[Remind-Fans] syntax help

[Tim Chase]

On 2023-07-20 14:00, Eben King via Remind-fans wrote:
> OK.  Here's the situation.  I have movie nights twice a week, "Movie Night"
> on Friday, and "Auxiliary Movie Night" on Tuesday.  On Tuesday, Mom always
> chooses the movie, and on Friday we alternate between me (Eben) and the wife
> (Amanda).  So I want to make a function that spits out the right name,
> depending on what day it is.

I'd do something like

  # "beginning of time" according to Remind
  SET BOT date(baseyr(), 1, 1)

  FSET moviechooser(d) iif(wkdaynum(d) == 2,\
      "Mom", \
      iif((d - BOT) % 14 < 8, "Eben", "Amanda") \
      )

  REM Tuesday MSG Get stuff ready for a %"Movie Night [moviechooser($T)]%"
  REM Friday MSG Get stuff ready for a %"Movie Night [moviechooser($T)]%"

(adjusting my MSG to your corresponding RUN)

If you happen to invoke it on other days, you and Amanda get
alternating weeks.

> Is there a more succinct way of getting a day counter other than
> by doing realtoday() - 2000-01-01 ?

You need the iif() as mentioned in the other replies.  I'm not sure
that realtoday() is what you want, getting the current date even
if you ask for a calendar on another day such as

    demo at host:~ $ rem # run on 2023-7-21
    Reminders for Friday, 21st July, 2023 (today):
    Get stuff ready for a Movie Night Eben

    demo at host:~ $ rem -q 2023-7-28
    Reminders for Friday, 28th July, 2023:
    Get stuff ready for a Movie Night Eben

so you see that you're on both days.  If you use $T instead

    demo at host:~ $ rem -q 2023-7-21
    Reminders for Friday, 21st July, 2023 (today):
    Get stuff ready for a Movie Night Eben

    demo at host:~ $ rem -q 2023-7-28
    Reminders for Friday, 28th July, 2023:
    Get stuff ready for a Movie Night Amanda

If you need to swap which date is yours, swap your names in the
interior iif()

-tim