= 2025-07-13, Sunday =

I've been trying to improve my rough (my stuff is /always/ rough)
gopher aggregator.

I have stopped it updating the output gophermap every time it runs,
adding the datestamp even when there's nothing new to add to the
list.

Now it only adds new lines when a phlog has changed.

I've improved the "name" displayed for a phlog. Initially I was
using the "name" as the file-name used to keep the md5sum hash of
each queried phlog. This meant I couldn't have white spaces in the
phlog's name. Now I strip the whitespace when making the filename
to hold the last md5sum hash, but use the full whitespace-included
name when writing the index page. Looks better.

I've added a header and footer - the header gives a description of
the aggregator and the footer has some fixed links.

I've also made it automatically save a copy of the current
phlogroll, and the aggregator script itself, with selectors for
them at the foot of the page, these selectors are in the footer
that gets appended each time it refreshes the index.

Some amount of refreshing my memory of bash and awk were needed.

I haven't seen what happens if a phlog page isn't reachable - does
it hang, crash, give up and continue with the next one? I could
simulate this and find out, I guess.

I also haven't thought about curtailling the index. At the moment
it'll grow indefinitely, adding newly changed phlogs at the top of
the index. I guess I don't need to keep more than a few weeks'
worth of changes around?

Add it to the todo list.

I'll leave it running under Cron, daily (or more often for
testing...) and see how it goes. I must also find new phlogs to add
to the list.

There's only /so/ much time in the day to tinker, and so much time
I can spend reading all the interesting material I'm finding as I
delve into Gopherspace.

--g4slv