{ "uuid": [ { "value": "d6363924-78ee-4086-8cf0-41e07c030fd4" } ], "langcode": [ { "value": "en" } ], "type": [ { "target_id": "daily_email", "target_type": "node_type", "target_uuid": "8bde1f2f-eef9-4f2d-ae9c-96921f8193d7" } ], "revision_timestamp": [ { "value": "2025-05-11T08:59:58+00:00" } ], "revision_uid": [ { "target_type": "user", "target_uuid": "b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849" } ], "revision_log": [], "status": [ { "value": true } ], "uid": [ { "target_type": "user", "target_uuid": "b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849" } ], "title": [ { "value": "A reason why I like static site generators" } ], "created": [ { "value": "2025-05-03T00:00:00+00:00" } ], "changed": [ { "value": "2025-05-11T08:59:58+00:00" } ], "promote": [ { "value": false } ], "sticky": [ { "value": false } ], "default_langcode": [ { "value": true } ], "revision_translation_affected": [ { "value": true } ], "path": [ { "alias": "\/daily\/2025\/05\/03\/like", "langcode": "en" } ], "body": [ { "value": "\n

Static site generators like Sculpin<\/a> don't have a database like Drupal.<\/p>\n\n

The files are the database.<\/p>\n\n

In [my website repository][3], the source\/_presentations<\/code> directory contains the files for my presentation pages, so these could be considered the presentations table and rows.<\/p>\n\n

But, because my content is in plain text files, they're very easy and quick to search in a text editor or on the command line using tools like grep<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n

It's very easy and fast for me to find an old daily email, blog post or article I've written when I need to.<\/p>\n\n

This is also why I use rst2pdf for my presentation slides<\/a> and write them in reStructured text. It's very fast to find and re-use content.<\/p>\n\n

Counting my presentations<\/h2>\n\n

Another example is being able to quickly count the number of presentations I've given.<\/p>\n\n

Here's an example of the front matter section from one of my presentations:<\/p>\n\n

events:\n  - name: PHP South West\n    date: 2024-02-14\n    location: Bristol, UK\n    urls:\n      video: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=axy6ltc9meA\n      demo: https:\/\/phpsw-sculpin-demo.oliverdavies.uk\n  - name: BrumPHP\n    date: 2024-05-23\n    location: Birmingham, UK\n    url: https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com\/e\/brumphp-23rd-may-2024-tickets-803037766577\n  - name: PHP Berkshire\n    date: 2024-08-28\n    location: Reading, UK\n    urls:\n      slides: \/files\/presentations\/sculpin\/php-berkshire.pdf\n      website: https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/php-berkshire\/events\/301850284\n  - name: PHP Thames Valley\n    date: 2026-03-20\n    location: Oxford, UK\n    urls:\n      slides: \/files\/presentations\/sculpin\/php-thames-valley.pdf\n      code: https:\/\/code.oliverdavies.uk\/opdavies\/sculpin-demo\/src\/branch\/php-thames-valley\n      website: https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/php-thames-valley\/events\/305915971\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
Each presentation has a list of events, as most presentations I've given multiple times.<\/p>\n\n
Each event has a date<\/code> that I can extract with grep<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n
grep -r \"date:\" source\/_presentations\/*.md\n\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2020-12-08\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2023-10-17\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2024-05-10\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2024-11-20\nsource\/_presentations\/test-drive-twig-with-sculpin.md:    date: 2015-07-25\nsource\/_presentations\/things-you-should-know-about-php.md:    date: 2019-01-28\nsource\/_presentations\/things-you-should-know-about-php.md:    date: 2022-03-09\nsource\/_presentations\/things-you-should-know-about-php.md:    date: 2023-01-12\nsource\/_presentations\/upgrading-your-site-drupal-9.md:    date: 2020-09-02\nsource\/_presentations\/upgrading-your-site-drupal-9.md:    date: 2020-09-23\nsource\/_presentations\/upgrading-your-site-drupal-9.md:    date: 2021-04-22\nsource\/_presentations\/using-illuminate-collections-outside-laravel.md:    date: 2017-12-21\nsource\/_presentations\/using-illuminate-collections-outside-laravel.md:    date: 2018-08-28\nsource\/_presentations\/working-without-workspace.md:    date: 2023-04-06\nsource\/_presentations\/working-with-workspace.md:    date: 2020-08-11\nsource\/_presentations\/working-with-workspace.md:    date: 2020-09-09\nsource\/_presentations\/working-with-workspace.md:    date: 2021-02-02\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
To count them, I can add | wc -l<\/code> to count the number of lines.<\/p>\n\n
But what if I have presentations in the future I don't want to count?<\/p>\n\n
To show just the dates, I can pipe the output to awk<\/code> and only print the last item:<\/p>\n\n
grep -r \"date:\" source\/_presentations\/*.md | awk '{ print $NF }'\n\n2020-12-08\n2023-10-17\n2024-05-10\n2024-11-20\n2015-07-25\n2019-01-28\n2022-03-09\n2023-01-12\n2020-09-02\n2020-09-23\n2021-04-22\n2017-12-21\n2018-08-28\n2023-04-06\n2020-08-11\n2020-09-09\n2021-02-02\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
I can sort them by adding | sort<\/code>, but that doesn't matter in this case.<\/p>\n\n
To remove any future presentations, I can pass the current date to awk<\/code>, filter based on the date and count the number of lines in the result:<\/p>\n\n
grep -r \"date:\" source\/_presentations\/*.md | awk -v today=\"$(date +%Y-%m-%d)\" '{ if ($NF < today) print $NF }' | wc -l\n\n104\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
This isn't how I'm calculating this on my website (I'm using a custom Twig extension in Sculpin<\/a> for that), but this is an example of how multiple command line utilities can work together to perform a task - made possible using the static files from my website.<\/p>\n\n        ",
            "format": "full_html",
            "processed": "\n          
Static site generators like Sculpin<\/a> don't have a database like Drupal.<\/p>\n\n
The files are the database.<\/p>\n\n
In [my website repository][3], the source\/_presentations<\/code> directory contains the files for my presentation pages, so these could be considered the presentations table and rows.<\/p>\n\n
But, because my content is in plain text files, they're very easy and quick to search in a text editor or on the command line using tools like grep<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n
It's very easy and fast for me to find an old daily email, blog post or article I've written when I need to.<\/p>\n\n
This is also why I use rst2pdf for my presentation slides<\/a> and write them in reStructured text. It's very fast to find and re-use content.<\/p>\n\n
Counting my presentations<\/h2>\n\n
Another example is being able to quickly count the number of presentations I've given.<\/p>\n\n
Here's an example of the front matter section from one of my presentations:<\/p>\n\n
events:\n  - name: PHP South West\n    date: 2024-02-14\n    location: Bristol, UK\n    urls:\n      video: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=axy6ltc9meA\n      demo: https:\/\/phpsw-sculpin-demo.oliverdavies.uk\n  - name: BrumPHP\n    date: 2024-05-23\n    location: Birmingham, UK\n    url: https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com\/e\/brumphp-23rd-may-2024-tickets-803037766577\n  - name: PHP Berkshire\n    date: 2024-08-28\n    location: Reading, UK\n    urls:\n      slides: \/files\/presentations\/sculpin\/php-berkshire.pdf\n      website: https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/php-berkshire\/events\/301850284\n  - name: PHP Thames Valley\n    date: 2026-03-20\n    location: Oxford, UK\n    urls:\n      slides: \/files\/presentations\/sculpin\/php-thames-valley.pdf\n      code: https:\/\/code.oliverdavies.uk\/opdavies\/sculpin-demo\/src\/branch\/php-thames-valley\n      website: https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/php-thames-valley\/events\/305915971\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
Each presentation has a list of events, as most presentations I've given multiple times.<\/p>\n\n
Each event has a date<\/code> that I can extract with grep<\/code>:<\/p>\n\n
grep -r \"date:\" source\/_presentations\/*.md\n\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2020-12-08\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2023-10-17\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2024-05-10\nsource\/_presentations\/tdd-test-driven-drupal.md:    date: 2024-11-20\nsource\/_presentations\/test-drive-twig-with-sculpin.md:    date: 2015-07-25\nsource\/_presentations\/things-you-should-know-about-php.md:    date: 2019-01-28\nsource\/_presentations\/things-you-should-know-about-php.md:    date: 2022-03-09\nsource\/_presentations\/things-you-should-know-about-php.md:    date: 2023-01-12\nsource\/_presentations\/upgrading-your-site-drupal-9.md:    date: 2020-09-02\nsource\/_presentations\/upgrading-your-site-drupal-9.md:    date: 2020-09-23\nsource\/_presentations\/upgrading-your-site-drupal-9.md:    date: 2021-04-22\nsource\/_presentations\/using-illuminate-collections-outside-laravel.md:    date: 2017-12-21\nsource\/_presentations\/using-illuminate-collections-outside-laravel.md:    date: 2018-08-28\nsource\/_presentations\/working-without-workspace.md:    date: 2023-04-06\nsource\/_presentations\/working-with-workspace.md:    date: 2020-08-11\nsource\/_presentations\/working-with-workspace.md:    date: 2020-09-09\nsource\/_presentations\/working-with-workspace.md:    date: 2021-02-02\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
To count them, I can add | wc -l<\/code> to count the number of lines.<\/p>\n\n
But what if I have presentations in the future I don't want to count?<\/p>\n\n
To show just the dates, I can pipe the output to awk<\/code> and only print the last item:<\/p>\n\n
grep -r \"date:\" source\/_presentations\/*.md | awk '{ print $NF }'\n\n2020-12-08\n2023-10-17\n2024-05-10\n2024-11-20\n2015-07-25\n2019-01-28\n2022-03-09\n2023-01-12\n2020-09-02\n2020-09-23\n2021-04-22\n2017-12-21\n2018-08-28\n2023-04-06\n2020-08-11\n2020-09-09\n2021-02-02\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
I can sort them by adding | sort<\/code>, but that doesn't matter in this case.<\/p>\n\n
To remove any future presentations, I can pass the current date to awk<\/code>, filter based on the date and count the number of lines in the result:<\/p>\n\n
grep -r \"date:\" source\/_presentations\/*.md | awk -v today=\"$(date +%Y-%m-%d)\" '{ if ($NF < today) print $NF }' | wc -l\n\n104\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
This isn't how I'm calculating this on my website (I'm using a custom Twig extension in Sculpin<\/a> for that), but this is an example of how multiple command line utilities can work together to perform a task - made possible using the static files from my website.<\/p>\n\n        ",
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