Showing date/time the dashboard was last generated

[michalc]

I'm trying to include the date/time the dashboard was last generated. What's the best way of doing this?

So far I've created a Python data loader to make a 1 row CSV

import datetime
import sys

sys.stdout.buffer.write(b'generated\n')
sys.stdout.buffer.write(str(datetime.datetime.now().timestamp()).encode('utf-8'))

And then accessing it in Javascript from a markdown file:

const generated = await FileAttachment("./data/generated.csv").csv({typed: true})

And then outputting it in the file, for example:

<p>Data pulled from source ${(new Date(generated[0].generated * 1000)).toLocaleString('en-GB', {dateStyle: 'full', timeStyle: 'long'})}</p>

And it works, but it feels a touch manual/faffy. Is there a more concise/canonical way?

[Fil]

You can display the build time with a footer defined as a function that returns something like built with Observable at ${Date.now()}. For the data files build time (data loaders might have been run before the site was built, thanks to the cache), use the FileAttachment’s lastModified property.

[michalc]

Thanks! This worked a treat. To tweak the style and timezone I modified it a bit as well:

${(new Date()).toLocaleString('en-GB', {dateStyle: 'full', timeStyle: 'long',timeZone: 'Europe/London',})}