example usage:

  $ yget 3

    1. Cisco Acquires Splunk  
       <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37596497>  
       591 points by siddharthb_ | 325 comments  

    2. Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix  
       <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37599510>  
       151 points by jrepinc | 63 comments  

    3. Nippon Television has just acquired Studio Ghibli  
       <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37596788>  
       454 points by sohkamyung | 146 comments  


  #!/bin/sh

  # yget: get top stories on hn without a browser
  # https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37601452

  # this is a small shell script i wrote to try out the firebase API that
  # prints HN posts one at a time into your terminal. it depends on curl
  # and jq, but is otherwise fully portable.
  
  yget () {
    URI_FMT='https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0'
    URL_FMT='https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id='
  
    USER=${USER:-$(whoami || id -un)}
    YGET_DIR="${YGET_DIR:-/tmp/yget.$USER}"
    mkdir -p "$YGET_DIR"
  
    topstories="$YGET_DIR"/topstories.json
    curl -s "$URI_FMT/topstories.json" > "$topstories"
  
    if [ -n "$1" ]; then
      if test "$1" -ge 1 2>/dev/null && test "$1" -le 500 2>/dev/null; then
        post_left="$1"
      elif test "$1" -lt 1 2>/dev/null || test "$1" -gt 500 2>/dev/null; then
        printf "out of range!\n"
        exit 1
      else
        printf "invalid input!\n"
        exit 1
      fi
    else
      post_left="4"
    fi
  
    post_count="$post_left"
  
    while [ "$post_left" -gt 0 ]; do
      rank=$((post_count - post_left))
      num=$((rank + 1))
      id=$(jq -r .["$rank"] "$topstories")
      story="$YGET_DIR"/"$id".json
      curl -s "$URI_FMT/item/$id.json" > "$story"
      title=$(jq -r '.title' "$story")
      score=$(jq -r '.score' "$story")
      user=$(jq -r '.by' "$story")
      comments=$(jq -r '.descendants' "$story")
      printf "\n%3d. %s  \n" "$num" "$title"
      printf "     <%s>  \n" "$URL_FMT$id"
      printf "     %s points by %s | %s comments  \n" "$score" "$user" "$comments"
      post_left=$((post_left - 1))
    done
  }
  
  yget "$1"