Programming Challenge #1: HTML calendar

While playing around at lunchtime today, I decided to write a quick little HTML calendar generator.

I consider C# my native programming language, and since I intended to output HTML, ASP.NET seemed a logical choice. But I was amazed at the amount of code required for such a seemingly simple task (not to mention how ugly code containing <% and %> is!).

The challenge

Using your favorite programming language / web application framework output the following html fragment:

<table class="calendar">
<thead>
<tr><th>Sun</th><th>Mon</th><th>Tue</th><th>Wed</th><th>Thu</th><th>Fri</th><th>Sat</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td class="prevMonth">30</td><td class="prevMonth">31</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>6</td><td>7</td><td class="today">8</td><td>9</td><td>10</td><td>11</td><td>12</td></tr>
<tr><td>13</td><td>14</td><td>15</td><td>16</td><td>17</td><td>18</td><td>19</td></tr>
<tr><td>20</td><td>21</td><td>22</td><td>23</td><td>24</td><td>25</td><td>26</td></tr>
<tr><td>27</td><td>28</td><td>29</td><td>30</td><td class="nextMonth">1</td><td class="nextMonth">2</td><td class="nextMonth">3</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Whitespace is insignificant; class="today" should be applied to the current day’s cell; favor simplicity and elegance over efficiency.

Blog your solution and leave a comment; I’ll link to it from this post.

Please don’t comment suggesting I use some pre-built control. This is about the fun of writing such a thing, not about some specific calendaring need.

To avoid influencing your initial attempt, I’ll post my solution after awhile.

UPDATE:

Will Asrari contributed a submission at http://www.willasrari.com/blog/coding-for-fun—html-calendar-challenge/000298.aspx.

I posted my solution at http://jacobcarpenter.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/pc1-a-solution/.