File under #stupidperltricks #imissmysunworkstation and #getoffmyunixlawn
./quote2fortune.pl Create fortune cookies from GoodReads author quotes
Usage: ./quote2fortune.pl [ -f FILENAME ] [ -h ] [ -r NUMBER ] [ -t CODEPAGE ] [ -u URL ]
-f Fortune file name
-h This help
-r (Re)start at a given page number
-t Also create a non-UTF-8 version. Use iconv to transliterate
UTF-8 to a different code page (eg: ISO-8859-1)
-u The GoodReads URL for the authors quotes
Example: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1654.Terry_Pratchett
Example: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1244.Mark_Twain
Google search: https://www.google.com/search?&q=goodreads+frank+herbert+quotes
In an attempt to be a reasonable net citizen there is a 2 second delay between each page pulled.
WYLD STALLYNS!... I mean, uh, perl- w3m or lynx (SSL support required)
- strfile
- GNU iconv (non-GNU will function but results will be .. poor)
~$ ./quote2fortune.pl -f tolkien -t ascii -u https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/656983.J_R_R_Tolkien
Checking the total number of pages of quotes for: J R R Tolkien
Found 103 pages of quotes.
Downloading page 11 of 103(some time later)
Finished downloading and parsing; writing to the file: tolkien
Creating fortune dat file
"tolkien.dat" created
There were 3138 strings
Longest string: 3575 bytes
Shortest string: 28 bytes
Fortune dat file creation succeeded. You can test the fortune cookie like this:
~$ fortune tolkien
Rewriting UTF-8 fortune file to ascii
The transliterated file is: tolkien.ascii
Creating fortune dat file
"tolkien.ascii.dat" created
There were 3138 strings
Longest string: 3569 bytes
Shortest string: 22 bytes
Fortune dat file creation succeeded. You can test the fortune cookie like this:
~$ fortune tolkien.ascii
~$ fortune tolkien
“Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from
the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
While it is likely that a great number of users have moved to using a UTF-8 locale (xx_XX.UTF-8) I realise that some may still use C, ISO-8859-XX, etc. Most of the fortunes on GoodReads are in English or European languages that transliterate from UTF-8 without issue. However, when a quote cannot be transliterated (example: UTF-8 Arabic -> ASCII) it will simply be skipped. Due to the nature of transliteration one should expect the best results to be found by using the UTF-8 version of the data.