NineToFive

NineToFive is a lightweight command-line application for keeping track of your work hours. All of its functionality can be found in the work executable, which helps you log your activity while you work.

Installation

$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install

Usage

NineToFive keeps an event log, where each event has a description (such as "started working") and a timestamp. The work executable can be used as a frontend to the event log.

work

The main work executable.

work start

The work start command appends a start event to the event log with the current time as a timestamp.

work stop

The work stop command appends a stop event to the event log with the current time as a timestamp.

work status

The work status command prints the current status of the event log.

work working

The work working command returns 0 if work is in progress according to the event log, and 1 otherwise.

work since

The work since TIME command appends a start event to the event log with a timestamp derived from TIME. The TIME variable can be of the following forms:

• X, meaning at X o'clock. If this is ambiguous then the last possible time is used
• X:Y, meaning at Y minutes past X o'clock. If this is ambiguous then the last possible time is used
• Xm, meaning X minutes ago
• Xh, meaning X hours ago
• X:Yh, meaning X hours and Y minutes ago

Note that specifying seconds in a similar manner (possibly with the s suffix) is also supported, but is omitted here for simplicity.

Examples

work since 9      # I've been working since 9:00 this morning
work since 9:15   # I've been work since 9:15 this morning
work since 2:20h  # I started working 2 hours and 20 minutes ago

work at

The work at TIME command appends a start event to the event log with a timestamp derived from TIME. The TIME variable can be of the following forms:

• X, meaning at X o'clock. If this is ambiguous then the next possible time is used
• X:Y, meaning at Y minutes past X o'clock. If this is ambiguous then the next possible time is used
• Xm, meaning after X minutes
• Xh, meaning after X hours
• X:Yh, meaning after X hours and Y minutes

Note that specifying seconds in a similar manner (possibly with the s suffix) is also supported, but is omitted here for simplicity.

It has the following options:

• --notify will generate a notification at the moment you should start working (according to TIME)
• --execute CMD will execute CMD at the moment you should start working (according to TIME)

Examples

work at 12        # I'm going to start working at noon
work at 12:15     # I'm going to start working at quarter past noon
work at 2:20h     # I'm going to start working in 2 hours and 20 minutes
work at 2:20h --notify
work at 2:20h --run 'notify-send "Get to work!"'

work until

TODO: work until a given time with support for notifications like work at. Should it support negative time?

work for

TODO: work for some given amount of time with support for notifications like work at. Should it support negative time? Maybe merge with work until?

work on

TODO: add a on XXX event to the event log, which is a hint/tag for what you are working on. Possibly also support --on options for other commands.

work while

The work while CMD command appends a start event to the event log with the current time as a timestamp, then executes CMD and waits for it to exit, and finally appends a stop event to the log with the time when CMD ended as a timestamp. This is equivalent to running the following:

$ work start && (CMD || true) && work stop

Examples

work while bash        # Run a bash shell where I do my work
work while "sleep 60"  # An alternative way to work for 1 minute

work merge

The work merge LOG1 LOG2 LOG3... command takes zero or more NineToFive event logs and combines them into one. It has the following options:

• --output FILE specifies where to write the output. By default FILE is -, which represents the standard output.

work invoice

TODO: somehow export data or generate a LaTeX file which can be used to generate an invoice. Only work hours since the last invoice was created (i.e. the last invoice event) will be used (so add stop, invoice, start events in that order).

TODO

• Decide if we should merge since/at into start and until/for into stop with some super syntax for specifying TIME. It's probably enough to have a + and - prefix depending on what the user wants to use.

• Support multiple event logs in a clean way.

• Timestamps in the event log should have a timezone, so that commands like work merge work correctly on logs from multiple machines.