Scheduled callable events

[deathbybandaid]

Hi, not really an issue, but I wanted to know if the functionality existed and how to use it.

I have an event that is at 7pm daily, I want sopel to announce it to the channel.

I also want sopel to check an rss feed for updates at regular intervals, and if there is new content, to announce it to the channel.

I see there is something called "jobs", but I'm not sure how to add "jobs"

Thanks!

[kwaaak]

https://github.com/RebelCodeBase/sopel-rss

Try .help at and .help in for your other question

[deathbybandaid]

I looked at .help in and .help at

I'm not looking for something that I call from within IRC, but directly in the module.

I found a workaround, but I feel like there should be a better way:

import sopel.module
import datetime

# scheduled event is at 23:00 UTC daily
@sopel.module.interval(60)
def scheduledevent(bot):
    for channel in bot.channels:
        now = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
        if now.hour == 23 and now.minute == 10:
            bot.msg(channel, "This is the scheduled event")

I feel like what Sopel needs is something along the lines of:

import sopel.module

@sopel.module.schedule(23,10)
def scheduledevent(bot):
    for channel in bot.channels:
        bot.msg(channel, "This is the scheduled event")

[SpiceBot]

Additional Ideas:

Idea 1, optionally pass timezone along with it.

@sopel.module.schedule(23,10, timezone=UTC)

Wouldn't be often needed, but I could see it coming in handy.

Idea 2

I have some stuff that I like to run when the bot is starting. Right now, I use a poor method:
(The nines are there in an attempt to not actually run every 5 seconds)

startupinterval = 5

# Startup check
@sopel.module.interval(startupinterval )
def startupcheck(bot):

    if "startup_op_check" in bot.memory:
        startupinterval += 999999999999999999
        return
    bot.memory["startup_op_check"] = True
    
    startupinterval += 999999999999999999

    """ Run The Code """

What I'd suggest is something more like:

@sopel.module.startup()
def startupevent(bot):
    """ do the thing """

Idea 3, what I sometimes do for the bot joining a new channel

# watch Joins
@event('JOIN')
@rule('.*')
@sopel.module.thread(True)
def joindetect(bot, trigger):
    if trigger.nick == bot.nick:
        """ do the thing """

should have something like:

@sopel.module.botjoin()
def botjoinedachan(bot):
    """ do the thing """

[dgw]

@SpiceBot Apart from being off-topic for this issue, Idea 2 is already available if you define a method in your module called setup(bot). Idea 3 is fine I guess (though also off-topic), but I'm not particularly excited about the idea of adding special-case methods to sopel.module when they're pretty trivial to do with the existing tools.

Idea 1 goes with this discussion, though. Timezone is probably a good optional parameter, yes. Fallback can be either UTC or bot.config.core.default_timezone.

[kwaaak]

(The nines are there in an attempt to not actually run every 5 seconds)

Are you sure that it doesn't just run every 5 seconds anyway?
I think I tried something with a random interval time once but it never worked, it just used the interval that was defined for the first run every time.

[Exirel]

As far as I'm concerned, this looks like it requires developers to write a Sopel plugin with the right usage of the sopel.module.interval decorator.

@dgw we can consider this as a feature request, but I'm more or less thinking that we should decline this, and put an emphasis on documentation, eg. having better example of how interval can be used, and the various pattern to pull things at regular intervals without overloading the CPU.

[dgw]

Basically, anything we might implement would be a wrapper around standard library functionality. It's not worth having a decorator.

Plus, as soon as we implement scheduling callables at the same time every day, someone will ask for choosing which days of the week/month/blah. Choosing multiple times. Choosing random times. All of which is pretty easily doable with stdlib tools, without any help from Sopel. 😸

[dgw]

@deathbybandaid, since I know you're still writing tons of plugin code, I'll leave you with a third-party-library approach and one of many stdlib-based examples.

[ronilaukkarinen]

@dgw Yes, I tried couple of those but didn't get any output (yes, Timezone set to here, Europe/Helsinki). I'm not very experienced in Python so it's difficult for me to modify some raw python to sopel bot.say... Been searching for a long time an example sopel script that has timed message but have not find one yet. I'd just need bot to say something when it hits 00:00 (midnight) local time.

[dgw]

Probably the easiest way to do it is by installing schedule, and using that in your Sopel plugin:

import schedule
from sopel import module


def scheduled_message(bot):
    bot.say("This is the scheduled message.", "#channelname")


def setup(bot):
    # schedule the message at midnight every day
    schedule.every().day.at('00:00').do(scheduled_message, bot=bot)


@module.interval(60)
def run_schedule(bot):
    schedule.run_pending()

Note, I haven't tested this at all (not even syntax validation), but it's the general idea. You use schedule to set up the tasks and define the arguments when the plugin is loaded, and @sopel.module.interval to have Sopel ask schedule to run any pending jobs every 60 seconds. Passing arguments to schedule jobs is covered in its docs here.

Edge cases like the bot getting disconnected just as the scheduled job gets started aren't currently handled by the example code above, either. I'm very much rushing to get this typed out in between $day_job tasks. 😅

[ronilaukkarinen]

Finally gave it a go and couln't get it to work :( the message never triggers.

[ronilaukkarinen]

Tested it again and figured it out. Fixed some syntax errors. Scheduled message for midnight works like this:

def scheduled_message(bot):
    bot.say('This is the scheduled message.', '#channel')

def setup(bot):
    schedule.every().day.at('00:00').do(scheduled_message, bot=bot)

@sopel.module.interval(60)
def run_schedule(bot):
    schedule.run_pending()

Thanks!

[Exirel]

Well done. :)

[dgw]

I see, I forgot a () in the long chain of methods/attributes. Good catch, and glad it works!