A short Bash script to make quick records with time spent

make_record.sh

# This is a script to make short records about activities with time spent in minutes.
# Dependencies:
#   - tac - (install: $ brew install coreutils)
#   - align - (install: https://github.com/Guitarbum722/align/tree/master/cmd/align, $ go build -o align && go install)
#
# You can add alias with shortcuts to your bash/zsh config:
#   alias mr='/Users/leonid/bash-scripts/make_record.sh add'
#   alias mrs='/Users/leonid/bash-scripts/make_record.sh show'
#   alias mrsf='/Users/leonid/bash-scripts/make_record.sh show-filter'
#   alias mre='/Users/leonid/bash-scripts/make_record.sh edit'
#
# Example of usage:
# $ mr 10 programming make_record.sh: adding check on commas in the description
#
# $ mrsf make_record.sh
# 2024-08-09T21:21:14+02:00 | 10 | programming | make_record.sh: adding check on commas in the description
# 2024-08-07T20:07:00+02:00 | 75 | programming | make_record.sh: adding formatting and filtering
# 2024-08-06T22:35:10+02:00 | 50 | programming | writing a bash script for making quick records with time spent (make_record.sh)
# total: 135 minutes or 2.25 hours



#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -Eeo pipefail

JOURNAL="activity.log" # path to the log file
COMMAND=""
DURATION=""
SUBJECT=""
DESCRIPTION=""
SHOW_LINES="5"
EDITOR="nvim"   # editor which is used for editing the log file
EDITOR_OPT="+"  # editor option to go to the end of the file after opening

COMMAND="$1"
shift

case "${COMMAND}" in
add)
  if [[ $# -lt 3 ]]; then
    echo "Error: too few parameters for command '$COMMAND'!"
    exit 1
  fi

  DURATION="$1"
  shift
  SUBJECT="$1"
  shift
  DESCRIPTION="$@"

  # Validate the duration value
  if [[ ! "${DURATION}" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then
    echo "Error: the duration must contain only digits!"
    exit 2
  fi
  
  # Prevent commas in the description as they break CVS format with comma as a separator
  if [[ "${DESCRIPTION}" == *","* ]]; then
    echo "Error: the description contains commas (',') which are prohibited!"
    exit 2
  fi

  echo "$(date -Iseconds),${DURATION},${SUBJECT},${DESCRIPTION}" >> "${JOURNAL}"
  ;;
show)
  if [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; then
    SHOW_LINES="$1"
  fi
  tail -r -n "${SHOW_LINES}" "${JOURNAL}" | align -i 2:right -d \|
  ;;
show-filter)
  if [[ $# -lt 1 ]]; then
    echo "Error: too few parameters for command '${COMMAND}'!"
    exit 1
  fi
  PATTERN="$1"
  RS=$(grep -Ei "${PATTERN}" "${JOURNAL}" | tac)
  echo "${RS}" | align -i 2:right -d \|
  echo "${RS}" | awk -F, ' { total += $2 } END { print "total:", total, "minutes or", total/60, "hours" } '
  ;;
edit)
  "${EDITOR}" "${EDITOR_OPT}" "${JOURNAL}"
  ;;
*) echo "Unknown command found '${COMMAND}'"
  ;;
esac