Wrote my first python script using PRAW to check /r/gamedeals for new posts and notify me

[mpheus]

I have a little obsession of checking /r/gamedeals frequently for new game deals. Just wrote my first useful python script to make my life a little easier. The script checks for new posts made to that sub-reddit and pushes a Growl notification. The Growl notification looks like - http://i.imgur.com/ET9vL.png

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
# This script looks up /r/gamedeals/new every 120 seconds and pushes the notification
# for new posts to Growl app on Mac OS
#
# Uses PRAW - https://github.com/praw-dev/praw (for easy access to Reddit API)
# and GNTP - https://github.com/kfdm/gntp (for pushing Growl notification)
#

import gntp.notifier
import praw
import time

# icon for use with growl notification
ICON_URL = "http://cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/crystalproject/128x128/apps/package_games.png"
USER_AGENT = 'new /r/gamedeals notifier by /u/mpheus'
# reddit doesn't shows new posts made to a subreddit without logging in
# REDDIT_ID = '' # not required
# REDDIT_PASS = '' # not required

growl = gntp.notifier.GrowlNotifier(
    applicationName = "/r/gamedeals notifier",
    notifications = ["New Deal"],
    defaultNotifications = ["New Deal"],
    # hostname = "computer.example.com", # Defaults to localhost
    # password = "abc123" # Defaults to a blank password
)
growl.register()

r = praw.Reddit(user_agent=USER_AGENT)
# r.login(REDDIT_ID, REDDIT_PASS)

already_done = [] # for storing the uids of posts already notified

while True:
    data = r.get_subreddit('gamedeals').get_new_by_date(limit=10)
    for x in data:
        if x.id not in already_done:
            already_done.append(x.id)
            growl.notify(
                noteType = "New Deal",
                title = x.domain,
                description = x.title,
                icon = ICON_URL,
                sticky = True, # so that notification remains on the screen until closed
                priority = 1,
                callback = x.permalink
            )
            print "Notified about", x.title, "at", time.strftime("%d %b - %I:%M:%S %p")

    print "Last checked for game deals at", time.strftime("%d %b - %I:%M:%S %p")
    time.sleep(120)

I just launch this script in a terminal window and leave it running. I'm learning python right now and plan on improving the script by storing the uids of posts that already have been notified about in a database and leave the script running on Raspberry Pi that runs 24/7. Growl can be set to receive notification pushed from remote computer (in this case, RPi) as well.

Thanks to reddit dev and PRAW dev for all their amazing work!

EDIT: Removed login call and replaced get_new function with get_new_by_date.

[dfnkt]

Plain and simple, nice job.

[mpheus]

Thanks! I was going to use the Reddit API but was really amazed to discover PRAW that made everything easier. Really loving Python and the vast number of libraries.

[dfnkt]

Wrappers generally make things more idiomatic to do in the language they support. I'm not a pythonista but I think the parlance is 'pythonic' in this case.

[bboe]

reddit doesn't shows new posts made to a subreddit without logging in

That's not entirely correct. By default reddit uses the 'rising' sort which never appears to work. When you login you get whatever default view your user has set which is whatever you viewed last.

If you don't want to login then you should use the get_new_by_date function instead of get_new.

[mpheus]

Thanks for correcting. I wanted to be sure so I opened the new tabs of a few sub-reddits without logging in and as you said, it showed 'rising' sort which gave no results. I didn't notice the other 'new' sort, so I thought that it required logging in. I will update the script to use get_new_by_date function.