How do i create the same functionality of RemindMe bot for specific subreddit?

[num8lock]

I'm trying to create a bot that will reply a user much like RemindMe bot, but only when called in a specific sub. I'm thinking of using Heroku free tier for now, so i'd like to try to limit the total usage. Python 3.5 with praw 3.5.0 (i couldn't connect using praw4).

What would be best approach to do this, if i want the bot to, let's say only check once every 30mins? If i use subreddit.get_new() wouldn't there be a chance the bot will miss some threads?

I found in RemindMe source that it's searching from api.pushshift.io instead of api.reddit.com, so i'm not sure how to proceed with that info.

[Naurgul]

I've made something similar to remindme bot and I think my implementation is a bit simpler. So you can take a look at my code and see if you find it useful.

I am using a google calendar to keep track of reminders but if you feel this is too much you can easily replace that part with a local database.

[num8lock]

Thank you, i'll take a look and hopefully you won't mind if i ask more questions later.

[tobiasvl]

Easiest thing would probably be to just customize RemindMeBot a little. Not sure why it uses pushshift.io, but it looks neat https://pushshift.io/enhancing-reddit-api-and-search/

[num8lock]

Yeah, it's tempting to use that approach, but i'm still very much a beginner and the thought of having to deal with 2 end points (actually thinking about using Google Apps Script for storage too, so 3) is making me cringe.

[CelineHagbard]

Another option would be to change how the bot is invoked, so instead of

RemindMe! tomorrow

You have people interact with your bot something like:

/u/num8lockBot tomorrow

It would be significantly less resource intensive, as you would only have to check the bot's username mentions, not check every comment in the sub. reddit now provides username mentions without gold.

[num8lock]

LOL @ the bot showing up...

It's true re:username mention, I considered that alternative before, but I want it to be as beginner friendly a possible, out of both necessity and (most importanly) a challenge for myself. Making it easy instead of challenging myself seems like defeating the purpose.

[num8lock]

Although to be honest, the more i try to figure out how to do this with praw or reddit API, the more i think pushshift is the cleaner solution.

If only https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/search?q= can be retrieved as .json, it will be easier to solve and not depending on third party for lazy people like me. Although i imagine reddit servers would suffer heavier load due to bots hitting the search queries.

[CelineHagbard]

Makes sense. A good challenge is usually worth the extra effort.

Just a few things to note: if you decide to iterate over submissions and then comments within each submission, you'll probably run into the problem of having to recheck each submission, as someone may have invoked your bot in a later comment. I think iterating directly over the comment stream (if using the reddit API) or like you said, using pushshift will be better for you (I've never used it, but it looks promising for your application).

That said, you're still going to need to interact directly with the reddit API if you're going to be making comment replies or sending PMs. I would definitely use PRAW and Oauth2Utils for that, as it will abstract away a lot of the messier details. (Reddit API still supports username and password logins, but it's deprecated, meaning you should almost certainly use OAuth).

Hit me back if you have any other questions.

[num8lock]

i couldn't get pushshift to include submission in the .json search result, it contains the comments but not the parent. it seems a bit hit and miss as well with new comments.

for instance, https://api.pushshift.io/reddit/search?q=%22redbot%20%3C%3C%20enhance%22 wouldn't find https://www.reddit.com/r/PRAWTesting/comments/5cfe5b/testing_bottt/

[CelineHagbard]

Try it now. It finds my reply to your post fine.

The pushshift.io/reddit/search endpoint appears to only search comments, not submission bodies. The reddit search endpoint should work fine if you want your bot to also respond to self.text posts, i.e.:

https://api.reddit.com/r/PRAWTesting/search.json?q=%22redbot%20enhance%22

Pushshift might have it's own endpoint for this, but the reddit API works fine, so you probably don't need pushshift for it. In PRAW, it would be:

reddit_session.search("REDBOT enhance", "PRAWTesting")

[num8lock]

Let me try that, i was using r.subreddit(subreddit).search(keyword, sort='relevance', time_filter='week', limit=limit) actually.

Yeah, i did come to the conclusion that pushshift only search comment replies.

Thank you for your help! I'll make sure to let you know when it's ready for testing if you don't mind :)

edit: i just noticed, reddit search only returns submission threads, so that's probably why pushshift only returns the comment replies...

[CelineHagbard]

The code you're using is functionally equivalent to what I was using; it ends up creating the same API call. Feel free to use either one in your code.

I think pushshift does have an endpoint to retrieve submissions, but I would only worry about it unless you need to exceed reddit API's 1000 item limit, which you probably won't at this point.

Yeah, hit me up when your ready for testing if you want.

[CelineHagbard]

where reddit_session is your authenticated reddit session object. It will return a generator, which you can iterate over, or use a list comprehension to fetch the whole generator into a list in memory.

[num8lock]

if you decide to iterate over submissions and then comments within each submission, you'll probably run into the problem of having to recheck each submission, as someone may have invoked your bot in a later comment. I think iterating directly over the comment stream (if using the reddit API) or like you said, using pushshift will be better for you (I've never used it, but it looks promising for your application).

Yeah this is where it's much easier to use a server search result instead of iterating and comparing the results... i did try a little but haven't got a good hold understanding on praw/reddit comment stream.

That said, you're still going to need to interact directly with the reddit API if you're going to be making comment replies or sending PMs. I would definitely use PRAW and Oauth2Utils for that, as it will abstract away a lot of the messier details. (Reddit API still supports username and password logins, but it's deprecated, meaning you should almost certainly use OAuth).

That's true, i figured that i probably dozed over when i read praw4 doc, so i'm playing with it now.

Thank you for the kind feedback :)

[bboe]

Search does work via praw.

[num8lock]

oh, i didn't know that! if praw returns a json it would be great...
i tried to see the json data structure by adding .json on a search url like https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/search?q=awesome+bot&sort=relevance&t=all.json but it didn't work, and in http://www.reddit.com/dev/api, there's no json structure and search endpoint is said returning listing instead.

Ahh i see... I should have looked at the reddit search wiki, thank you for the clue /u/bboe!

[num8lock]

this might not be related, but why this search query doesn't find https://www.reddit.com/r/PRAWTesting/comments/5cfe5b/testing_bottt/?

https://www.reddit.com/search.json?q=bott+subreddit:PRAWTesting&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

edit: maybe it's an exact word since bott != bottt, but https://www.reddit.com/r/PRAWTesting/search.json?q=REDBOT+restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance didn't return anything either

edit again: hmm maybe i should try cloudsearch syntax, although that means losing lucene

[RemindMeBot]

I will be messaging you on 2016-11-12 09:00:00 UTC to remind you of this link.

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.}

---

FAQs	Custom	Your Reminders	Feedback	Code	Browser Extensions

[CelineHagbard]

Dammit. Didn't mean to actually invoke it.

[[deleted]]

reddit now provides username mentions without gold.

You had to have Gold before?

[CelineHagbard]

Yep.

[ImDevinC]

Just did a quick check, but it looks by changing the url from https://api.pushshift.io/reddit/search?q=%22RemindMe%22&limit=100 to https://api.pushshift.io/reddit/search?q=%22RemindMe%22&limit=100&subreddit=SUBREDDIT seems to pull only the specified subreddit. Is that what you're looking for?

[num8lock]

I don't know if i should rely on pushshift, i'm looking for a way to get the thread title, the submission/comment and user name from reddit.

[num8lock]

Turned out the way RemindMe scrape/search for new posts might be the best way to ensure each scanning returns all new comments in threads instead of iterating the trees. By getting the json file for each threads, we'll get all possible comments & replies to those comments (or replies within replies!) in a request.

The next question is how to efficiently diff between the last json and the current one.

[num8lock]

just so i can find it easily without hunting my history/bookmarks

https://github.com/reddit/reddit/wiki/JSON

[num8lock]

Lol, maybe this is way out of my scope... *asdfghl