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You know how when you paste a URL in Twitter or Slack it shows you a nice preview? This val gives you that data.
Given a URL, this will return metadata about the website like title, description, imageURL, image as base64 etc.
Sample input - paste this in your URL bar
https://dvsj-GetWebsiteMetadata.web.val.run?targetURL=https://dvsj.in https://dvsj-GetWebsiteMetadata.web.val.run?targetURL=<your-target-url-here>
Sample output:
{
status: 200,
url: "https://dvsj.in",
title: "Dav-is-here ➜",
description: "Davis' not-so-secret stash",
imgUrl: "https://www.dvsj.in/cover-picture.png",
imgData: "data:image/png;base64,qwertyblahblah"
}
FAQ:
Why is imgData sent when imgUrl is already present?
Because you shouldn't hotlink images from 3rd parties. Store the base64 image on your server and use it in your app.
It's unfair to use their server bandwidth and could be a security issue for you if they change the content of the link later.
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// Although you probably want this, you can take a peek at the implementation at https://www.val.town/v/dvsj/getOpengraphMetadata too.
import getOpengraphMetadata from "https://esm.town/v/dvsj/getOpengraphMetadata";
export default async function(req: Request): Promise<Response> {
// First extract query param from the URL
const url = new URL(req.url);
// People forget capitalization all the time. Let's go easy on them and check a few queryParam keys. :)
const targetUrlKeys = [
"targetURL",
"TargetURL",
"targetUrl",
"TargetUrl",
"Targeturl",
"targeturl",
"GIMME_THE_META_DAMMIT",
];
let targetURL = null;
for (let i = 0; i < targetUrlKeys.length; i++) {
targetURL = url.searchParams.get(targetUrlKeys[i]);
if (targetURL != null) {
break;
}
}
// URL isn't present. Oopsie!
if (targetURL == null || targetURL.trim() == "") {
return Response.json({
"error":
"targetURL is missing in query params. If you want to get the metadata for `https://dvsj.in`, call this function in this format: `https://fn-url?targetURL=https://dvsj.in`",
});
}
// Let's go!
return Response.json(await getOpengraphMetadata(targetURL));
}
👆 This is a val. Vals are TypeScript snippets of code, written in the browser and run on our servers. Create scheduled functions, email yourself, and persist small pieces of data — all from the browser.