[Remind-Fans] REM v CAL

[Anne Wainwright]

Hi,

Dumb question here, I'll get told to rtfm but I did and can't figure it
out.

I can't figure out the essential difference between a MSG and a CAL!

I essentially use remind to generate a printed calendar for the month. I
use tkremind (but printed one out using rem2ps and it was fine too).
Appreciating the power of remind I thought to run a daily $ remind to see
important stuff (Pay tax) pop up. Thus I would make informative items
(Dustbin Day, End of Term 3) into CAL entries so that the daily $ remind
did not show them.

I have all my entries like:

REM Feb 13 2017 SPECIAL COLOR 156 0 156 MSG %"RU Start term 1%" %b%

and this pops up at the remind command to show
MSG RU Start term 1

if I change MSG to CAL it pops up
CAL RU Start term 1

not what I expected. Given that the man states "A CAL type reminder is
used only to place entries in the calendar produced when Remind is run
with the  -c, -s, or -p options" I assumed that conversely it would not
pop up a CAL type reminder for a $ remind .reminders [date] command.
Admittedly it doesn't say "to place entries only in the calendar ...". 

Twiddling with the %" bits around the message, or any other twiddle,
does not change this behaviour. Am I expecting something that is not
intended to happen, and if so what then is the difference between MSG &
CAL, when would I use the later for what specific different behaviour?

I checked this behaviour through yesterday and today, so hope you won't
be able to say 'it works for me' again.

Ian