Ok to Cross the Streams When Code Fixing

“Who ya gonna call?” “CODEBUSTERS”

No.

But the metaphor of Ghostbusters crossing the streams was inversely appropriate to a little bit of code action over the holidays (of which the actual action was nil).

But this was fun.

This nice tweet from John Johnston (who spawned the idea) reminded me of a WordPress plugin I had made

Thanks to my On This Day page (thanks to @cogdog for that), I found my review of 2006: https://t.co/bsjJWahYlG (https://t.co/GQky8Cpz10)
— john johnston (@johnjohnston) December 29, 2019

The WP Posted Today plugin is meant to offer a short code you can put on a site and it will list all previous posts on the current calendar day (this of course is useful if you actually still blog regularly) (cough) (cough).

Just for grins I checked the page where I use my own plugin. Yikes. Red Alert. It displayed all the ones for December 29 in years past, but the part where it should list how many there were was blank.

Red arrow points to missing number where the page output reads "There are posts previously published on December 29th"

I dug into my own code… and found myself a bit lost. Crossed. I was not even sure where I got the sprintf functions (John’s original code?) that were aimed to be compatible if anyone every wanted a language translation (maybe, or it’s just that thing when people code things differently).

Taking the path of least resistance, I took out the code where I think the problem was occurring and did it a more simple, but brute force way.

And it worked.

So I updated the version on GitHub and felt at peace with the world. In the off chance someone stumbled into my little corner of code, they would find something that works (or should work).

And then (here comes a stream crossing) Michael Hanscom @djwudi — someone I don’t think I’ve ever communicated with — tweets that he had seen pretty much the same bug and offered a fix.

https://twitter.com/djwudi/status/1212871226953101313

In looking at his post I saw the fix he made, and said– that’s better than mine! So I decided today to roll back my changes in place of Michael’s solution (but also keeping a modification I had made to remove extraneous calls when not needed for singular versus multiple results).

I noted the extra change he made in hos own version

Plus, I’ve made one other tweak to the plugin, so that it adds a link to the end of the excerpt to better handle “microblog” style entries that don’t have titles, so I still get to feel good about that part, as well. 🙂 My coding skills may be underdeveloped and rusty from lack of regular use, but they’re not entirely atrophied!

In this case, these microblog type entries (see Michael’s demo page) lack titles, so yes, a link is needed at the end of the post excerpt.

Yet I could see that regular posts (like on my site) did not need the extra link, and also, not everyone might want the arrow Michael likes.

I solved this cleverly by creating an additional shortcode parameter more which defaults to a blank string. In the shortcode function, we convert any attributes passed to variables with

extract(shortcode_atts( array( "month" => '', "day" => '', 'excerpt' => 1, 'more' => '' ), $atts ));

So on my site, where I just used the shortcode

There are 19 posts previously published on April 6th

2025WordPress Serving Posts at the Activity Pub There’s times when I sit down at this here new post page thinking I have something to write about… and find out I have already done so. Well, the thing is open so I can add a bit more wood to the post pile. Just in February I wrote about a fleet of WordPress sites […]
2020Now What? Okay. We have pivoted, home quarantined, stocked up pantries, filled closets with TP, stretched Wifi limits, set up workspaces in our living spaces. We’re going from reducing screentime to it being all the time. Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! go the days. Social distancing is a universal concept (well barring one orange topped refuser). Stores are doing […]
2019Data Obfuscation and Facial Recognition Faceoff: Possible #Netnarr Field Guide Topics Do the assignments you assign? I blabbed about this recently for the Ontario Extend mOOC I was facilitating, so it’s also appropriate for the Networked Narratives course I co-teach with Mia Zamora. At some point I would have used what was seemingly fit word for this about eating one’s own canine food, but I have […]
2017Student Submitted Assignment Ideas as Twice Striking Lightning While the Networked Narratives course I am co-teaching with Mia Zamora is not a ds106 iteration, it’s definitely in the family. Students and open participants are participating in their own blog space, we are syndicating posts into the course site, and there is also a daily create like site. Like when I teach ds106, our […]
2016Putting the Dog Back in CogDogBlog I’ve been dog-less since 2008. There was extensive travel in those years and moderately extensive excuses not to have a dog. That phase is over as of today. Meet Felix, a 22 month old Australian Shepherd / Catahoula Leopard Dog mix. Yeah I had to look up that breed: Louisiana’s “hog dog” is a jambalaya […]
2014Tweet it, Blog It, Repeat It, 60,000 Times: Truthiness Achieved cc licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by Ric e Ette I am sure you have across this statement in blog posts, presentations promoting visual communication styles; it often cited as a “fact” (yep, I am using those kind of quotes): Research at 3M Corporation concluded that we process visuals 60000 times faster than […]
2013ds106 Wants Your Junk Media Don’t cry! ds106 can help you clean up that hard drive littered with discard media files! cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by confidence, comely. We want your media leftovers from your ds106 projects, stuff you did not use, things that you may have downloaded and left side, stuff maybe you made […]
2012We Do Hear Ya, Lisa… so…. @jimgroom @timmmmyboy a gentle reminder, in case you need design help with this is.gd/7kCbd5 #ds106 #pleeeez — Lisa M. Lane (@LisaMLane) April 6, 2012 You may feel ignored as you have been asking a while, but it has not gone unheard. I’ve spent an afternoon climbing around the underbelly of the ds106 WordPress database, […] We Want YOU! (to daily create) (and add more) (please?) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by DonkeyHotey Today marks the 89th day of the ds106 Daily Create site. The TDC has been a typical ds106 roll as we go grand experiment, but it has more than rolled, it has rocked too. Below is a little bit of what has happened between tdc1 […]
2011Live from CogDogHouse on ds106.tv The media evolution of ds106 is progressing, first it was free form ds106 radio, now we have a free form tv station, what is next? Major kudos to @timmmmyboy for getting it going. I took my first crack at live broadcasting today, using Wirecast to publish to the justin.tv site. It’s been a while since […] The Future, Past, Socks, and Shoes Without a doubt in doing talks about the future, my favorite (and many other people’s favorite) quote is from William F Gibson cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog It is so powerful. I still sit back and marvel at it (see also the attempts to track down the source). These words […]
2009Ten Days of Bliss It is actually only eight days so far bit the bliss of this vacation in the Bahamas is ocean deep. I flew to Ft Lauderdale March 30, had my last sips of the tubes (for the first time since I can’t recall I’m travelling without a laptop, just the iPhone- how free it is to […]
2008Wiki Way Wikis are one of the most powerful, and low barrier entry of Web2.0 technologies, and ironically, ancient, almost as old as HTML itself. Thanks to a twitter links from Vicki Davis (twitterbution), I came across one today that is certainly proving itself as a wiki way to do things. This post is not strictly about […]
2007Cleaned Reader Whew, finally got around to cleaning out my Google Reader. Not to say that I actually “read” them all, but sifted through, and Shift-A’d through some feeds with 100+ unread items lurking. Of course, this screenshot may imply that I don’t subscribe to anything. By the time I publish this post, the sidebar will start […]
2006Spam King flickr foto Spam!available on flickr The photographer of this Creative Commons licensed image “found this Spam can in a 7 Eleven in Santa MarÃa.” Yesterday, I was upstairs checking an issue on one of our web servers. I ran into Yosef, who is in charge of our email system. He was sharing the success of […]
2005Friends with the IT Guys Often this blog has published my rants and vents against our IT department, like last month’s escapade with a hacked server. It’s only fair to report when things go the opposite way. I met face to face with the head of our server team and their top Linux tech, and they were both helpful, supportive, […] That Canadian Factor- Maricopans are Asking About Wikis and RSS Okay, maybe we’ve gushed a bit already, but something has happened here in our system. I think it is the Canadian aura, but after Brian Lamb’s Dialogue Day with us last week, people are now popping out of the ground like prairie dogs, and seeing a beautiful wheat filled plain of lovely information technologies… We’d […] Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! Copyright Slap from the Ripley’s Folks Here is a recent milestone- my first email of warning of copyright infringement. Apparently, my 2003 parody of Ripley’s saying Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! (I am bound not to actually use it apparently) in a presentation titled Learning Objects Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! was stepping on the toes of the Riplet folks: Maricopa Center for […] One Story: Two Books: OneBookAZ Night Tonight I attended a OneBookAZ Authors night, and event sponsored/arranged by our office. OneBookAZ is a project in its (?) third year, where every April, one book is selected as a common one read by groups across the state and events are arranged for discussion etc. This year there were actually two books: one a […]

and the default value, the link at the end is invisible.

On Michael’s site he might use

There are 19 posts previously published on April 6th

2025WordPress Serving Posts at the Activity Pub There’s times when I sit down at this here new post page thinking I have something to write about… and find out I have already done so. Well, the thing is open so I can add a bit more wood to the post pile. Just in February I wrote about a fleet of WordPress sites […] &amp#x27A1;
2020Now What? Okay. We have pivoted, home quarantined, stocked up pantries, filled closets with TP, stretched Wifi limits, set up workspaces in our living spaces. We’re going from reducing screentime to it being all the time. Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! go the days. Social distancing is a universal concept (well barring one orange topped refuser). Stores are doing […] &amp#x27A1;
2019Data Obfuscation and Facial Recognition Faceoff: Possible #Netnarr Field Guide Topics Do the assignments you assign? I blabbed about this recently for the Ontario Extend mOOC I was facilitating, so it’s also appropriate for the Networked Narratives course I co-teach with Mia Zamora. At some point I would have used what was seemingly fit word for this about eating one’s own canine food, but I have […] &amp#x27A1;
2017Student Submitted Assignment Ideas as Twice Striking Lightning While the Networked Narratives course I am co-teaching with Mia Zamora is not a ds106 iteration, it’s definitely in the family. Students and open participants are participating in their own blog space, we are syndicating posts into the course site, and there is also a daily create like site. Like when I teach ds106, our […] &amp#x27A1;
2016Putting the Dog Back in CogDogBlog I’ve been dog-less since 2008. There was extensive travel in those years and moderately extensive excuses not to have a dog. That phase is over as of today. Meet Felix, a 22 month old Australian Shepherd / Catahoula Leopard Dog mix. Yeah I had to look up that breed: Louisiana’s “hog dog” is a jambalaya […] &amp#x27A1;
2014Tweet it, Blog It, Repeat It, 60,000 Times: Truthiness Achieved cc licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by Ric e Ette I am sure you have across this statement in blog posts, presentations promoting visual communication styles; it often cited as a “fact” (yep, I am using those kind of quotes): Research at 3M Corporation concluded that we process visuals 60000 times faster than […] &amp#x27A1;
2013ds106 Wants Your Junk Media Don’t cry! ds106 can help you clean up that hard drive littered with discard media files! cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by confidence, comely. We want your media leftovers from your ds106 projects, stuff you did not use, things that you may have downloaded and left side, stuff maybe you made […] &amp#x27A1;
2012We Do Hear Ya, Lisa… so…. @jimgroom @timmmmyboy a gentle reminder, in case you need design help with this is.gd/7kCbd5 #ds106 #pleeeez — Lisa M. Lane (@LisaMLane) April 6, 2012 You may feel ignored as you have been asking a while, but it has not gone unheard. I’ve spent an afternoon climbing around the underbelly of the ds106 WordPress database, […] &amp#x27A1; We Want YOU! (to daily create) (and add more) (please?) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by DonkeyHotey Today marks the 89th day of the ds106 Daily Create site. The TDC has been a typical ds106 roll as we go grand experiment, but it has more than rolled, it has rocked too. Below is a little bit of what has happened between tdc1 […] &amp#x27A1;
2011Live from CogDogHouse on ds106.tv The media evolution of ds106 is progressing, first it was free form ds106 radio, now we have a free form tv station, what is next? Major kudos to @timmmmyboy for getting it going. I took my first crack at live broadcasting today, using Wirecast to publish to the justin.tv site. It’s been a while since […] &amp#x27A1; The Future, Past, Socks, and Shoes Without a doubt in doing talks about the future, my favorite (and many other people’s favorite) quote is from William F Gibson cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog It is so powerful. I still sit back and marvel at it (see also the attempts to track down the source). These words […] &amp#x27A1;
2009Ten Days of Bliss It is actually only eight days so far bit the bliss of this vacation in the Bahamas is ocean deep. I flew to Ft Lauderdale March 30, had my last sips of the tubes (for the first time since I can’t recall I’m travelling without a laptop, just the iPhone- how free it is to […] &amp#x27A1;
2008Wiki Way Wikis are one of the most powerful, and low barrier entry of Web2.0 technologies, and ironically, ancient, almost as old as HTML itself. Thanks to a twitter links from Vicki Davis (twitterbution), I came across one today that is certainly proving itself as a wiki way to do things. This post is not strictly about […] &amp#x27A1;
2007Cleaned Reader Whew, finally got around to cleaning out my Google Reader. Not to say that I actually “read” them all, but sifted through, and Shift-A’d through some feeds with 100+ unread items lurking. Of course, this screenshot may imply that I don’t subscribe to anything. By the time I publish this post, the sidebar will start […] &amp#x27A1;
2006Spam King flickr foto Spam!available on flickr The photographer of this Creative Commons licensed image “found this Spam can in a 7 Eleven in Santa MarÃa.” Yesterday, I was upstairs checking an issue on one of our web servers. I ran into Yosef, who is in charge of our email system. He was sharing the success of […] &amp#x27A1;
2005Friends with the IT Guys Often this blog has published my rants and vents against our IT department, like last month’s escapade with a hacked server. It’s only fair to report when things go the opposite way. I met face to face with the head of our server team and their top Linux tech, and they were both helpful, supportive, […] &amp#x27A1; That Canadian Factor- Maricopans are Asking About Wikis and RSS Okay, maybe we’ve gushed a bit already, but something has happened here in our system. I think it is the Canadian aura, but after Brian Lamb’s Dialogue Day with us last week, people are now popping out of the ground like prairie dogs, and seeing a beautiful wheat filled plain of lovely information technologies… We’d […] &amp#x27A1; Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! Copyright Slap from the Ripley’s Folks Here is a recent milestone- my first email of warning of copyright infringement. Apparently, my 2003 parody of Ripley’s saying Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! (I am bound not to actually use it apparently) in a presentation titled Learning Objects Xxxxxxx Xx or Xxx! was stepping on the toes of the Riplet folks: Maricopa Center for […] &amp#x27A1; One Story: Two Books: OneBookAZ Night Tonight I attended a OneBookAZ Authors night, and event sponsored/arranged by our office. OneBookAZ is a project in its (?) third year, where every April, one book is selected as a common one read by groups across the state and events are arranged for discussion etc. This year there were actually two books: one a […] &amp#x27A1;

to get the arrow codes he likes. This works because output for each found post looks like

// output post and link
			
$output .= '' . get_the_title() . '';

// display excerpt if we want it
if ( $excerpt ) $output .= ' ' . get_the_excerpt();

// for microblog output where there might not be titles so add a link at end
// h/t https://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2020/01/02/rss-feed-weirdness-and-php-debugging/

$output .= ' ' .  $more . '';

So how is that for the odds of streams crossing on the same obscure bit of code? That’s the old fashioned kind of net serendipity that still happens.

Thanks Michael! Check out his 20 year old blog, he’s an “Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk” quite the tag line.

Featured Image: Edit of the Ghostbusters Cross Streams scene found in the Ghostbusters Fandom Wiki site which states “Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.” I replaced part of the background with a screenshot of the WP Posted Today PHP code.