How to print something at a specific time of the day

Question

Is it possible to have python 2.7 print something at a specific time of the day. For example if I ran the program at 15:06 and coded it to print "Do task now" at 15:07 it prints it. So no matter what time you ran the program once it hit 15:07 it would print "Do task now." In addition is it possible to have it print every week at this time?

I would suggest investigating the datetime module. https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html — Stephen Rauch, Jan 14 '17 at 04:24
I wouldn't use python to schedule the operation. Your operating system already has tools to run any application at a specific time — OneCricketeer, Jan 14 '17 at 04:31
@cricket_007 there could be good reasons the user needs this, we just don't know and we can't assume that it's for scheduling tasks. — the_constant, Jan 14 '17 at 04:41
@Ryan will you be expecting it in a specific timezone, or will the timezone be local to the machine it's running on? — the_constant, Jan 14 '17 at 04:41
Thank you for your response @Vincenzzzochi no it will be local to the machine it is running on — Ryan, Jan 14 '17 at 05:05
@Ryan you're welcome. Also, when do we decide that "it is currently before 15:07", meaning if we ran this at 1am today, would this be before or after 15:07? Is the cutoff midnight? By every week in your question, you mean maybe one specific day a week? — the_constant, Jan 14 '17 at 05:31
@Vincenzzzochi Yeah so if the time was Saturday at 15:07, it would print it, once a week at that time. — Ryan, Jan 14 '17 at 06:37

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 14 '17 at 05:33

I would suggest installing the library schedule, if you're able to.

Use pip install schedule

Your code would look like this if utilizing schedule:

import schedule
import time

def task():
    print("Do task now")

schedule.every().day.at("15:07").do(task)

while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)

You can adjust time.sleep(1) as necessary to sleep for longer if a 1s interval is too long. Here is the schedule library page.

Penguin · Answer 2 · 2017-01-14T05:55:59.813

While python is not ideal to schedule something; there are better tools out there. Yet, if this is desired to be done in python below is a way to implement it:

Prints at scheduled_time of 11AM:

import datetime as dt
scheduled_time = dt.time(11,00,00,0)
while 1==1:
    if (scheduled_time < dt.datetime.now().time() and 
       scheduled_time > (dt.datetime.now()- dt.timedelta(seconds=59)).time() ):
        print "Now is the time to print"
        break

There are two if conditions with an intent to print within one minute; a shorter duration can be chosen. But the break immediately after print ensures that print is executed only once.

You would need to extrapolate this so that code is run across days.

Refer: datetime Documentation

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 14 '17 at 05:32

If you're not using cron, then the general solution is to find the time remaining until you need the event to occur, have the program sleep for that duration, then continue execution.

The tricky part is to have the program find the next occurrence of a given time. There are some modules for this, but you could also do it with plain code for a well-defined case where it is only a fixed time of day.

import time

target_time = '15:07:00'
current_epoch = time.time()

# get string of full time and split it
time_parts = time.ctime().split(' ')
# replace the time component to your target
time_parts[3] = target_time
# convert to epoch
future_time = time.mktime(time.strptime(' '.join(time_parts)))

# if not in the future, add a day to make it tomorrow
diff = future_time - current_epoch
if diff < 0:
    diff += 86400

time.sleep(diff)
print 'Done waiting, lets get to work'

How to print something at a specific time of the day

3 Answers3

Linked