CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythondjangorsscron
user1972942
user1972942

Reputation: 123

Django cron for fetching RSS

I am new to Django, Python and Web Development and am trying to make an RSS reader as a learning project. Now, I need help with implementing the part of regularly checking up on all channels for new content (like say every 15 mins.). I need a cron job for this and custom management commands are the way to go about it, I know that much. But I am struggling to figure out how to implement that. This link is what most people are recommending on SO, but I did not find it very helpful, like for instance, I does not explain about the scheduling for X amount of time part.

Can someone please explain, through code, how to implement checking up on channels for new content every 15 mins. Thanks in advance.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 277

Answers (2)

mlbx02
mlbx02

Reputation: 49

Just for future refs to this, the frequency params are separated by spaces (maybe they have got lost in the posting). A good place to try out various combinations is www.dataphyx.com/cronsandbox/.

Upvotes: 0

Burhan Khalid
Burhan Khalid

Reputation: 174622

The "every 15 minutes" bit is the easiest actually. Once you have written the command to check it once, you set up cron to execute the command every 15 minutes.

This article has a quick overview of cron in general and how to set it up.

Things to keep in mind when running cron:

  1. Cron processes run under their own shell (typically /bin/sh) and as such do not have access to all your customizations (such as things you have added to your PATH).
  2. This also means that you need to provide the full path to any executable that you need to run. For example, don't type python, but rather /usr/bin/python, or whatever is applicable to your system.
  3. The results of cron tasks are typically emailed to your system user account. You can check these messages by installing a mail reader. mutt is my favorite console email reader. You can set the variable MAILTO in your cron file if you want to redirect cron results to your email.
  4. Also, keep in mind that common bashisms like the source command won't work in cron.

Once you have your management command written; just add it to your own crontab file. This file lists all the command that the system-wide cron process will execute.

To edit your crontab file, type crontab -e from a console.

Each line in the file that isn't a comment is an entry. Entries start with the frequency, then the command to run. Here is the general format:

*    *    *    *    *  command to be executed
┬    ┬    ┬    ┬    ┬
│    │    │    │    │
│    │    │    │    │
│    │    │    │    └───── day of week (0 - 7) (0 or 7 are Sunday, or use names)
│    │    │    └────────── month (1 - 12)
│    │    └─────────────── day of month (1 - 31)
│    └──────────────────── hour (0 - 23)
└───────────────────────── min (0 - 59)

An asterisk * in any position means "all".

To run something every 15 minutes:

0/15**** /usr/bin/python /home/myuser/project/manage.py foo

Upvotes: 2

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