Linux cal Command

last modified October 23, 2026

The cal command in Linux displays a calendar in the terminal. It shows a single month, several months, or a whole year, and can also display day-of-year numbers. Its companion ncal prints the calendar vertically and adds features such as week numbers and the date of Easter.

Two different implementations are in use. Debian, Ubuntu, and their derivatives ship the BSD cal and ncal from the ncal package, which this article uses. Fedora, Arch, and other distributions ship cal from util-linux; the basic usage is the same, but some options differ, as noted below. When run in a terminal, cal highlights the current day.

Current month

Without arguments, cal shows the current month.

cal

The calendar starts with Sunday by default. Today's date is shown in reverse video when the output goes to a terminal.

$ cal
    October 2026
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

A specific month

A month and a year select a particular month. The month can be a number or a name.

cal 2 2028
cal mar 2026

February 2028 has 29 days, since 2028 is a leap year. The year must be given in full: cal 2 28 would show February of the year 28.

$ cal 2 2028
   February 2028
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
       1  2  3  4  5
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29

$ cal mar 2026
     March 2026
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31

A whole year

A single number is interpreted as a year.

cal 2027

The twelve months are printed in a grid of three columns. The -y option shows the current year.

$ cal 2027
                            2027
      January               February               March
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2      1  2  3  4  5  6      1  2  3  4  5  6
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9   7  8  9 10 11 12 13   7  8  9 10 11 12 13
10 11 12 13 14 15 16  14 15 16 17 18 19 20  14 15 16 17 18 19 20
17 18 19 20 21 22 23  21 22 23 24 25 26 27  21 22 23 24 25 26 27
24 25 26 27 28 29 30  28                    28 29 30 31
31

       April                  May                   June
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3                     1         1  2  3  4  5
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10   2  3  4  5  6  7  8   6  7  8  9 10 11 12
11 12 13 14 15 16 17   9 10 11 12 13 14 15  13 14 15 16 17 18 19
18 19 20 21 22 23 24  16 17 18 19 20 21 22  20 21 22 23 24 25 26
25 26 27 28 29 30     23 24 25 26 27 28 29  27 28 29 30
                      30 31

        July                 August              September
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
             1  2  3   1  2  3  4  5  6  7            1  2  3  4
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10   8  9 10 11 12 13 14   5  6  7  8  9 10 11
11 12 13 14 15 16 17  15 16 17 18 19 20 21  12 13 14 15 16 17 18
18 19 20 21 22 23 24  22 23 24 25 26 27 28  19 20 21 22 23 24 25
25 26 27 28 29 30 31  29 30 31              26 27 28 29 30


      October               November              December
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2      1  2  3  4  5  6            1  2  3  4
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9   7  8  9 10 11 12 13   5  6  7  8  9 10 11
10 11 12 13 14 15 16  14 15 16 17 18 19 20  12 13 14 15 16 17 18
17 18 19 20 21 22 23  21 22 23 24 25 26 27  19 20 21 22 23 24 25
24 25 26 27 28 29 30  28 29 30              26 27 28 29 30 31
31

Several months

The -3 option shows the previous, current, and next month. The -A and -B options add months after and before the selected one.

cal -3
cal -A 2 -B 0 12 2026

The second command shows December 2026 and the two following months, which is handy for planning across the turn of the year. In util-linux cal, the same is done with -n 3 to show three months.

$ cal -3
   September 2026         October 2026         November 2026
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
       1  2  3  4  5               1  2  3   1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12   4  5  6  7  8  9 10   8  9 10 11 12 13 14
13 14 15 16 17 18 19  11 12 13 14 15 16 17  15 16 17 18 19 20 21
20 21 22 23 24 25 26  18 19 20 21 22 23 24  22 23 24 25 26 27 28
27 28 29 30           25 26 27 28 29 30 31  29 30

$ cal -A 2 -B 0 12 2026
   December 2026          January 2027         February 2027
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
       1  2  3  4  5                  1  2      1  2  3  4  5  6
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12   3  4  5  6  7  8  9   7  8  9 10 11 12 13
13 14 15 16 17 18 19  10 11 12 13 14 15 16  14 15 16 17 18 19 20
20 21 22 23 24 25 26  17 18 19 20 21 22 23  21 22 23 24 25 26 27
27 28 29 30 31        24 25 26 27 28 29 30  28
                      31

A month of the current year

In the BSD cal, the -m option selects a month of the current year.

cal -m 7

The command shows July of the current year. Be careful: in util-linux cal, -m means something else, namely that weeks start on Monday.

$ cal -m 7
     July 2026
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31

Day-of-year numbers

The -j option numbers the days from the beginning of the year instead of the beginning of the month.

cal -j 2 2026

February 1 is day 32 of the year. These numbers are often called Julian days, although that term properly refers to a different astronomical count. They are the same values that date +%j prints.

$ cal -j 2 2026
       February 2026
 Su  Mo  Tu  We  Th  Fr  Sa
 32  33  34  35  36  37  38
 39  40  41  42  43  44  45
 46  47  48  49  50  51  52
 53  54  55  56  57  58  59

Vertical layout, week numbers, and Monday start

ncal prints the weekdays as rows. It offers options that the BSD cal lacks.

ncal 11 2026
ncal -w 11 2026
ncal -bM 11 2026

The -w option prints ISO week numbers below the columns. The -b option switches back to the familiar horizontal layout, and -M starts weeks on Monday, as is common in Europe. In util-linux, these are cal -w and cal -m.

$ ncal 11 2026
    November 2026
Su  1  8 15 22 29
Mo  2  9 16 23 30
Tu  3 10 17 24
We  4 11 18 25
Th  5 12 19 26
Fr  6 13 20 27
Sa  7 14 21 28
$ ncal -w 11 2026
    November 2026
Su  1  8 15 22 29
Mo  2  9 16 23 30
Tu  3 10 17 24
We  4 11 18 25
Th  5 12 19 26
Fr  6 13 20 27
Sa  7 14 21 28
   45 46 47 48 49
$ ncal -bM 11 2026
   November 2026
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
                   1
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8
 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30

Easter dates

The -e and -o options of ncal print the date of Western and Orthodox Easter.

ncal -e 2026
ncal -o 2026

In 2026, Western Easter falls on April 5 and Orthodox Easter on April 12. The date format follows the locale, here month/day/year.

$ ncal -e 2026
04/05/2026
$ ncal -o 2026
04/12/2026

The calendar reform of 1752

cal follows the historical switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which took place in Britain and its colonies in September 1752.

cal 9 1752

Eleven days were dropped: September 2 was followed by September 14. Other countries switched at different times; ncal -s selects the reform date of a given country code.

$ cal 9 1752
   September 1752
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
       1  2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

cal in scripts

The output of cal can be processed to compute properties of a month.

cal 2 2028 | awk 'NF {d = $NF} END {print d}'

The awk program remembers the last field of each non-empty line, so at the end it holds the last day of the month. In a loop, we find the length of February in several years. For general date arithmetic, the date command is more suitable, for example date -d "2028-03-01 -1 day" +%d.

$ cal 2 2028 | awk 'NF {d = $NF} END {print d}'
29
$ for y in 2026 2027 2028; do echo "$y: $(cal 2 $y | awk 'NF {d = $NF} END {print d}') days in February"; done
2026: 28 days in February
2027: 28 days in February
2028: 29 days in February

Best practices for cal

• Use full years: Write 2026, not 26.
• Know your implementation: Options such as -m differ between BSD and util-linux cal; check man cal.
• Use ncal for extras: Week numbers, Monday start, and Easter dates are available in ncal.
• Use date for arithmetic: Parse dates with date rather than the text output of cal.

Source

cal(1) manual page (ncal)

In this article, we have used the cal and ncal commands to display months and years, show day-of-year numbers, week numbers, and Easter dates, and process calendars in scripts.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar, and I am a passionate programmer with extensive programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. To date, I have authored over 1,400 articles and 8 e-books. I possess more than ten years of experience in teaching programming.

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