Categories
Electronics General GitHub PHP

Using only PHP to save Google Starred items to Pocket!

So, based on my last post, I wanted to see if I could do everything with PHP. After a bit of google-fu and using the php.net manual, I’ve managed this beauty. Use at your own risk! This works with my Google Starred items, and you still have to obtain the starred.json file from the Google Take Out service (See my last post for more information).

If you have any tips on how to improve this, drop me a comment!

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>Instapaper: Export</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Unread</h1>
<ol>
<?php

// First off, we start by opening the file required (starred.json),
// Then we set the $galbool paramater (This is used where sites have
// given a "Gallery" URL (To make it more cosmetic, it appends the
// text [Gallery] to the end of the description.

$file_handle = fopen("starred.json", "r");
while (!feof($file_handle)) {
    $galbool = FALSE;
    $line = fgets($file_handle);

// This is our first check. We run through the json file and look for
// lines that contain the text "href". If it does not have that text,
// we are not interested, and set that line to be blank.

    $preg = "(\"href\")";
    $urlcheck = preg_match($preg, $line);
    if ($urlcheck !== 1) {
    $line = "";
    } else {

// A cheeky little bit of coding. Whislt we are in the loop, and
// I know that this is a URL we are intersted in, I'll have a look
// at the last character. If its a ",", I also want to delete that
// line. Looking at the JSON file, if a line contains a URL and
// ends with a ",", it means its not the *ACTUAL* URL we want, so
// we continue our ruthless streak and set that line to blank!
// (This was included ot deal with hackaday.com URL's, which for
// some reason doubled up, and this was a quick and easy way to
// get rid of them!

        $preg = "(,)";
        $clean = preg_match($preg, $line);
        if ($clean !== 0) {
            $line = "";
        }
        }

// Now we trim the whitespace and other non-needed characters, and
// we remove the first bit from the string thats not needed. This
// takes us right to the http:// part of the link, which is what we
// need! We also remove the trailing slash from the link as well.

        trim($line);
        $line = substr($line, 16);
        $line = substr_replace($line, "", -2);
        $string = $line;

        $check = $string[strlen($string)-2];
        if ( $check == "/"){
            $string = rtrim($string);
            $string = rtrim($string, "/");
            $desc = $string;
        }
        $check = $string[strlen($string)-1];
        if ( $check == "/"){
            $string = rtrim($string);
            $string = rtrim($string, "/");
            $desc = $string;
        }

// This is just a quick check to see if the URL passed is a gallery
// URL. If so, we set the $galbool value to true, and then do our
// usual URL cleanup. I have removed the /gallery part from the URL
// This is personal preferance, and I've not had any adverse effects
// from either taking it in, or removing it. It has to be removed
// just now to make figuring out the link text easier though.
// We can add it back in later if required.

        $gallerycheck = str_replace("/gallery", "", $string, $count);
        if ($count == 1){
            $galbool = TRUE;
            $string = rtrim($string);
            $string = rtrim($string, "/gallery");
            $desc = $string;
        }

// And now for the (almost) finale! We take everything after the
// forward slash in the URL, remove that forward slash, then we
// run through and replace every "-" with a space. This makes the
// end HTML page look nice, and it keeps with Instapapers Export
// option. If the $galbool value is true, we create a [Gallery]
// tag.

        $desc = strrchr($string, "/");
        $desc = str_replace("/", "", $desc);
        $desc = str_replace("-", " ", $desc);
        $desc = ucwords($desc);
        if ($string != "" ){
        if ($galbool == TRUE){

// you can add back in the /gallery link here again if you need it!
// Just uncomment the relevant line and comment out the other!
//        -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

//        $formatted = '            <li><a href="' . $string . '/gallery">' . $desc . '[Gallery]</a></li>';

//        ----------------------------------***OR THIS LINE***---------------------------------------------

        $formatted = '            <li><a href="' . $string . '">' . $desc . '[Gallery]</a></li>';

//        -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        } else {
        $formatted = '            <li><a href="' . $string . '">' . $desc . '</a></li>';
        }
        echo $formatted;
        }
    }

// We now close the file (good housekeeping), and finish up
// the script.

fclose($file_handle);
?>
</ol>
</body>
</html>

 

Comments are closed.