (Julian) or July 19, 622 AD (Gregorian). iconic origin story, no cap.

the Islamic Hijri calendar is strictly lunar (ie. moon-based) with twelve lunar months which do not correspond or track their solar counterparts — and for the record, the Gregorian calendar is a solar or sun-based calendar, so they're two different girlies entirely. lunar years, and thus Hijri years, are on average about 354 days long, which means a Hijri year ends up being roughly about 11 days shorter than its Gregorian counterpart. she runs fast. 💨

there is much discussion and confusion regarding how best to track the Hijri calendar, and a great deal of that confusion is based on the fact that many rely on a human moon sighting to denote the start (or end) of a month — each month of the Hijri calendar starts when a new moon's crescent is observed or is made visible at sunset — as opposed to using an empirical mathematic certainty. 😭 the methods presented in this application and its underlying ITL library are strictly arithmetic in nature and do NOT take moon-phases into consideration. in short: observational approximation is not used. periodt.

💀 LIMITATIONS 💀

the Umm Al-Qura option doesn't function with pre-epoch settings. so like… don't do that. 🙈

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

found a bug? report bugs on the web using http://bugs.arabeyes.org. tell them everything, bestie, they want the details 💌

👑 AUTHOR 👑

written by Nadim Shaikli as part of the Arabeyes.org project. king behavior, fr fr 👑

idate is subject to the GNU General Public License (GPL).

copyright © 2005, Arabeyes, Nadim Shaikli.

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

the ITL library (libitl) from the Islamic Tools and Libraries project. she is the underlying requirement for idate to function — no ITL, no idate, it's giving main character dependency. the ITL library was created and is hosted at www.arabeyes.org. 🦋

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this version of idate is dated January 05, 2005, and it lives in the IDATE(1) section of the manual. go forth and convert. slay. 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from