feat: Word Count Log File GitHub Action

[mcmxcdev]

Phew, this was quite a lot of work, but fun!

I hope the implementation is how you would imagine it ;)

The logfile.json displays all blog posts with initial words
As soon as there is a diff because of rewriting files, you can see a ISO timestamp with the diff to the previous number of words and now current words.

To try it out locally:

• clear content of logfile.json, just leave it an empty object
• run node wordCount.js
• expect initial filling of all markdown files into logfile.json
• add or delete some markdown file content
• run node wordCount.js
• expect timestamp with diff and new word count in object key with name of blog post

I will implement the GitHub action when you say this is how you want it! Should just be a matter of running node wordCount.js on git push.

Closes #21.

---

IssueHunt Summary

Referenced issues

This pull request has been submitted to:

• #21: Word Count Log File GitHub Action

---

[singularityhacker]

You are the man! I'm not able to run locally for some reason. Getting the following error:

BKSQ-XL0J-MAC:content conderj$ node wordCount.js

/Users/conderj/content/wordCount.js:48

      const wordCountExisting = currentWords ?? existingFileName.initialWords;

SyntaxError: Unexpected token '?'

    at wrapSafe (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1053:16)

    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1101:27)

    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1157:10)

    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:985:32)

    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:878:14)

    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:71:12)

    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47

[singularityhacker]

I can still merge the pull request if it helps you debug/move forward. As long as it works in the action, I can always figure out what's wrong on local later.

[mcmxcdev]

Sorry, my bad.
The issue is that you probably are not using node 14, am I right?

The ?? operator is quite new, replace it on your machine with || for now and you will be able to run it. There is an edge case for markdown files without any words where it doesn't work, so I will find a fix in the meantime!

No need for merging yet, I will work on the action file next.

[mcmxcdev]

I have good news!

I updated the GitHub action file and it works perfectly:

• it now uses Node v10 (oldest version that is still supported)
• installs dependencies
• runs node wordCount.js and then
• adds, commit and pushes the changes to the logfile.json

You can go through the commit history of this PR to see what exactly is happening.

If you ever need GitHub actions more often, you can use this helpful library to run them locally: https://github.com/nektos/act

Currently, the GitHub action is triggered on a push in any branch. I can specify this to be master only.
It depends on how often you want to see the changes, and if you work with branches a lot or mainly push to master.

When you decide this is the way you want it, I would:

• remove testfile.md
• change back logfile.json to be empty object, so that it gets initialized on push
• (optional) change actions to trigger for master only
• squash merge into master when it is ready to avoid unnecessary commits that were necessary to test

And BIG thanks for your GitHub Sponsors support!! 🎉
Just hit me up whenever you need some work done.

[singularityhacker]

THIS is a thing of beauty! I love the way you record the log as a json file too. Opens the door to build a dashboard using Netlify. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We have a lot of similar interests (jamstack, svelte, IF, EDM, crypto, etc) so I'm honored to be your first sponsor.

[mcmxcdev]

I am glad you like it!
Yeah, using a JSON file instead of a simple text file enables you to do a lot of stuff with the data and you have a super nice diff log that is displaying step by step. I also made sure all the variable names make sense, so you can do easy changes.

Haha, cool that you are also interested in all of these things 😄