How do you find out the date of next Monday on Thursday, August 29?
I was thinking about it, of course, I could calculate by myself. However, as usual, I was lazy and my brain didnt even want to solve for the answer of one plus one. So, I didnt bother clicking on calendar to view it or simply run cal 9 2013.
Instead, I ran:
~ $ date -d 'next monday' Mon Sep 2 00:00:00 CST 2013
Moving mouse cursor, nah, too much work for me. I rather typed in a command since my hands were on keyboard and focus was in terminal window. Reading cal output, nah, locating next Monday is too much work, although its at first row.
I could be even lazier:
~ $ date -d monday Mon Sep 2 00:00:00 CST 2013 ~ $ date -d mon Mon Sep 2 00:00:00 CST 2013
This is first time I typed in such date string for a result I actually wanted to know, and its quite a pretty good usage example in real life. However, I have used date parsing in sleeptil, a Bash function which I did use a few times.
Counting down to next Monday Morning Syndrome to happen? You bet I can. I have coded urtimer as a countdown timer, which I recently added -d, but it wasnt by intention and I hadnt known I would be somehow wanted to know next monday.
~ $ sleeptil -v 'next monday 6am' Mon Sep 2 06:00:00 CST 2013 in 3 days 7 hour 23 minutes 26 seconds ~ $ urtimer -d 'next monday 8am'
Screen shows about 81 hours, like this
The truth is I wasnt lazy nor my brain didnt want to give me an answer, somehow, I was looking for something different or unique. I could just move my hand to control the mouse, but I didnt. My brain was actually knowing next Monday would be in September. Simple counting, I would know the answer, but I didnt do it.
For some reason, I have developed a set of simple toolswhich seemingly are related to one anotherwithout even knowing I was doing that. Time certainly connects things we least expect, even people if you will, like one who is currently reading.
Anyway, the best one still is:
date -d 'next monday'
I love how you can tell date what you want with these two words.
