events with multiple months in remind

A thread from the [remind-fans](http://whatexit.org/mailman/listinfo/remind-fans)
mailing list about how to specify events that repeat across multiple months in the
[remind](http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind) program.

> From remind-fans at ryanb.org Tue Jun 14 02:10:08 2005
> 
> Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:10:12 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Ryan Barrett <...>
> To: remind-fans at whatexit.org
> Subject: multiple months?
> 
> hi all. i picked up remind a few days ago as a replacement for my clunky 
> birthday reminder script and, i'm sad to say, cron jobs that reminded me 
> to pay the rent and other bills. so far, i'm loving it!
> 
> given remind's sophisticated date handling, though, i was surprised to 
> find that it doesn't support date specs with multiple months. for example, 
> this line:
> 
>    7 Jan Apr June Sep MSG Prepay estimated income tax
> 
> gives this error:
> 
>    /home/ryanb/.reminders(22): Month specified twice
> 
> i searched the man page, readme, google, and the list archives, but 
> couldn't find any way to specify multiple months. sure, i could split it 
> up into four separate lines, but that's kind of hackish.
> 
> am i missing something obvious? if not, i'm inclined to write a patch to 
> allow multiple months in date specs. david, would that be appropriate?
> 
> -Ryan
> 
> --
> http://ryan.barrett.name/
> 
> 
> From ... Tue Jun 14 05:38:00 2005
> Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:38:10 -0400
> From: David F. Skoll <...>
> Reply-To: Users of the "REMIND" system <...>
> To: Users of the "REMIND" system <remind-fans at whatexit.org>
> Subject: Re: [Remind-Fans] multiple months?
> 
> Ryan Barrett wrote:
> 
> > i searched the man page, readme, google, and the list archives, but
> > couldn't find any way to specify multiple months. sure, i could split it
> > up into four separate lines, but that's kind of hackish.
> 
> It's the only way.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David.
> _______________________________________________
> Remind-fans mailing list
> Remind-fans at whatexit.org
> http://whatexit.org/mailman/listinfo/remind-fans
> 
> From ryan at barrett.name Tue Jun 14 12:31:40 2005
> Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:31:40 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Ryan Barrett <...>
> To: David F. Skoll <...>
> Subject: Re: [Remind-Fans] multiple months?
> 
> On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, David F. Skoll wrote:
> 
> > It's the only way.
> 
> fair enough. was that an intentional design decision? if not, i'd like to write 
> a patch. would you mind? can you think of any reason i shouldn't?
> 
> -Ryan
> 
> --
> http://ryan.barrett.name/
> 
> From ... Tue Jun 14 14:10:50 2005
> Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:10:46 -0400
> From: David F. Skoll <...>
> To: Ryan Barrett <...>
> Subject: Re: [Remind-Fans] multiple months?
> 
> Hi, Ryan.
> 
> > fair enough. was that an intentional design decision?
> 
> Not really; it was just the way I did it.
> 
> > if not, i'd like
> > to write a patch. would you mind? can you think of any reason i shouldn't?
> 
> It will be rather complex, because it will tie in to the guts of the
> date computation algorithm.  But if you manage to do it and it looks good,
> I'll incorporate it.
> 
> (I expect the complexity will be a bit more than you bargained for when
> you look at the date calculation code. :-) )
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David.
> 
> From ... Wed Jun 15 06:30:36 2005
> Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 08:27:59 -0500
> From: Tildar <...>
> To: Users of the REMIND system <remind-fans at whatexit.org>
> Subject: Re: [Remind-Fans] multiple months?
> 
> Thanks to David for the "multiple day example" earlier on the list, i
> pulled this on togather, it seems to work. Will it cover your needs?
> 
> FSET _M(M) monnum(trigdate()) == M
> REM 7 SATISFY [_M(1) || _M(4) || _M(6) || _M(9)] MSG Prepay estimated income tax
> 
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> Remind-fans mailing list
> Remind-fans at whatexit.org
> http://whatexit.org/mailman/listinfo/remind-fans
> 
> From ... Wed Jun 15 07:07:05 2005
> Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 10:04:41 -0400
> From: David F. Skoll <>
> Reply-To: Users of the "REMIND" system <remind-fans at whatexit.org>
> To: Tildar <...>, Users of the "REMIND" system <remind-fans at whatexit.org>
> Subject: Re: [Remind-Fans] multiple months?
> 
> Tildar wrote:
> 
> > FSET _M(M) monnum(trigdate()) == M
> > REM 7 SATISFY [_M(1) || _M(4) || _M(6) || _M(9)] MSG Prepay estimated income tax
> 
> Note that SATISFY is less efficient that specifying a month, but
> for this example, it's probably OK.
> 
> It's a cool hack, though! :-)  Not sure how readable it is.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David.
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> Remind-fans at whatexit.org
> http://whatexit.org/mailman/listinfo/remind-fans