HTML import to wordpress, set publish date to match filename - html

Question

I have a collection of 16,000 html files that I'm uploading to wordpress. I'm using HTML import 2. The date for the articles is located in two spots, neither of which can be detected by the plugin:
1.) each file is titled mmddyyxxxxxxx.htm
2.) the date exists in the same format in a paragraph at the bottom of the page, but surrounded by varying text. format: (yyyy, mm, dd)
and ideas?

Answer 1

Easiest solution here would be to use the "set timestamps to last time the file was modified." option while importing. Since the filenames have stamps in their dates, you can write a simple script to make the timestamps match. This can be done in bash, or PHP with the touch() function.
You may need to break up your files in usable groups, since glob() has a limit, but, here's a simple example to accomplish this:
<?php
# change mod+access times based on filenames
$files = glob("myfiles/*.htm");
foreach( $files as $file ) {
$temp = pathinfo( $file ); // may have relative path in it
$name = $temp['filename']; // just "mmddyyxxxxxxx" at this point
// assuming date format in filenames are fixed-lengths, you can rebuild
// timestamp to yyyy-mm-dd format with this:
$date = sprintf("20%s-%s-%s", // cheap trick to start years with 20
substr( $name, 4, 2 ),
substr( $name, 2, 2 ),
substr( $name, 0, 2 )
);
$stamp = strtotime( $name ); // timestamp
touch( $file, $stamp, $stamp ); // sets both mod + access time
}
?>
In case that your date format in the filename isn't fixed, you may need to get more creative.