xkcd-updater

This program requests the RSS feed from https://xkcd.com/rss.xml

Checks the "Last-Modified" header and records that in the feed.db

Then checks what entries have been saved in the db and/or posted to hipchat already.

Basic breakdown:

• get the RSS feed (include the optional modifed since flag)
• for each entry check if link is in DB
  • check if in db
    • if in db and not posted
      • post to hipchat and update posted status
  • if not in db at all
    • insert into db, post it and update posted status

Setup:

To create a new database:

1. Make sure you have sqlite3 installed
2. sqlite3 feed.db < schema.sql

Use crontab to add job:

crontab -e This job will run every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 9am: 00 9 * * 1,3,5 python /path/to/file/xkcd.py special-hipchat-url

Todos:

• Add try/except/finally blocks to database interactions
• Refactor where useful
• Think of more things!