3.1 Command line arguments

This section describes all command line arguments processed by Gcal. Four different types of command line arguments exists. One important type of arguments are the options which control how Gcal behaves. Other types of arguments are the %date and the @file options. The %date option sets the period Gcal shall work on to any starting date; the @file option preloads options and commands from a response file. The most important arguments are the commands which control the periods Gcal respects.

An option is defined by a leading switch character; either the ‘-’ (dash) or the ‘/’ (slash) character for traditional short-style options, or ‘--’ for mnemonic long-style options; a command may not have a leading switch character. Options⁷ must be given before commands!

Depending on operating system and used shell, some of the arguments and texts given in command line must be quoted by ‘"’ or ‘'’ characters respectively protected or depreciated by a ‘\’ character to avoid expansion by the shell.

Here is an incomplete list of characters which must potentially be protected:

‘(’, ‘)’, ‘<’, ‘>’, ‘[’, ‘]’, ‘{’, ‘}’, ‘\’, ‘|’, ‘$’, ‘@’, ‘!’, ‘&’, ‘~’, ‘"’, ‘'’, ‘`’, ‘;’