From d123b857179795b95f446032309ca4bf3189a566 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Tim Pearson <tim.pearson@gleim.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2026 22:20:50 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] fix: derive word_count from the content actually resolved
 (#10)

BookStack only populates page.text for markdown-authored pages, so
enhancePageResponse reported word_count: 0 for every WYSIWYG page even when it
returned thousands of characters of content. Fall back to markdown, then to
tag-stripped html.

Splitting on /\s+/ rather than a single space also corrects the count for
newline-separated text on markdown-authored pages, which previously read as one
word.

Documents the Export Content role permission the WYSIWYG markdown fallback
needs; without it the fallback fails silently and the page reads as empty.
---
 README.md                   |  6 ++++++
 src/bookstack-client.ts     |  3 ++-
 src/util/word-count.test.ts | 38 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 src/util/word-count.ts      | 23 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 69 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 src/util/word-count.test.ts
 create mode 100644 src/util/word-count.ts

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index bb1a571..34b1bdd 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -271,6 +271,12 @@ Both templates support `id` autocompletion: as you type, the server searches Boo
 4. In the **API Tokens** section, create a new token
 5. Copy the Token ID and Token Secret
 
+> **Also grant the role “Export Content”** if you read pages written in the
+> WYSIWYG editor. BookStack returns an empty `markdown` body for those pages, and
+> `get_page` recovers it from the server-side HTML→markdown export endpoint. Without
+> the permission that fallback fails and the page reads as empty. The default Viewer
+> role does not include it.
+
 ## Security
 
 - Write operations are **disabled by default**
diff --git a/src/bookstack-client.ts b/src/bookstack-client.ts
index d34bfe2..a3d532d 100644
--- a/src/bookstack-client.ts
+++ b/src/bookstack-client.ts
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import axios, { AxiosInstance, AxiosError, InternalAxiosRequestConfig, AxiosAdapter } from 'axios';
 import https from 'https';
 import { Semaphore } from './util/semaphore.js';
+import { countWords } from './util/word-count.js';
 
 const MAX_RETRIES_429 = 5;
 
@@ -402,7 +403,7 @@ export class BookStackClient {
     return {
       ...pageMeta,
       url,
-      word_count: page.text ? page.text.split(' ').length : 0,
+      word_count: countWords(page),
       content_format: format,
       content_total_chars: totalChars,
       content_offset: offset,
diff --git a/src/util/word-count.test.ts b/src/util/word-count.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1bc6f5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/util/word-count.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+import test from 'node:test';
+import assert from 'node:assert/strict';
+import { countWords } from './word-count.js';
+
+test('counts words in page.text when BookStack populates it', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({ text: 'one two three' }), 3);
+});
+
+test('splits on any whitespace, not just a single space', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({ text: 'one\ntwo\tthree  four\r\nfive' }), 5);
+});
+
+test('ignores leading, trailing and repeated whitespace', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({ text: '  one   two  ' }), 2);
+});
+
+test('falls back to markdown when text is empty (WYSIWYG pages)', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({ text: '', markdown: '# Title\n\nBody text here' }), 5);
+});
+
+test('falls back to html when neither text nor markdown is present', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({ html: '<p>Hello <strong>there</strong> world</p>' }), 3);
+});
+
+test('does not count markup or script/style bodies as words', () => {
+  const html = '<style>.a{color:red}</style><script>var x = 1;</script><p>only these three</p>';
+  assert.equal(countWords({ html }), 3);
+});
+
+test('treats &nbsp; as a separator', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({ html: '<p>one&nbsp;two</p>' }), 2);
+});
+
+test('returns 0 for a page with no content at all', () => {
+  assert.equal(countWords({}), 0);
+  assert.equal(countWords({ text: '', markdown: '', html: '' }), 0);
+  assert.equal(countWords({ text: null, markdown: null, html: null }), 0);
+});
diff --git a/src/util/word-count.ts b/src/util/word-count.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c057915
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/util/word-count.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+// BookStack only populates page.text for markdown-authored pages. For pages
+// written in the WYSIWYG editor it comes back empty, so a word count taken
+// from page.text alone reports 0 for pages that plainly have content (#10).
+// Fall back to whichever body the response actually carries.
+
+function stripHtml(html: string): string {
+  return html
+    .replace(/<(script|style)\b[^>]*>[\s\S]*?<\/\1>/gi, ' ')
+    .replace(/<[^>]+>/g, ' ')
+    .replace(/&nbsp;/gi, ' ');
+}
+
+export function countWords(page: {
+  text?: string | null;
+  markdown?: string | null;
+  html?: string | null;
+}): number {
+  const source =
+    page.text || page.markdown || (page.html ? stripHtml(page.html) : '');
+  // Split on any whitespace, not a single space: a page whose lines are
+  // newline-separated counts as one word under /' '/.
+  return source.split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean).length;
+}