REMIND(1) General Commands Manual REMIND(1)

remind — sets and issues reminders

remind [-a] [-c COLOUR_PAIRS] [-D n[,n ...]] [-d DATE] [-e] [-f FILENAME] [-h] [-i] [-L] [-l] [-m n[,n ...]] [-P POINTER] [-p] [-q] [-r REPEAT] [-s] [-t TIMEOUT] [-u URGENCY] [-v] [-w WARNING] [-X n[,n ...]] [message]

remind enables the user to record both date-based and on-going actions, and to issue reminders that these actions are outstanding. Actions may be given an urgency, may be timed-out automatically after a set number of days, and, for date-based actions, may be given a user-specified number of days warning.

When first defined, an action is assigned a unique number for identification purposes. Remind records the information in a file, by default named remind.db in the current directory. If invoked with no options, or one of the reporting options (-alLps) it will produce the desired reminder report. If invoked with a message, and no date, an on-going (or standard) action is defined. The -d option, together with a message, or a message of which the first word is a date, defines a date-based (periodic) action.

Issue reminders for both standard and periodic actions. This is the default if no options, or message, are specified.
f,b f,b f,b f,b
Sets the urgency colour pairs for colour highlighting. There are four urgency levels, 1, the highest, to 4, the lowest. Each urgency is assigned a foreground and background colour (the default being white on black). All four colour pairs must be specified if the -c argument is given. Colour pair codes are as defined by ANSI Select Graphic Rendition subset. The -c argument may be specified with any invokation of remind, e.g. during remind.db file initialisation or reporting.
n[,n ...]
Deletes an action or actions, identified by their action numbers. Each action is given a unique number which must be specified in order to delete an action. If the -q switch is specified, the contents of the action are nulled.
DATE
Sets the date for an action. A DATE must be in the form dd/mm[/yyyy].
Writes, on stdout, the remind commands necessary to build the remind file. Output may be re-directed to a file.
Sets remind database file name. The default is remind.db
Highlight actions, based on -u (urgency) and -c (colour) settings. Highlighting uses ANSI escape sequences and colours. If omitted, no highlighting is performed.
Initialises the remind.db file. If the remind.db file already exists, you will be asked to confirm initialisation. (The -q switch will cause this confirmation question to be omitted).
As -l (see below), but also displays the contents of the remind.db file header record, and all records that are on the free list.
Lists the contents of the remind.db file. The report is not urgency highlighted, and reports on the entire contents of the file (i.e. dates, warnings, urgencies, timeouts etc). The -s or -p options may be specified and will restrict the report to standard or periodic actions respectively.
n[,n ...]
Modifies the action(s) identifed by n. The urgency, warning, timeout, date, repeat and message may be modifed. The new values should be specified by using the appropriate argument (and/or a message).
POINTER
Changes the next_action pointer in an action to the integer value POINTER. The action record to modify is selected by the -m argument. : Misuse can seriously damage the remind.db file.
Reports on periodic actions only. If a message is present, forces definition of a periodic action.
Causes remind to omit the message confirming the creation of an action. Suppresses background actions message when reporting standard actions. Also suppresses confirmation question when creating a remind file and the file already exists. Lastly, when deleting an action, will cause the action contents to be nulled.
REPEAT
Sets the type of repetition for a periodic action. The REPEAT argument must take one of the following forms:
y
yearly (the default).
m
monthly, based on the day of the action date.
wN[,M]
Nth weekday (0 is Sunday, 6 is Saturday) of every Mth week. If M is omitted, default is 1. This repeat will cause the date of the action to be adjusted to match N.
nN[,M]
Mth occurrence of the Nth weekday in a month. If the Mth occurrence value is 5 or more, the due date will be the last occurrence of the Nth weekday in the month. If M is omitted, default is 1.
Reports on standard actions only. If specified when defining a new action, this flag will force a standard action definition, even if a date is given. This allows the creation of delayed standard actions.
TIMEOUT
Sets the timeout for an action. The timeout value is in days. remind will automatically delete an action TIMEOUT days after its defined date.
URGENCY
This argument serves two purposes. Firstly, it sets the urgency when defining an action. Valid urgency values are zero to 4, inclusive. An action with zero urgency is known as a background action and will not normally be reported, although the number of background actions that have been defined will be issued. The default urgency is 4. Secondly, when the -u argument is specified for reporting, only actions of that urgency are reported. Zero is a valid urgency, and is the only time the background actions will be displayed.
Print version number.
WARNING
Sets the number of days warning required for a periodic action. Default is 5 days.
n[,n ...]
Prints the contents of the action(s) specified by n. The output includes the next_action pointer.
message
Sets the message to be issued for the action. Multiple spaces between words will be reduced to one. If the first word in a message is in the date format (dd/mm[/yyyy]), a periodic action will be defined. During modification, if the message contains an ampersand (&), the existing message will be used in place of the ampersand. This permits the easy addition of leading and/or trailing text to an existing message. The message is limited to 80 characters and must follow all other arguments.

The following environment variables affect the execution of remind

Sets the pathname of the remind.db file. This setting is overridden by the -f command switch.
Sets the effective execution time of remind. Value must of the form dd/mm[/yyyy].

remind stores actions in a file. The default name is remind.db, located in the current working directory. This default may be overridden by the REMIND_FILE environment variable or by specifying the -f command switch.

Before any actions can be defined, a remind.db file must be created and initialised via the -i command argument. The default remind data file name may be overridden through the -f command switch.

To initialise a remind.db file:

remind -i -c 37,41 37,44 30,47 37,40

To define some standard and periodic actions:

remind Call Fred re outline plan
remind -u 1 Finish expense report!!
remind -d 5/8 -t 1 Product meeting at head office
remind 16/7 Wedding anniversary!!
remind -r m 1/1 Monthly report due
remind -m 1 & (7731829)
remind -sd 7/10 New reporting procedure commences
remind -r n1,1 Team meeting on first Monday of every month
remind -r w4,2 -w 2 Sales meeting every second Thursday

Warning period includes weekends. There should be an option to ignore non-working days when calculating when to issue a reminder

May 15, 2020 Debian

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