Scripting the Journal - A Meta Entry

Monday, February 07, 2000

Scripting the Journal - A Meta Entry

Very cool. (If I don't say so myself.) I've got my journal scripted so all I have to do is make an entry in a file named by the date (e.g., this file is 20000207), with the Title as the first line, and it automagically gets headerred and footerred and titled and indexed and dated and formatted and next-linked and all that.

Here's the script:


#!/bin/csh -f

# Run this when you add new entries and want them
# to be incorporated into the formatted journal.


# What format should dates be displayed in? (see man date)

set dateFmt="+%A, %B %d, %Y"



if (! -d entries) then
	echo "'entries' source directory doesn't exist."
	exit 1
endif

if (! -d parts) then
	echo "'parts' source directory doesn't exist."
	exit 1
endif

if (! -d Journal) then
	echo "Journal target directory doesn't exist.  Make it."
	exit 1
endif



echo "Searching for new entries..."

cd entries
set entries=*
cd ..

echo "There are $#entries raw entries to date..."


# It's easiest just to rebuild the index from scratch...
/bin/rm -f Journal/index.html
sed -f NameMappings < parts/indexHeader > Journal/index.html


set previous="NONE"

foreach entry ($entries)

	set dateString=`date -d $entry "$dateFmt"`

	if ($status != 0) then
		echo "WARNING: entry '$entry' cannot be parsed as a date.  Please fix."
		continue
	endif

	set target="Journal/$entry.html"

	# To make 'next' links easy, we'll create a symlink
	#  from the previous entry to this one:

	if ("$previous" != "NONE") then
		set nextlink="$previous.next.html"
		if (! -e "Journal/$nextlink") then
			echo Linking "$nextlink" to "$entry.html"
			ln -s "$entry.html" "Journal/$nextlink"
		endif
	endif
	set previous="$entry"



	set title=`head -1 entries/$entry | sed -f NameMappings`

	echo "<tr><td align=right><a href=$entry.html>${dateString}</a></td>" >> Journal/index.html
	echo "<td>$title</td></tr>" >> Journal/index.html


	# If the target already exists, we don't need to make it again:

	if (-e "$target") continue


	echo "New on ${dateString}: $title"

	# Here's where we actually put the pieces together into a target entry:

	echo "<html>"                 > "$target"
	echo "<title>$title</title>" >> "$target"

	sed -f NameMappings < parts/header >> "$target"

	echo "<br>"                          >> "$target"
	echo "<br>"                          >> "$target"
	echo "<center>"                      >> "$target"
	echo '<font face="Arial,Helvetica">' >> "$target"
	echo '<font size=+1>'                >> "$target"
	echo "<h2>$dateString</h2>"          >> "$target"
	echo "<h4><em>$title</em></h4>"      >> "$target"
	echo "</center>"                     >> "$target"
	echo "<br>"                          >> "$target"
	echo "<br>"                          >> "$target"

	tail +2 "entries/$entry" | sed -f NameMappings >> "$target"

	echo "<br><br>[<a href=$entry.next.html>Next</a>]" >> "$target"
	echo "[<a href=index.html>Index</a>]<p>" >> "$target"

	sed -f NameMappings < parts/footer >> "$target"

end

sed -f NameMappings < parts/indexFooter >> Journal/index.html

echo "Index updated."

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Simon Funk / simonfunk@gmail.com