Bash script to lookup the creation date of a reddit post or comment

Readme.md

reddit_created — A bash script to lookup the creation date of a reddit post or comment

Example

[robin@laptop ~] $ reddit_created https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/48dk3e/see_actual_date_of_comment_instead_of_2_months/
Mon Feb 29 02:41:34 PM HST 2016
Tue Mar  1 12:41:34 AM GMT 2016

It shows both local time and GMT time.

reddit_created

#!/bin/bash

set -o pipefail

# Check that jq is installed
if ! type -P jq >/dev/null; then
  echo "error: couldn't find jq on path."
  exit 1
fi

url=$1

# Chop off / from the end
url=${url%/}

# Add .json to the end
url=${url}.json

max_attempts=3
success=
for (( i=0; i<max_attempts; i++ )); do
  if created=$(curl -fs "$url" | jq '.[0].data.children.[0].data.created'); then
    success=Y
    break
  fi

  # Probably got the "Too Many Requests" response
  # Sleep for a period of time before making next attempt
  # Increase the duration for each iteration: 5, 10, 15 seconds
  sleep "$((5 + i*5))"
done

if [[ $success ]]; then
  echo "$(date -d @"$created")"
  echo "$(TZ=GMT date -d @"$created")"
else
  # Must have reached max_attempts
  echo "Sorry, tried $max_attempts times without success. Probably \"Too Many requests.\""
fi