Coding, Wordpress

Ok to Cross the Streams When Code Fixing

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“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

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 22 posts previously published on October 21st

  • 2021
    • Soup and Memory “Oh no, Granny! I must call you and apologize for not doing so on your birthday, last Friday… at least I made your split pea soup…” She would have been 116 that day — plus or minus as the story goes, October 15 was picked by a Census taker since Baby Janet lacked a birth […]
  • 2017
    • 8 Characters of Code Saves SPLOT from Going SPLAT Plus hair tearing. Cussing. Going away from it and getting sleep. And some things you don’t learn from an Hour of Code. There is not heaps of science in my computing. I got a (polite) email request for help from Brian Lamb. He was seeing (and confirmed) error reports from the TRU Writer SPLOT, on […]
  • 2016
    • Twitterless This is how it ends. DDoS attacks are hitting the internet that network that was supposed to be designed to withstand attack. Twitter, GitHub, are down, many other sites are fine (like this one). I sit here alone, contemplating a life of work based on the internet. Options… ? Top / Featured Image flickr photo […]
  • 2015
    • Here is a Flickr Trickr Free tricks. If you have ever downloaded a flickr photo or come across in blogs a link to the image URL, it will be something cryptic like: 19172144641_71660f5fdb_z.jpg You have no idea who it belongs to, or where it lives in flickr. But there is a trick you can do to back out this info. […]
    • You Can’t Do A Selfless Selfie Alone As he does so well, Jonathan Worth turns the expected a bit inside out with his latest, inspired, phonar nation project, Selfless Selfies. The project aims to raise awareness for the plight of children affected by Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a fatal disease lacking a cure. What is a Selfless Selfie? A campaign to raise awareness […]
  • 2014
    • Gone Figuring I’ve flip flopped countless times on whether to publish this, and you may never know if the coin toss lands the last time on “no”. In fact, I bailed on it last night, but the damned thing keeps gnawing at me. I waver because it sounds a bit petty, defensive, and or combative. And it’s […]
  • 2013
    • The Web Giveth (Again) Two summers ago I posted audio of my cousin Lorrie’s telling of her family story growing up a part of a carnival act. Her Dad, Billy Outten, was famous for his high dives, and the whole family (Lorries parents and her sister) performed as well. Outten’s big act was a “double fire dive” where he […]
    • Got My Digital Beard On cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Alan Levine During my weeklong visit to Fairbanks Alaska I was fortunate to have met and been asked for a podcast interview with Chris Malmberg, who does this “Digital Beards” series for the University of Alaska Fairbanks eLearning and Distance Education group. Here I am […]
    • Headless ds106 Jumps… the Greek Donkeys Carrying Computers Shark jumping is so old. Everyone has done it. Try leaping over the Greek computer bearing donkeys cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Dave Sag I was trying to think of a ridiculous animal to be jumped, like an 8 headed iguana, and just flickr searching on “hydra” I landed […]
  • 2012
    • ds106 Radio Rockumentary cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog This audio recording was created (by request) for Matt Henderson a Manitoba teacher a number of us met this summer at the UnPlug’d Conference. Matt, who has done his own projects with creating a school based FM radio station, asked us for some help with […]
  • 2011
    • Shhhh, I am talking about ds106 radio cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by rakkadeer I was locked into my spy mode, but had responded to DrGarcia’s call for audio clips to support the recent Schwartz Institute Seminar on DIY Radio : I was already on the run from the city and could not attend the session; sadly […]
  • 2010
    • The Last Cowboy and a Truckload of Toilets What happened to brave men like Jake W. Burns? I found out tonight, watching my newest DVD, Lonely are the Brave (1962) which, IMHO is a completely under-rated classic. The tag line is “Life can never cage a man like this…” I watched it because, like the star Kirk Douglas, had enjoyed Edward Abbey’s The […]
  • 2008
    • Linktributions Ahoy? Linktributions Ahoy? by cogdogblog posted 21 Oct ’08, 5.27pm MDT PST on flickr Are more people using "my made-up term? Will it some-day make it as a Word of the Year? (hah, down ego, down….) I got a nice little tweet from @eemann who discovered linktribution and Google now finds about 1400 instances— though I […]
  • 2006
    • PicLens Photo Viewing Plugin I think this came via TechCrunch- PicLens is a web browser plugin that allows you to view photos form several services ( Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket) and image search results from Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com in a full screen mode, that keeps a record of images viewed (an icon strip below). Right now it is available […]
  • 2005
    • Podcast Publishing With MovableType I’ve been tinkering with my simple approach of using MovableType as a publisher engine to create podcast feeds and content listings for audio content that is used across several different web sites. While there are many ways one could go about this, I am finding this to be efficient and fast. I only have about […]
    • How To Not Get Answers To Technical Questions I read a long time ago a column by an auto mechanic who said the hardest customers to deal with were ones who tried to guess what the car’s problem was rather than describe the symptoms, e.g. someone saying, “I think the hydrowidget is sheared off” rather than, “I hear a harsh squealing noise when […]
  • 2004
    • Sometimes You Spend So Much Time and Effort Thinking of a Cute or Clever Title for A Blog Post That You Completely Forget What You Were Going to Write About It happens.  Share this barking on social media
    • EDUCAUSE 2004: “Learning Space Design” This session will explore learning space design principles as a way to enhance and transform teaching and learning with technology. The principles acknowledge changes in our understanding of student cognition and faculty roles in the learning process. Well-configured Learning spaces make it possible for faculty and students to engage in active learning, thereby enhancing learning […]
    • EDUCAUSE: “Sakai, A Collaboration Between The University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, OKI, and the uPortal Consortium” Sakai is delivering an integrated open-source framework comprising an enterprise portal, a course management system, and a tool portability profile as a standard for writing future tools that can extend this core set of educational applications. Learn what Sakai has achieved and its direction for the future. http://www.sakaiproject.org/ My comments: If I recall, Sakai is […]
    • Disclaimer Eeek. It is coming to my attention via email, comments, trackbacks, server logs, that more people than My mom are reading this blog (actually she doesn’t know about it). Beyond scaring the ____ out of me, I felt it appropriate to say that my writing here is almost exclusively for my own uses, to track […]
    • EDUCAUSE Croquet Project This poster session demo was probably the coolest thing I have seen here at the EDUCAUSE 2004 conference. It is so cool I do not think I can describe it, See the Croquet Project WHAT IF… …we were to create a new operating system and user interface knowing what we know today, how far could […]
    • EDUCAUSE: “Surveying the Digital Landscape” (more back blogging from yesterday’s sessions at EDUCAUSE 2004): This presentation will provide a brief overview of various Evolving Technologies Committee white paper topics: the “consumerization” of information technology; strategies and best practices for addressing the growing concerns of spam, worms, and viruses; and the convergence of libraries and digital repositories learning objects for the […]
and the default value, the link at the end is invisible.

On Michael’s site he might use

There are 22 posts previously published on October 21st

  • 2021
    • Soup and Memory “Oh no, Granny! I must call you and apologize for not doing so on your birthday, last Friday… at least I made your split pea soup…” She would have been 116 that day — plus or minus as the story goes, October 15 was picked by a Census taker since Baby Janet lacked a birth […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2017
    • 8 Characters of Code Saves SPLOT from Going SPLAT Plus hair tearing. Cussing. Going away from it and getting sleep. And some things you don’t learn from an Hour of Code. There is not heaps of science in my computing. I got a (polite) email request for help from Brian Lamb. He was seeing (and confirmed) error reports from the TRU Writer SPLOT, on […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2016
    • Twitterless This is how it ends. DDoS attacks are hitting the internet that network that was supposed to be designed to withstand attack. Twitter, GitHub, are down, many other sites are fine (like this one). I sit here alone, contemplating a life of work based on the internet. Options… ? Top / Featured Image flickr photo […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2015
    • Here is a Flickr Trickr Free tricks. If you have ever downloaded a flickr photo or come across in blogs a link to the image URL, it will be something cryptic like: 19172144641_71660f5fdb_z.jpg You have no idea who it belongs to, or where it lives in flickr. But there is a trick you can do to back out this info. […] &amp#x27A1;
    • You Can’t Do A Selfless Selfie Alone As he does so well, Jonathan Worth turns the expected a bit inside out with his latest, inspired, phonar nation project, Selfless Selfies. The project aims to raise awareness for the plight of children affected by Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a fatal disease lacking a cure. What is a Selfless Selfie? A campaign to raise awareness […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2014
    • Gone Figuring I’ve flip flopped countless times on whether to publish this, and you may never know if the coin toss lands the last time on “no”. In fact, I bailed on it last night, but the damned thing keeps gnawing at me. I waver because it sounds a bit petty, defensive, and or combative. And it’s […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2013
    • The Web Giveth (Again) Two summers ago I posted audio of my cousin Lorrie’s telling of her family story growing up a part of a carnival act. Her Dad, Billy Outten, was famous for his high dives, and the whole family (Lorries parents and her sister) performed as well. Outten’s big act was a “double fire dive” where he […] &amp#x27A1;
    • Got My Digital Beard On cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Alan Levine During my weeklong visit to Fairbanks Alaska I was fortunate to have met and been asked for a podcast interview with Chris Malmberg, who does this “Digital Beards” series for the University of Alaska Fairbanks eLearning and Distance Education group. Here I am […] &amp#x27A1;
    • Headless ds106 Jumps… the Greek Donkeys Carrying Computers Shark jumping is so old. Everyone has done it. Try leaping over the Greek computer bearing donkeys cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Dave Sag I was trying to think of a ridiculous animal to be jumped, like an 8 headed iguana, and just flickr searching on “hydra” I landed […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2012
    • ds106 Radio Rockumentary cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog This audio recording was created (by request) for Matt Henderson a Manitoba teacher a number of us met this summer at the UnPlug’d Conference. Matt, who has done his own projects with creating a school based FM radio station, asked us for some help with […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2011
    • Shhhh, I am talking about ds106 radio cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by rakkadeer I was locked into my spy mode, but had responded to DrGarcia’s call for audio clips to support the recent Schwartz Institute Seminar on DIY Radio : I was already on the run from the city and could not attend the session; sadly […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2010
    • The Last Cowboy and a Truckload of Toilets What happened to brave men like Jake W. Burns? I found out tonight, watching my newest DVD, Lonely are the Brave (1962) which, IMHO is a completely under-rated classic. The tag line is “Life can never cage a man like this…” I watched it because, like the star Kirk Douglas, had enjoyed Edward Abbey’s The […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2008
    • Linktributions Ahoy? Linktributions Ahoy? by cogdogblog posted 21 Oct ’08, 5.27pm MDT PST on flickr Are more people using "my made-up term? Will it some-day make it as a Word of the Year? (hah, down ego, down….) I got a nice little tweet from @eemann who discovered linktribution and Google now finds about 1400 instances— though I […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2006
    • PicLens Photo Viewing Plugin I think this came via TechCrunch- PicLens is a web browser plugin that allows you to view photos form several services ( Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket) and image search results from Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com in a full screen mode, that keeps a record of images viewed (an icon strip below). Right now it is available […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2005
    • Podcast Publishing With MovableType I’ve been tinkering with my simple approach of using MovableType as a publisher engine to create podcast feeds and content listings for audio content that is used across several different web sites. While there are many ways one could go about this, I am finding this to be efficient and fast. I only have about […] &amp#x27A1;
    • How To Not Get Answers To Technical Questions I read a long time ago a column by an auto mechanic who said the hardest customers to deal with were ones who tried to guess what the car’s problem was rather than describe the symptoms, e.g. someone saying, “I think the hydrowidget is sheared off” rather than, “I hear a harsh squealing noise when […] &amp#x27A1;
  • 2004
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.

     
    Profile Picture for CogDog The Blog

    An early 90s builder of web stuff and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person. And he is 100% into the Fediverse (or tells himself so) Tooting as @cogdog@cosocial.ca

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