Autocommit Robot

Intro: ✍️ I just got a Conditional Offer from St Andrews. It requires IELTS 7.0, so I'm going all in on prep. But as a heavy GitHub user I also want to keep my contribution graph green, so let me set up a repo to do it for me.

1. Create a Repo

Pick a name. I called mine autocommit-robot. Then clone it locally to do the rest.

2. Initialize the Project

Step 1

npm init

Step 2

Set up a GitHub workflow that runs the action on a daily schedule.

ame: autocommit-robot
 
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '30 1 * * *'
 
jobs:
  bots:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: 'Checkout code'
        uses: actions/checkout@v1
 
      - name: 'Set node'
        uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: 16.x
 
      - name: 'Install'
        run: npm install
 
      - name: 'Run bash'
        run: node index.js
 
      - name: 'Commit'
        uses: EndBug/add-and-commit@v4
        with:
          author_name: huccct
          author_email: 2972223145@qq.com
          message: 'feat: save robot'
          add: 'pictures/*'
 
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.ACCESS_TOKEN }}

Note: one thing to watch out for here

To get the secrets token (and protect your privacy), go to your GitHub profile's Developer Settings, find Personal Access Tokens, and create one.

3. Write the Script

1. Import modules:

• request: module for sending HTTP requests and getting responses.
• path: module for handling file paths.
• fs: module for interacting with the file system.

2. Generate a random number:

• The id variable uses Math.random() to generate a random number between 0 and 1.
• Multiply by 100000 and floor it (~~) to convert to an integer between 0 and 99999.
• Use toString() to convert the integer to a string.

3. Build the URL:

• The url variable uses the generated random number as a parameter to build a URL. This URL fetches a randomly generated robot avatar.

4. Set the file path:

• The dirPath variable uses path.resolve() to resolve a relative path into an absolute one.
• __dirname is a Node.js global that represents the current module's directory path.
• pictures is the folder name used to store downloaded image files.

5. Handle the date:

• The dateArr variable uses new Date().toLocaleDateString() to get the current date as a localized string.
• toLocaleDateString() returns a date string in a format determined by locale. In this code the format is "month/day/year".
• split('/') splits the date string by slash into an array of strings.
• pop() removes the last element from the array and returns it.
• unshift() adds one or more elements to the beginning of the array.
• join('-') joins the array elements with hyphens into a single string.

6. Send the HTTP request and save the file:

• request(url) makes a GET request and gets the response data for that URL.
• pipe(fs.createWriteStream()) pipes the response data into a writable file stream.
• fs.createWriteStream() creates a writable stream pointed at the given file path and filename.
• The file path is composed of dirPath and date, with a filename like "year-month-day.png", e.g. "2023-06-16.png".
• The response data gets written to the file as a PNG image.

In short, this code sends an HTTP request to https://robohash.org/, gets a randomly generated robot avatar, and saves it as a PNG file. The save path is the current-date-named file inside the specified folder.

Here's the code:

const request = require('request')
const path = require('path')
const fs = require('fs')
const id = (~~(Math.random() * 100000)).toString() // get a number under 100k
const url = `https://robohash.org/${id}`
const dirPath = path.resolve(__dirname, 'pictures')
// GitHub's timezone is US, so the date format you get is 6/16/2023. Split it and move the year to the front to get the filename format we want.
const dateArr = new Date().toLocaleDateString().split('/') // when debugging locally use .toLocaleDateString("en")
dateArr.unshift(dateArr.pop())
const date = dateArr.join('-')
request(url).pipe(fs.createWriteStream(`${dirPath}/${date}.png`))

that's so cool, done.