A fun little command-line tool to represent dates in a unique, secret-code-style hexadecimal format. Built with Rust.

stardate is a simple CLI utility that can do two things:

1. Encode: It takes the current date (e.g., August 30, 2025), formats it as a single number (0302025), and converts it to its hexadecimal representation (9eadc9).
2. Decode: It takes a hexadecimal stardate (like 7eadc9) and converts it back into a human-readable date (1-30-2025,

This was created as a fun project to make everyday dates look a bit more unique.

• Simple Encoding: Get the current date's "stardate" with a single command.
• Easy Decoding: Quickly translate any stardate back to a regular date.
• Input Validation: Rejects invalid characters and malformed stardates.
• Case-Insensitive: Decodes hexadecimal input whether you use 7EADC9 or aeadc9.
• Blazingly Fast: It's written in Rust!

To get the hexadecimal stardate for today, just run the command without any arguments:

$ stardate
9eadc9

(Example run on August 30, 2025)

To convert a stardate back to a date, provide it as an argument:

it handles uppercase and lowercase letters gracefully:

$ stardate 7EADC9
8-30-2025

The tool will let you know if you provide an invalid stardate:

$ stardate 'not-a-hex-code'
Error: Input 'not-a-hex-code' contains invlid characters. Only 0-9 and A-F are allowed.

To get started, you'll need to have the Rust toolchain installed.

1. Clone

git clone https://github.com/your-username/stardate.git
cd stardate

2. Build the project:

 cargo build --release

3. Run the executable: You will find the compiled binary in the target/release/ directory.

 ./target/release/stardate
``

For easier access, you can move this file to a directory in your system's `PATH`.

## License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the `LICENSE` file for details