Generate a Monthly Calendar Using Python

In this post, I will share a Python script to display a monthly calendar for any given year and month. The code uses Python’s built-in calendar module to generate the calendar in a readable format. The month() function from the calendar module is the core of this script. It takes two inputs—month and year—and returns a formatted calendar for the specified month and year.

In the provided code, you will need to input the month and year as command-line arguments. The script includes basic error handling to ensure the month is between 1 and 12. For the year, you can input any positive integer.

Here is the Python script:

import calendar
import sys

def generate_calendar(year, month):
    """
    this function generates the calendar for a given month and year
    """
    try:
        print(calendar.month(year, month))
    except IndexError:
        print("invalid month. please enter a month between 1 and 12")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"error: {e}")

def main():
    """
    generate calendar for a given month and year
    """
    # provide the month and year in mm-yyyy format (e.g. 01-2025)
    args = sys.argv

    # check if user provided a value or not
    if len(args) < 2:
        print("please provide month and year in mm-yyyy format")
    else:
        vals = args[1]
        try:
            mm, yyyy = int(vals.split('-')[0]), int(vals.split('-')[1])
        except ValueError:
            print("invalid input. please provide month and year in mm-yyyy format (e.g. 12-2024)")

        # generate calender for the given month and year
        generate_calendar(yyyy, mm)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Save the script with the filename calendar_generator.py (or any other name you prefer). Run the script from the terminal as shown below:

python calendar_generator.py 01-2025

Here is the output of the code:

    January 2025
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
       1  2  3  4  5
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Please let me know in the comments if you find any errors in the code.