Get a past edition (e.g., date='2020-11-28').

A new function edition(date) allows the user to specify a past edition. The default, date='', takes the current edition. The proper cover URL appears in the Calibre desktop app, though not on Kindle Oasis -  a minor remaining issue. Much respect and admiration for Kovid Goyal's work.

recipes/economist.recipe

@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env  python
 # License: GPLv3 Copyright: 2008, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
 
+import urllib.request
+
 try:
     from http.cookiejar import Cookie
 except ImportError:
@@ -15,6 +17,14 @@ from calibre.ebooks.BeautifulSoup import NavigableString, Tag
 from calibre.utils.cleantext import clean_ascii_chars
 from calibre.web.feeds.news import BasicNewsRecipe
 
+def edition(date=''):
+    """ For past editions, set date to, for example, '2020-11-28'. """    
+    title = 'The Economist'
+    INDEX = 'https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition'
+    if date: 
+        title += ' ' + date
+        INDEX += '/' + date
+    return title, INDEX
 
 def E(parent, name, text='', **attrs):
     ans = parent.makeelement(name, **attrs)
@@ -90,11 +100,10 @@ def process_url(url):
 
 class Economist(BasicNewsRecipe):
 
-    title = 'The Economist'
+    title, INDEX = edition()
     language = 'en'
 
     __author__ = "Kovid Goyal"
-    INDEX = 'https://www.economist.com/printedition'
     description = (
         'Global news and current affairs from a European'
         ' perspective. Best downloaded on Friday mornings (GMT)'
@@ -249,13 +258,21 @@ class Economist(BasicNewsRecipe):
         return ans
 
     def economist_parse_index(self, soup):
-        archive = self.index_to_soup("https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/archive")
-        div = archive.find(attrs={'class': 'edition-teaser__image'})
-        if div is not None:
-            img = div.find('img', srcset=True)
-            self.cover_url = img['srcset'].split(',')[-1].split()[0]
-            self.log('Got cover:', self.cover_url)
-
+        if self.INDEX.endswith('weeklyedition'):
+            archive = self.index_to_soup("https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/archive")
+            div = archive.find(attrs={'class': 'edition-teaser__image'})
+            if div is not None:
+                img = div.find('img', srcset=True)
+                self.cover_url = img['srcset'].split(',')[-1].split()[0]
+                self.log('Got cover:', self.cover_url)
+        else:
+            date8 = self.INDEX[-10:].replace('-', '')
+            resource = urllib.request.urlopen("https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/archive?year={}".format(date8[:4]))
+            archive = resource.read().decode(resource.headers.get_content_charset())
+            if date8 in archive:
+                parts = archive.split(date8)       
+                self.cover_url = parts[-3].split(',')[-1]+date8+parts[-2].split()[0]
+                self.log('Got cover:', self.cover_url)
         feeds = []
         for section in soup.findAll(**classes('layout-weekly-edition-section')):
             h2 = section.find('h2')