.gitignore

@@ -4,4 +4,5 @@ dist/
 test.*
 __pycache__
 .eggs
-.tox
\ No newline at end of file
+.tox
+example/blog/no-git-test.md

CHANGELOG.md

 # Changelog
 
+## [1.2.0](https://gitlab.der-jd.de/python/mkblog/compare/1.1.0...1.2.0) (2021-04-14)
+
+
+### Features
+
+* **plugin:** Add fallback determening release date ([a76c126](https://gitlab.der-jd.de/python/mkblog/commit/a76c126f9843059ede3f8908c78d826699ed32cf))
+
 ## [1.1.0](https://gitlab.der-jd.de/python/mkblog/compare/1.0.1...1.1.0) (2021-04-13)
 
 

setup.cfg

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ install_requires =
   mkdocs>=1
   mkdocs-awesome-pages-plugin
   mkdocs-material
+  GitPython
 
 python_requires = >=3.6
 setup_requires =

src/mkblog/plugin.py

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ Yet an other blog plugin for MkDocs.
 
 from datetime import datetime
 from pathlib import Path
+from git import Git
 
 import logging
 import markdown
@@ -78,22 +79,30 @@ class MkBlog(BasePlugin):
     def get_blog_post_date(self):
         """
         Search markdown metadata for a releasedate from given file.
-
-        Parameters:
-        file: absolute path to blogpost markdown file
+        If no matching metadata is present, the oldest commit is used instead.
+        As a last resort the file's ctime is used as release date.
 
         Returns:
         blogpost's release date as uri path
         """
         m_d = markdown.Markdown(extensions=['meta'])
         m_d.convert(self._blog_md_file.read_text())
-        # Prevent pylint from false positive report:
-        #   Instance of 'Markdown' has no 'Meta' member
-        metadata = m_d.Meta  # pylint: disable=E1101
-
-        # TODO: search for different date metadata(release-date, date, release)
-        #       if no metadata is found, use file's ctime or mtime instead.
-        release_date = datetime.strptime(metadata['date'][0], '%Y-%m-%d')
+        metadata = m_d.Meta  # pylint: disable=E1101 # false positive
+
+        if 'date' in metadata:
+            rawdate = metadata['date'][0]
+        else:
+            rawdate = Git().log(
+                self._blog_md_file,
+                date='short',
+                format='%ad'
+            ).split('\n')[-1]
+
+        try:
+            release_date = datetime.strptime(rawdate, '%Y-%m-%d')
+        except ValueError:
+            release_date = datetime.fromtimestamp(
+                self._blog_md_file.stat().st_ctime)
 
         return str(release_date.strftime('%Y/%m/%d'))