Addition to Octopress Rakefile to rename blog postings to correspond to dates. Does not change the title part. It will print which files change. If any posts changed that had external references to them (tweets, etc.), then you need to put in an alias. Note, this applies to using org-mode files. Be sure to remove the line for org_posts_dir if yo…

Rakefile

# Based on blog post http://www.ewal.net/2012/09/08/octopress-customizations/
# Modified to option of either all or no drafts, and also to use org-mode files
desc "Redate files in the posts directory if the filename does not match the post date in the YAML front matter. Note, URLs based on 'date' metadata, so this shouldn't break any links"
task :redate_posts do
  redate_posts true, source_dir, posts_dir, org_posts_dir
end

desc "Redate files in the posts directory, skipping drafts, if the filename does not match the post date in the YAML front matter. Note, URLs based on 'date' metadata, so this shouldn't break any links"
task :redate_posts_no_drafts do
  redate_posts false, source_dir, posts_dir, org_posts_dir
end

def redate_posts include_drafts, source_dir, posts_dir, org_posts_dir
  redate_posts_in_dir "#{source_dir}/#{posts_dir}", "markdown", include_drafts
  # remove next line if you're you're not using org-mode
  redate_posts_in_dir "#{source_dir}/#{org_posts_dir}", "org", include_drafts
end

def redate_posts_in_dir dir, ext, include_drafts = true
  Dir.chdir(dir) do
    Dir["*.#{ext}"].each do |post|
      post_date = ""
      File.open(post) do |f|
        f.grep(/^date: /) do |line|
          post_date = line.gsub(/date: /, "").gsub(/\s.*$/, "")
          break
        end
      end
      post_title    = post.to_s.gsub(/\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}/, "") # Get the post title from the currently processed post
      new_post_name = post_date + post_title                  # determing the correct filename
      rename        = post != new_post_name
      next unless rename
      unless include_drafts
        is_draft = false
        File.open(post) do |f|
          f.grep(/^published: false/) do |line|
            is_draft = true
            break
          end
        end
        next if is_draft
      end
      puts "renaming #{post} to #{new_post_name}"
      FileUtils.mv(post, new_post_name)
    end
  end
end