When does the Xmas season start? (Was Re: way way OT: wireless on planes (aside))

[John Esak]

Well, I'll jump on this topic to put up some fun...

Here are a pair of scripts I put one after the other in our
/etc/.profile every December. People love and hate them.  Just put them in
your PATH somewhere like /usr/local/bin. (They are thoroughly
tested and reliable for SCO Open Server systems... might need
some doctoring for other flavors of *nix O/S.

The first, "xmas_tree", puts a tree that blinks on and off a few times on
the screen with a final message from the sender... in this
case "John and Rick" (the intrepid Nexus IS department..).It
was written by Bob Stockler after I showed him a really clumsy
version... :-)  (That's how I get him to do most stuff for me. :-).

The second, "til",  I forget who wrote, probably me... it looks like my
style, but it might also be Bob's... or maybe JP's. It just puts up the
number of days left 'til Christmas and
stops for the user to press RETURN. So, the combination of both
these scripts put up a tree and then tells them how long is left
until Christmas... and all takes up exactly one screenful of space.

So just put in your /etc/profile the following two lines.

xmas_tree
til

The two scripts follow... you can see by the dates we've been

Merry Christmas,
John Esak


:
# @(#) xmas_tree - v1.1 - display a Christmas Tree - Bob Stockler - 11/09/91
# !based on John Esak's first feeble attempts at a plain tree...
# Invoke this in '/etc/profile', '$HOME/.profile' or wherever you wish.

[ "$SLEEP" ] || SLEEP=800000  #  Times the wait between xmas tree loops.
[ "$NUM" ]   || NUM=17        #  Set default for the number of xmas tree
loops.
                             #  Edit the defaults to taste, or execute as:
                             #    NUM=n  SLEEP=s  xmas_tree  [ENTER]
                             #  where "n" and "s" are integers.

# TERMCAP= cl= ho= so= se=   #  un-remark for testing only

# if you have a complier, compile 'termenv' and put it in your $PATH
# and un-remark the next line by deleting the leading sharp ("#")
[ "$cl" -a "$ho" -a "$se" -a "$so"  ] || eval `termenv cl ho se so`

# if you don't have a compiler, put the file 'getcodes' in your $PATH
# [ "$cl" -a "$ho" -a "$se" -a "$so"  ] || . getcodes

trap ' echo "$CN\c" ; trap 0 ; exit ' 0 1 2 3 15
awk '
  END { NUM ="'"$NUM"'" + 0 ; SLEEP = "'"$SLEEP"'" + 0   ; CF = "'"$CF"'"
        so = "'"$so"'" ; se = "'"$se"'" ; ho = "'"$ho"'" ; cl = "'"$cl"'"
        tag = " from " so "Johnny and Rick" se
        stars = "*************************************" # 37 stars
        space = "                      "                # 22 spaces
        fmt1 = "\t\t     %s\n"                          #  5 included spaces
        fmt2 = "\t\t\t      %s\n"                       #  6 included spaces
        trunk = "       " so "|||" se                   #  7 quoted spaces
        print CF cl
        while ( ++k <= NUM ) {
          if ( k == NUM ) tagline = tag
          print ho ; j = -1
          if ( k % 2 == 0 ) { so = os ; os = "" }
          else              { os = so ; so = "" }
          for ( i = 17; i >= 0; i-- ) { j += 2
            printf fmt1, substr( space, 1, i ) so substr( stars, 1, j ) se
          }
          printf fmt2,           trunk
          printf fmt2,    "================="
          printf fmt2, os " MERRY CHRISTMAS " se tagline
          printf fmt2,    "================="
          for ( i = 1; i <= SLEEP; i++ )
        }
      }' /dev/null

exit 0

# If the 'so' code occupies space(s) on your screen, the 'awk' variables
# "so" and "os" may need to be set equal to that many spaces (as opposed
# to null) in the 'if-else' statements above. You may also have to adjust
# the number of spaces in "trunk", and in the two lines of equals signs.
# Adjust the centering of the tree by the spaces in "fmt1" and "fmt2".

# EOF 'xmas_tree - Bob Stockler - 11/27/90 - rev. 1.1 - 11/09/91




:
# @(#) til - how many shopping days til Christmas - 11/21/90
# Run this in '/etc/profile' or each user's '.profile', or have 'cron'
# 'mail' its output to them on the hour all day long, to annoy them by
# reminding them how far behind they are in their Christmas shopping.

set `date`
case $2 in
  Nov) NUM=`expr \( 30 - $3 \) + 1 + 24` ;;
  Dec) [ $3 -lt 25 ] && NUM=`expr 25 - $3` || {
         [ $3 -gt 25 ] && exit 0 || {
           echo "MERRY CHRISTMAS ! ! !" ; exit 0 ;} ;} ;;
    *) exit 0
esac
[ $NUM -gt 5 ] && s=s || { s= ; ADDENDUM="Aarrrrgggghhh!!" ;}

echo "          Only $NUM Shopping Day$s 'til Christmas (including today)!!
$ADD
ENDUM "

echo "                        Press RETURN to continue...\c"
read akey
# EOF 'til'