Script to count how many XKCD posts exist.

xkcd-count.py

import requests

def check(lower, upper):

    mid = (lower + upper) // 2

    if lower == mid or upper == mid:
        # base case
        return mid

    url_to_test = 'https://xkcd.com/' + str(mid) + '/'
    print('checking ' + url_to_test, end='')
    status_code = requests.head(url_to_test).status_code
    print(' ...got ' + str(status_code))

    return check(mid, upper) if 200 <= status_code < 300 else check(lower, mid)

def main():
    xkcd_count = check(0, 10000)
    print('Count: ' +  str(xkcd_count))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

I love seeing clever approaches.

...however this one is a bit overthought.

curl https://xkcd.com | sed -nE 's_.* property="og:url" content="https://xkcd.com/([0-9]+)/.*_\1_p'

The homepage has the "canonical" URL with the comic ID in a "Permanent link to this comic" link and in the og:url meta tag. Other options are fetching the back link and adding one or grabbing the newest item for the RSS feed.

That's pretty cool; guess I should learn my tools better. Thanks for the tip!