Since I write my blog posts in Markdown format I decided I wanted a way to backup my posts in a way that is human readable. The result is a feature in Texo to export my blog entries as zipped up Markdown files.
When I click on the button in the above screenshot all my blog entries are saved as Markdown files, zipped up, and presented to me as a download. The final zip is organized into folders of YEAR/MONTH.
The code to do this is pretty simple. First I have a function that constructs the Markdown given a post dictionary.
def generateMarkdownFile(post):
result = """Title: %s
Date: %s
Author: %s
Status: %s
Tags: %s
Slug: %s
%s""" % (
post["title"],
post["publishedDateTime"],
post["author"],
post["status"],
post["tagList"],
post["slug"],
post["content"],
)
filename = os.path.join(config.UPLOAD_PATH, post["slug"]) + ".md"
with open(filename, "w") as blogFile:
blogFile.write(result)
return filenameThis function writes out a file to my temporary upload path with the post data converted to a format that Texo actually knows how to import. It is simple and human readable. The next part was to write a controller action to get my posts, write Markdown files, then zip them up and serve. This method is a bit big and needs a bit of refactoring, but it does the job for now.
@route("/admin/utilities/exportmarkdownfiles", method="GET")
@route("/admin/utilities/exportmarkdownfiles", method="POST")
@view("admin-export-markdown-files.html")
@requireSession
def adminExportMarkdownFiles():
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
if "btnExport" in request.all:
posts = postservice.getAllPosts()
zipfilePath = os.path.join(config.UPLOAD_PATH, "blog-posts.zip")
zf = zipfile.ZipFile(zipfilePath, mode="w")
filenames = []
try:
#
# Write each post to a file, adding each file to a ZIP
#
for post in posts:
filename = postservice.generateMarkdownFile(post=post)
filenames.append(filename)
writtenFilename = "%s/%s/%s" % (post["publishedYear"], post["publishedMonth"], os.path.basename(filename),)
zf.write(filename, compress_type=compression, arcname=writtenFilename)
except Exception as e:
logger.error("There was an error writing zipfile: %s", e.message)
finally:
zf.close()
#
# Clean out markdown files
#
for filename in filenames:
try:
os.remove(filename)
except Exception as e:
logger.error("Unable to remove %s" % (filename,))
#
# Serve up the ZIP file as a download
#
return static_file(os.path.basename(zipfilePath), root=config.UPLOAD_PATH)
return {
"title": "Export Markdown Files"
}Basically this method starts up a zipfile output, gets all posts, and creates Markdown files for each post, adding to the zip file after each Markdown file is created. At the end I clean out all the generated Markdown files and serve the ZIP file back as a static download.
Also, as a final note, I added a fun easter-egg to my site. Try out the old Konami code on the home page. :) Cheers!