Django

Link.objects.get_or_create( url = info['href'], description = info['extended'], tags = info.get('tag', ''), date = parsedate(info['time']), title = info['description']

But we don't want to have to log in to the shell every time we want to update our displayed list of bookmarks. In fact, we want our site to automatically update itself. To do that, we're going to write a quick python script and then run it through a cron job.

problem

Well, it turns out there's a very powerful feature baked into Django which can handle the task for us.

Django includes an internal "dispatcher" which allows objects to listen for signals from other objects.

In our case, our tumblelog app is going to "listen" to our Entry and Link models. Every time a new Entry or Link is saved, those models will send out a signal. When the tumblelog app gets the signal it will automatically update itself.

Set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE before you run

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=yoursite.settings

# Cron jobs for foo.com run at 3AM DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=foo.settings 0 3 * * * python /path/to/maintenance/script.py 30 3 * * * python /path/to/other/script.py # Cron jobs for bar.com run at 4AM DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=bar.settings 0 4 * * * python /path/to/maintenance/script.py 30 4 * * * python /path/to/other/script.py