---
title: Blog Composer Script
layout: post
date: 2022-09-07 17:47:15
permalink: /dev/2022/SEP/07-blog-composer-script.php
excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
---

One thing I love about this setup is I just have to write markdown; and I can easily do that from my text editor in console. However it became apparent that I needed more stuff in my front matter than I thought; so I decided to automate things a bit.

<!--more-->

<pre class="plaintext">
---
title: Blog Composer Script
layout: post
date: 2022-09-07 17:47:15
permalink: /dev/2022/SEP/07-blog-composer-script.php
excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
---
</pre>


This is quite literally the front matter for this post. No, it's not a whole lot of information; but it would be really nice to just have all of that dumped in to a file right in to a ready-to-write state. Run a command and get to typing. This why we run Linux and self-host, right? To automate all the self-hosted things! 


Well, that's why I do it. Either way, here's the bash script that I hastly hacked together:


```bash
#!/bin/bash
# pickmy.org post composer
# by: Jay/nq4t/@music_onhold

# usage: ./compose.sh [category] [title]
# example: /compose.sh blog MY AWESOME POST TITLE NO YOU DON'T NEED TO ENCLOSE IT!
# run in the root of your site files/repository
# assumes categories are directories in root

# Variables and category argument
category=$1
pd=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')
pt=$(date +'%T')
file=blog$$.md
# Ditch the category argument
shift 1
# Read everything else as title.
title=$@
t=${title,,}
t=${t// /-}
fd=$(date +'%Y/%^b/%d')
# Let's write the front matter to our temp file.
printf -- "---\ntitle: $title\nlayout: post\ndate: $pd $pt\npermalink: /$category/$fd-$t.php\nexcerpt_separator: <!--more-->\n---\n\n" >> $file
# Write the post in whatever editor you want.
nano + $file

# Move the file to category/_posts replacing spaces with hyphen
mv $file $category/_posts/$pd-${t// /-}.md
# Display some output to verify it's done.
printf "\nPost $title created in $category: $category/_posts/$pd-$t.md\n\n"
```


Weeeeee, it's more comments than actual code; and it literally is just printing lines to files and playing fill in the blanks. Plus I don't think I have to write much more, it's already documented.

The only issue I had was when I had a naughty character in a title; so I may need to improve this by adding some stuff to escape those. You can use any editor you want. I'm just used to nano; and being even lazier; I wanted nano to drop the cursor at the *end* of the file. It's made dealing with the front matter sooooooo much easier. Template it once and fill in the blanks.