RINK-DATES(5)

💖 NAME 💖

rink-dates — Rink file format for date patterns. Bestie, this is the RINK-DATES(5) page, and it’s lowkey the blueprint for how Rink understands dates. 🗓️✨

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SYNPOSIS ✨

Rink lets you specify datetimes using #date# syntax in queries. This file defines the patterns that are used to try to match the specified date. No cap, that’s the whole vibe. 💅

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🗓️ DESCRIPTION 🗓️

Blank lines are ignored. Lines starting with # are ignored too. Easy.

A date pattern is a sequence of keywords, and each keyword specifies a token to match. Part of the sequence can be wrapped with [] to make it optional. Cute, right? 🎀

The valid keywords 💫

• fullyear — The full 4 digit year, like 2024. Must be exactly 4 digits.
• shortyear — Shortened 2-digit year, like 24. Must be exactly 2 digits.
• century — The year with the last 2 digits cut off, like 20. Not the same as the actual century number (which would be 21). Must be exactly 2 digits.
• monthnum — The current month number, like 03. Must be exactly 2 digits.
• day — The current day of the month, like 3. Can be any number of digits.
• fullday — The current day of the month, like 03. Must be exactly 2 digits.
• min — The current minute of the hour, like 05. Must be exactly 2 digits.
• ordinal — The current day of the year, like 083. Must be exactly 3 digits.
• isoyear — The ISO year, like -0001. Must be exactly 4 digits. ISO year unifies CE and BCE such that 1BC is year 0, and 2BCE is year -1.
• year — The current year, like 2024. Can be any number of digits.
• adbc — Looks for ad, ce, bc, or bce (case insensitive). This allows specifying dates prior to year 1 CE.
• hour12 — The current hour on a 12-hour clock. Must be exactly 2 digits.
• hour24 — The current hour on a 24-hour clock. Must be exactly 2 digits.
• meridiem — Looks for am or pm (case insensitive). This allows specifying 12-hour time.
• sec — The current second of the current minute. Must be exactly 2 digits. Can optionally have a decimal point to specify time smaller than a second.
• offset — Matches a timezone offset. This can either be the name of a timezone like US/Pacific or a fixed offset. The fixed offset can either be in the form +07:00 or +0700.
• monthname — Matches English month names, case insensitive. Recognizes 3-letter names (like jan, feb, mar) and full names.
• weekday — Matches English weekday names, case insensitive. Recognizes 3-letter names (like mon, tue, wed) and full names.
• today — Use the current date, but not the time. Most useful when combined with relative.
• now — Use the current time and date. Most useful when combined with relative.
• relative — Matches a relative unit, like +1h to add 1 hour, or -7week to subtract 7 weeks. This is calendar aware, instead of working in seconds.
• - — Matches a literal - character.
• : — Matches a literal : character.
• — A single space will match any amount of whitespace.
• & — Allows putting two terms directly next to each other without spaces in between.
• ' <anything> ' — Wrapping text in single quotes will match that text literally.

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📁 FILES 📁

Rink searches the following locations:

• ./datepatterns.txt
• $XDG_CONFIG_DIR/rink/datepatterns.txt
• /usr/share/rink/datepatterns.txt

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

rink(1), rink(5), rink(7), rink-defs(5)

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💖 That’s the whole page, bestie! Source/version: Rink Manual. Date: 2026-08-30. You understood the assignment. Periodt. 💅✨