My GitHub Status Is A Clock

September 9, 2023 #100DaysToOffload #AlmostFunny #GitHub #Go #GraphQL

On GitHub, you can set an emoji and a short message as your status. I don’t browse GitHub much. But through what little I do, I see so many profiles with “:dart: Focusing”.

Why not make it a clock? An almost functional clock.

That’s exactly what I did.: github.com/hjr265

Screenshot of my GitHub profile

I wrote a Go program that I can leave running. The program updates my GitHub status with one of the clock emojis (one that is close to the current time) and a message saying something like “Twelve o’clock” or “Half past twelve”.

This blog post is about how it works. You can find the source code for this on GitHub.

Time to Emoji

Given a Go time.Time we need to be able to choose one of the 24 clock emojis. The emojis are named “:clock12:”, “:clock1230:”, “:clock1:”, “:clock130:”, and so on.

🕛 🕧 🕐 🕜 🕑 🕝 🕒 🕞 🕟 🕠 🕡 🕖 🕢 🕗 🕣 🕤 🕥 🕚 🕦🕒

The name follows the pattern “:clock{h}:” or “:clock{h}30:”, where “{h}” is the hour.

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func timeToEmoji(t time.Time) string {
  h := t.Hour()
  if h > 12 {
    h -= 12
  }
  if h == 0 {
    h = 12
  }
  m := t.Minute()
  m = (m / 30) * 30
  if m == 0 {
    return fmt.Sprintf(":clock%d:", h)
  }
  return fmt.Sprintf(":clock%d%d:", h, m)
}

For the hour part, we first go from 24-hour to 12-hour. Since we may end up with h == 0, we just change that to 12.

For the minute part, we round down to the nearest 30.

If then the minute part is 0, we return “:clock{h}:”. Otherwise, we return “:clock{h}{m}:”.

Time to Message

Depending on the current time, we set one of the two messages: “{Hour} o’clock” or “Half past {hour}”.

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var hourWord = map[int]string{
  1:  "One",
  2:  "Two",
  // ... 3 to 10 omitted for brevity.
  11: "Eleven",
  12: "Twelve",
}

func timeToMessage(t time.Time) string {
  h := t.Hour()
  if h > 12 {
    h -= 12
  }
  if h == 0 {
    h = 12
  }
  m := t.Minute()
  m = (m / 30) * 30
  if m == 0 {
    return fmt.Sprintf("%s o'clock", hourWord[h])
  }
  return fmt.Sprintf("Half past %s", strings.ToLower(hourWord[h]))
}

Here we follow the math similar to timeToEmoji. Except, we return “{Hour} o’clock” when rounded down minutes is 0. Otherwise, we return “Half past {hour}”.

We keep a map of twelve numbers (1 to 12) in words. We use words for hours here instead of numbers.

Putting It Together

The program goes something like this:

Set up a GitHub GraphQL client. We use github.com/shurcooL/githubv4 for this.
Loop:
- Update status based on current time.
- Sleep until another update is needed.

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func main() {
  // Set up a GitHub GraphQL client.
  src := oauth2.StaticTokenSource(
    &oauth2.Token{AccessToken: os.Getenv("GITHUB_TOKEN")},
  )
  httpclient := oauth2.NewClient(context.Background(), src)
  client := githubv4.NewClient(httpclient)

  for {
    now := time.Now() // You can adjust the timezone with now.In(loc).

    // Use the current time to get the emoji and the message.
    emoji := timeToEmoji(now)
    message := timeToMessage(now)

    // Update the user's status using the GitHub GraphQL client.
    // Error handling omitted for brevity.
    m := struct {
      ChangeUserStatus struct {
        Status struct {
          Emoji   graphql.String
          Message graphql.String
        }
      } `graphql:"changeUserStatus(input: $input)"`
    }{}
    client.Mutate(context.Background(), &m, githubv4.ChangeUserStatusInput{
      Emoji:   githubv4.NewString(githubv4.String(emoji)),
      Message: githubv4.NewString(githubv4.String(message)),
    }, nil)

    // Sleep until another update is needed.
    time.Sleep(sleepDuration(now))
  }
}

The sleepDuration function looks at the time.Time passed to it and calculates the number of minutes left until the next 30-minute or 60-minute mark (whichever is the closest).

Get A Clock

You can find the source code for this on GitHub.

You can also install this program with the go install command and run it like so:

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go install github.com/hjr265/mghsiac@latest
GITHUB_TOKEN=... mghsiac

This post is 39th of my #100DaysToOffload challenge. Want to get involved? Find out more at 100daystooffload.com.

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