Python script to send mail at specific time and day every month

Question

I want to send mail every 2nd Friday in month at 4:00 pm How we will do in python. I know following logic is not efficient, is there other way to do this in python ?

// Pseudocode for check 2nd Friday and time 4:00 pm

function(Day='Fri',Time='4:00 p.m.')
while(1){
    String current_date=new date();// This will in following formate.
   // Fri Aug 21 2015 16:00:00 GMT+0530 (IST). 
   // Here we can see that it is combination of Date, Day and time.
   //Now this is the current_date is string so search the sub string 'Fri'
  if(current_date.substring('Fri') && current_date.substring('16:00:00')){
      // Now search for this date is 2nd Friday or not,
      int day=current_date.getDay();
      if(day>7 && day<=13)
         start_script to send mail
  }
}

Answer 1

You can use the python-crontab module.

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-crontab

Here's how you can use it:

from crontab import CronTab
#Initialize Cron
cron   = CronTab()

#Add your jobs
job  = cron.new(command='/usr/bin/echo')

#Set period
job.hour.every(4)

Alternatively, you can use crontab -e and follow this link: http://adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference

Answer 2

You can use Celery periodic tasks to automate this. Look at here http://celery.readthedocs.org/en/latest/userguide/periodic-tasks.html

Celery will handle cron in your behalf and also provide you with a number of additional tools such as login and interfaces that should make your script scalable (to more users, tasks, etc.)