Date Utility

Overview

This TypeScript utility analyzes blog post dates to generate chronological navigation structure for content archives. It processes date information from post metadata to create month-based navigation with accurate post counts. The function returns three synchronized arrays: human-readable date strings with post counts (e.g., "January 2023 (5)"), start date objects, and end date objects for each month. This utility is particularly valuable for creating archive sidebars, date-based filtering systems, or temporal content organization in blogs and content management systems.

// Importing the getSortedPostsData function from the specified module
import { getSortedPostsData } from '@/app/lib/posts'
 
// Default function that retrieves and processes data to get dates, counts, and date ranges
export default function GetDates() {
	// Get the sorted post data using the imported function
	const data = getSortedPostsData()
 
	// Object to store the count of posts for each month
	const monthCount: { [key: string]: number } = {}
 
	// Arrays to store formatted strings and date ranges
	const OutputString: string[] = []
	const OutputDateStart: Date[] = []
	const OutputDateEnd: Date[] = []
 
	// Extracting date strings from the post data
	const datesFromData = data.map((post) => post.date)
 
	// Counting posts for each month
	datesFromData.map((datestring) => {
		// Convert date string to a Date object
		const date = new Date(datestring)
 
		// Extract year and month from the date object
		const year = date.getFullYear()
		const month = date.getMonth()
 
		// Create a key in the format "YYYY-MM" for counting posts in that month
		const key = `${year}-${month}`
 
		// Increment the count for the corresponding month or initialize it to 1
		if (key in monthCount) {
			monthCount[key]++
		} else {
			monthCount[key] = 1
		}
	})
 
	// Creating output arrays based on the counted data
	for (const key in monthCount) {
		// Extract year and month from the key
		const [year, month] = key.split('-')
 
		// Get the full month name
		const monthName = new Date(
			parseInt(year),
			parseInt(month),
			1
		).toLocaleString('en-US', { month: 'long' })
 
		// Calculate the start and end dates of the month
		const startDate = new Date(parseInt(year), parseInt(month), 1)
		const endDate = new Date(parseInt(year), parseInt(month) + 1, 0)
 
		// Format output strings and populate arrays
		OutputString.push(`${monthName} ${year} (${monthCount[key]})`)
		OutputDateStart.push(startDate)
		OutputDateEnd.push(endDate)
	}
 
	// Return the final result as an object
	return { OutputString, OutputDateStart, OutputDateEnd }
}

Date Utility

Overview

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