Re: cal: add option to highlight the current day

On Sat, Aug 01, 2026 at 04:08:06AM +0200, Piotr Durlej wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2026 at 05:29:15PM -0700, patrick keshishian wrote:
> > 
> > How about an environment variable to enable the highlight for
> > those who want this option, which can be put in their .profile,
> > retaining the age-long behavior as default for the rest?
> > 
> > Something like the following patch on top of your proposal.
> > 
> > --patrick
> 
> I'm not sure why this would be added to the base system cal(1), especially
> when ncal(1) already exists as a package and does the job.

If you just want highlighting of the current day, why not use the base cal
with sed:

$ cal | sed s/" `date +%e`"/"^[[92m&^[[39m"/

You can easily make that a shell alias.

The space before `date +%e` in the first quoted string ensures that single
digits only match the intended day.

Note that ^[ is escape, so if you're typing this at the console, then hit
control-v and then escape to enter the sequence.